Work Text:
The truth of the matter is that they could have asked. Indeed, perhaps should have asked.
But the window of time in which that would’ve been a normal thing to do has passed them by several weeks now. Which isn’t to say they couldn’t still ask, odd as it might come across.
But the even truer truth of it is that they simply don’t want to.
It has become a sort of game at this point, one they are both much too proud to concede.
It is simply unfortunate that it is a game that could be seen to be at the expense of their new traveling companions. It’s not that they wished to exclude their companions, per se, it is more just that, for over a century now, it has been YusufandNicolò. And while they are both overjoyed to have found this new family, they have yet to fully find comfort enmeshed within the larger whole.
They are still YusufandNicolò first, members of an immortal quintet second.
So they haven’t asked.
They haven’t asked and Nicolò is currently winning.
It starts like this:
It is their first evening all five of them together. The fleeing villagers have been seen to safety and Yusuf and Nicolò are back to sleeping on the open road. Only, it is not just Yusuf and Nicolò anymore.
“It is uncommon to see two women so openly in love, no?”
Yusuf, pulled from his own musings by the sound of Nicolò’s voice, hummed to signal that he was now mostly listening.
“An uncommon but welcome change, I think.”
Yusuf leaned closer to his love, following the line of his sight to where two of their new companions sat across the campfire from them. The third had wandered off a few moments earlier to gather more wood for the fire.
It was a larger fire than the two of them were used to building for themselves, but the added warmth certainly did not go amiss as the chill shadows of evening settled over them. Even still, they leaned against one another as they were long-accustomed to, Nicolò’s arm curved loosely around the back of Yusuf’s waist, Yusuf’s hand resting gently on Nicolò’s crooked knee.
The women were leaned against each other in much the same way as Yusuf and Nicolò, as the smaller—the Viper—whispered something into the other’s ear that made her laugh, soft and low.
“I imagine that the passing of centuries shall make us all quite uncommon, sooner or later, if we have not become so already.”
Nico huffed his little breath of a laugh that always warmed Yusuf to his toes.
“I believe you and I were born uncommon. But no, I meant only that…it feels like kinship. To see that the two of them are able to love one another in the same way as you and I.”
“Well, not quite in the way you and I love one another,” Yusuf murmured against his ear, hand sliding from his knee to the warmth of his inner thigh. But, instead of kissing him as Yusuf had expected, Nicolò pulled away.
“What do you mean?”
Yusuf leaned back as well to level him with a look. “I’m saying I hardly harbor a “sisterly love” for you, dear Nicolò.”
“You think—“ Nicolò quickly lowered his voice “—You think that’s what sisterly love looks like?”
Yusuf allowed his gaze to flick back to the women in a way that he hoped was subtle. The two of them were still pressed together, eyes closed as they continued to murmur to one another. Quỳnh was toying with a loose strand of the Scythian’s hair, winding and unwinding an absentminded sort of braid.
“…Yes? Listen, Nicolò, which of us had sisters? And which of us spent most of our young life in the exclusive company of other young men.”
Nicolò rolled his eyes.
“All I am saying is that your perception of these things may be rather skewed. Besides, that one,” he said, nodding towards Quỳnh. “I’m almost certain she is with Lykon. Did you not hear him tell that one villager she was his wife?”
At Nicolò’s bark of a laugh, the eyes of the two women shot open from across the campfire.
“Well now you’re just being purposefully obtuse. That was obviously a rushed cover story.”
“Oh, I’m being obtuse?!”
“Yes!” Nicolò’s shout morphed into a whisper, mid-word. “Besides, you may have had sisters, but I’ve known more nuns,” Nicolò said, with all the confidence of a man who believed he had just won an argument.
“Do those two look like nuns to you?!” Yusuf retorted, startled enough that he momentarily reverted to his native tongue. On the bright side, it was a language he was confident none of their three new companions spoke. But the two women were definitely watching them now, amusement sparkling in their eyes.
“That’s not my point,” Nicolò grumbled back to Yusuf in his same tongue. “And I’ll bet you you’re wrong.”
Yusuf, who was distracted in the way he always got hearing Nicolò speak in