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He's all and he is more.	By : DarklingWillow Category: M through R > The Old Guard Views: 776 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Old Guard movie (or comics), and I do not make any profit from this writing.

Chapter List
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Chapter 4.
            Nicolò felt air moving through his airway again, slow, too slow, but it was there. He had been falling for so long; again and again, he had fallen, but not found life again. In his chest he could feel his heart begin to beat, and then pain. So much pain. Tiny pinpricks of pain all throughout his body, from his toes to his head and back again. And then more air. His chest moved, his lungs filled with air, and then his brain exploded with white light, and he was conscious again. Alive again.
            Nicolò lifted his hand slowly, felt as if he was learning the motion all over again, and touched his throat. It was there. And there was his head. He opened his eyes, blinked at the darkness, recognized the faint light of a small campfire dancing across dark material, and then the raven velvet of the night sky, filled with stars. Such beautiful stars.

            Nicolò turned his head a little and realized that he was laying on his back in a tent. One of those little Arabic tents that the people of the desert used. And in the doorway, there was a figure, sitting, crying, praying. Nicolò made a small sound; he could understand much of that prayer.

            The figure turned around at the sound. It was Yusuf. Only he was not dressed as a Saracen anymore. He was dressed as a civilian. He crawled through the sand on all fours and was by Nicolò’s side in an instant.

            “You are alive!” he cried in Arabic, reached out to touch Nicolò’s chest, his shoulders.

            Nicolò had no words; he was still finding all of himself and the sight of Yusuf there was only more confusing. He had been dead. They had cut his head off. And yet, here he was, with Yusuf. Not at camp anymore, but out in the desert.

            “They cut your head off,” Yusuf said in Latin, his hands cupping Nicolò’s face. “They cut your head off and threw you in a hole with my people. They buried you among the enemy dead. They buried you in a hole. Among the dead of their enemies.”

            Nicolò lifted his hand, wanted to touch that distraught face, make sure he was real. That they were both real. Yusuf’s dark eyes were swimming in tears, and his face was contorted with grief, despair, and distress. And now, hope.

            “Yusuf,” Nicolò whispered, afraid that this was all an illusion, that his Saracen would disappear the moment he spoke. Yet, his hand found that thick raven beard, and the soft skin of his Saracen’s cheek.

            Yusuf let out a sound of pure relief, a small laugh, so sweet and consoled, and began to cry.
            “Yes,” he said in Latin, “Yusuf. I am here.” He lifted one hand to touch the back of Nicolò’s hand where it rested against his cheek. Then he looked down at Nicolò and leaned forwards. Leaned forwards until their lips met in a soft kiss.

            Nicolò was shocked. What was this man doing?
And yet, instead of pushing him off in a rage, Nicolò’s hand moved down to Yusuf’s chest and fisted in the front of his tunic. Nicolò did not want the kiss to end.
            He moved his head a little and Yusuf broke the kiss, rose up on his knees, and Nicolò tried to protest. His voice cracked and he tried to lick his lips but found his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

            “I have water,” Yusuf said in Arabic and turned away to root around in the small tent. He returned a moment later and gently eased Nicolò up into his arms and held a waterskin to his lips. “Drink,” he urged in Latin.

            Nicolò drank deeply, sighing as the cool water filled his mouth and wet his throat, cleared the dryness from his body. Yusuf urged him to drink slowly, and Nicolò obeyed, did not protest when Yusuf pulled the waterskin away. Yusuf lay him down again on the sleep roll and turned away.

            “Don’t leave me,” Nicolò cried out, his hand reaching out for Yusuf.
            Yusuf turned to look at him, a gentle smile showing pearly white teeth through his beard.
            “I will not leave you,” he answered, and reached out to take Nicolò’s hand for a moment. Then he turned away again to put away the waterskin and busied himself with rooting around in the bags that rested in the corner.

            Then Nicolò noticed it. The state of Yusuf’s clothes, and the stench of death, of blood and innards that clung to him.
            “You dug me out?” he asked, his eyes widening when Yusuf moved into the light of the small fire. The Saracen looked down at himself, and then looked at Nicolò, guilt on his face.
            “They threw you in a hole in the ground. I could not leave you behind,” Yusuf answered, and moved closer to the sleep roll on his knees. “They threw you in a mass grave with the Arabic soldiers, the women and the children. I had to get you out, but I had to wait for them to finish before I did.”

            “They cut my head off,” Nicolò answered, reaching up to touch his neck again, to make sure that his head was there. “How could you find my body and my head in there?”
            “The second… the one who cut your head off. He took your head and placed it between your legs,” Yusuf said, puzzled, tilting his head a little as he looked at Nicolò with a questioning look.
            “My face to my ass?” Nicolò asked with a growl, but Yusuf only looked more confused. He had spoken in his own vernacular, not Latin. He drew a deep breath and asked the question again, in Latin, and Yusuf nodded his head.
            “It looked very disrespectful,” Yusuf said, nodding his head a little. But then he gave a faint smile. “I stole a horse, and carried you into the desert, to the mountains. Almost the whole day. I carried you to this oasis, so we could have clean water, and I could clean you. I lay you down, placed your head to your neck. But then nothing happened. I waited, the whole evening, and into the night. I thought you would not come back.”

            Nicolò felt tears well in his eyes, as Yusuf’s dark eyes filled with tears. The sorrow was clear on Yusuf’s face, and Nicolò understood that what he had heard of Yusuf’s prayers had been right. Yusuf had been begging Allah to let him die alongside Nicolò, if Nicolò would not come back to life.

            “Thank you,” Nicolò said, and smiled a little. “Why did you save me?”
            “Because…” Yusuf answered, then fell silent. His eyes widened, then he frowned and looked like he was blushing. “I don’t know. Because we are the same. You cannot die. I cannot die.” He shrugged his shoulders and turned away to root around in the packs again, looking for something.

            Nicolò struggled to sit up, his muscles straining as if the idea of motion was all new, something that he needed to remember how to perform. By the packs lay his sword, the sword he had dropped when his guts had almost spilled from his body that last time he had killed Yusuf. Yusuf had cleaned the sword, and the leather scabbard lay next to the sword, cacked in dried blood.

            Yusuf turned around again and knelt by the sleep roll; his face faintly flushed. He was holding a package wrapped in bloodstained hide. Carefully he unwrapped the parcel and revealed a leather bound book. He held it out to Nicolò but said nothing.
            Nicolò hesitated, but when Yusuf urged him silently, he took the book and opened it.

            They were drawings. The drawing of a small house with washing hanging on a line outside, a fat dog laying by the door. A drawing of a young woman, her hair peeking out from under the veil that the Arabic women wore, her eyes round and her smile sweet. A drawing of a young boy, and a cherubic baby, with tight curls. Drawings of places, homely places, familiar places, little things that made a place a home. Somewhere to belong.
            Then there were drawings of war, of soldiers, of holy places and camps and horses dressed up for battle. Saracens dressed in their armour, weapons of war.

            Nicolò gasped softly as his own face stared up at him from the pages of that book.

            “I dream of you,” Yusuf said softly, and reached out to touch the page of the book.

            Nicolò looked up at him, saw the confusion and the warmth in those dark eyes. That yearning that Nicolò himself had felt ever since he had killed Yusuf the first time on the battlefield. He looked back down at the book and turned the page, to find more drawings of himself. His face peaceful in death, his face full of fury with his sword raised high. His face painted by tears and etched with sorrow. His face surrounded by the wings of an angel.

            “You draw me?” he asked dumbly, looking up at Yusuf, still not believing what he was seeing.
            Yusuf shrugged his shoulder and tilted his head, then nodded.
            “When I cannot sleep, I draw. Since that day, I draw you, because I draw my dreams. Maybe this is why…” he said and reached out to gently ease the book from Nicolò’s hands. He looked up and cleared his throat. “They found my book,” he continued, closing the book. “My soldiers, they found my book, looked at it. They saw your picture, and for five days I had to fight to convince them that I was not a spy. That I was just drawing my nightmares. That these pictures were not of anyone in particular, but just how I saw the Franks.”

            “The Franks?” Nicolò asked, unfamiliar with the word.
            “Your people,” Yusuf explained and gave him a little grin.
            “Crusaders,” Nicolò corrected, and Yusuf responded with a frown.
            “To us, you are Franks,” he corrected in return, and then pursed his lips as he asked, “What are we to you?”
            “Saracens,” Nicolò answered immediately, and Yusuf started to laugh.
            “I am not a Saracen. I am from Maghrib,” Yusuf said, as if that explained anything. Yes, Nicolò knew where the Maghrib was, he had even been to Maghrib al-Aqsa once with his father when he was young. It was a beautiful place.
            “There is a difference?” Nicolò asked, feeling stupid the moment the words left his mouth.
            “Is there a difference between a Frank from the North, and a Frank from where you call home?” Yusuf asked with a quirk of his eyebrow, and Nicolò felt himself blush.
            “I am from Genova,” Nicolò said, and Yusuf let out a small sound of recognition.
            “I know that name,” he said, and smiled, showing his pearly white teeth again. “I sometimes traded with the sailors from there, for little things. I did not trade in salt, so, I had no business with them, but the sailors were easy to trade with for little trinkets, or small amounts of fabrics.”
            “My father is a salt trader,” Nicolò said quietly, and looked down. A chill ran through him as the cold night breeze blew through the tent, and then he gasped.
            He was naked.

            Nicolò grabbed the coarse blanket that covered him and pulled it up to his chest, looking at Yusuf with wide eyes.
            “Where are my clothes?” he asked in shock, and Yusuf frowned at him.
            “I burned them. Buried your chainmail in the desert and burned the rest of your clothes. They were stiff with blood,” Yusuf answered and turned back to the small pile of bags in the corner. He returned with a cloth bag and began to pull clothes out of it. “I think these should fit you. I raided some of the houses at the village before I went to find you. It will be easier for you to blend in too.”

            Nicolò grabbed the clothes and found a thin tunic, what he hoped was an undershirt, like his own chemise. Nicolò quickly threw it over his head and pulled it down to hide his naked chest.
            “I needed to wash you,” Yusuf said quietly, looking at him a bit askance, a soft smile on his lips. “You were filthy and stank like death.”
            “You stink like death,” Nicolò retorted and pulled the blanket closer around his waist.
            “I do,” Yusuf agreed and looked down at himself, then nodded his head. “I should go wash. And change my clothes.”

            The Arab, for that was what he was if he was not a Saracen, stood up and left the tent, taking with him the cloth bag, and another smaller bag. Nicolò lay still for a short while, trying to calm himself down, to accept what Yusuf had just said. He had washed Nicolò. He had stripped him naked, and washed him, like a child. Nicolò felt his cheeks warm up when the thought filled his head that he was sad that he had missed feeling those hands on his body.

            He rose, unsteady for a moment, then he shifted through the clothes that Yusuf had left for him. They were strange, these clothes, but he found a garment that resembled trousers, so he put it on, and managed to tie it around his waist before he stepped out into the night.
            The night air was refreshing, cool against his flushed skin, and it made him feel even more alive.
            A dark horse stood by a large tree, nibbling at the grass that grew around it, and by a large well stood Yusuf, naked.

            Nicolò turned away hastily, feeling heat rush through his whole body. He breathed deeply and turned again.
            Even though the fire was small, it gave enough light for Nicolò to be able to make out Yusuf’s body. Strong muscles rippled down his back, and his legs were lean, showing the muscles clearly as he bent down to wash himself. It was the pert posterior that had made Nicolò flush though, and he could not help his eyes traveling down Yusuf’s back to stare.
            And as he stood there staring Yusuf turned around, and their eyes met in the darkness. Yusuf smiled, his white teeth seeming to gleam in the shadows of his beard. Nicolò found himself unable to look away, his eyes stuck to the man’s muscular chest. With languid movements Yusuf threw down the rags he had been using to wash himself from a bucket at his feet and reached for the clothes that rested on the rim of the well. Only when the pale coloured tunic slipped over Yusuf’s head and down his torso was Nicolò able to tear his eyes away, look away and then he turned to sit down facing the fire, an aching throb between his legs.

            What the hell was wrong with him?
            Why did he have to be such a deviant? So unnatural? Had he not gone through this once before, and been burnt?

            “You hungry?” Yusuf asked with a gentle voice as he joined Nicolò by the fire, now fully dressed in trousers and a tunic. “It’s not much, but I do try,” he continued and reached for a spoon that rested in a bowl beside the fire. He dipped the spoon into the small pot that stood on the coals and filled the bowl with a colourless gloop, then opened a small satchel and pulled out a small round loaf of some kind of bread and breaking it in half put the pieces into the bowl. “It’s food, at least.”

            Nicolò accepted the bowl and looked at the thick porridge in the bowl. The aroma was not unpleasant, but it looked far from appetizing. He remembered having seen the locals using the bread to scoop the food into their mouths, and clumsily he gripped the bread and dipped it into the gruel. After a couple of tries he managed to scoop some onto the bread, and then bit into it.
            It was terrible. Flavourless, yet tasted like day old bread, and the texture reminded Nicolò of wet beach sand. And it tasted slightly burnt as well. But as Yusuf had said, it was food, at least, and Nicolò needed his strength. He choked down the gruel in silence and accepted a cup of tepid water out of Yusuf’s hand. After a while he had grown used to the texture of the gruel, and he had forgotten that it tasted of nothing, and his body thanked him for eating it.

            “I have to go back,” Nicolò said and looked at Yusuf.
            “What? Go back? You can’t go back. They will kill you again,” Yusuf objected, fear etched on his face.
            “I need to kill him,” Nicolò answered, and looked down at the cup of water in his hand.
            “Who?” Yusuf asked, but something in his tone told Nicolò he already knew whom Nicolò was talking about.
            “The second in command. I need to kill him. He cut my throat, twice, to determine if the soldiers were telling the truth about me coming back to life. The second time, he did not even let me fall to the floor. He just held me upright by my hair and waited for me to come back to life. And then he cut my head off, and put my head against my ass,” Nicolò answered, feeling rage rise in his chest. “I need to kill him.”
            Yusuf sighed softly and looked into the fire.
            “We cannot go back. The Franks have gained too much ground. If we go back, I will be captured, and killed,” he said, and Nicolò nodded his head in response.
            “We should sleep. You need sleep,” Yusuf continued, and stood up, kicking sand onto the fire to put it out. He took Nicolò’s bowl and cup and washed them with water from the well, then left them near the firepit to dry.

            Nicolò went back to the tent and crawled under the blanket on the sleep roll, feeling exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep until dawn. As he lay his head on his arm, he felt the blanket lift from his back and looked over his shoulder at Yusuf, who was laying down on the sleep roll behind him.

            “What are you doing?” Nicolò exclaimed, startled.
            “Going to sleep,” Yusuf answered, nonplussed, and wriggled a little to get himself comfortable on his side, his chest against Nicolò’s back. “Need to keep warm. Desert night gets very cold.”
            Nicolò wanted to object, wanted to tell Yusuf to fuck off and find another place to sleep, but then the Arab lay his head down behind Nicolò’s head and pulled the blanket over both of them, resting his hand on Nicolò’s upper arm. And Nicolò felt safe. Safe like he had not felt since he was a little boy. Even more than that. He felt like he belonged right there. Next to this strange man who could not die and risked his own life to save Nicolò’s life. This strange man who was making Nicolò feel things that he had only ever dreamt about.
            He lay his head down on his arm again, and then whispered to the silent tent,
            “Sleep well.”
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He's all and he is more.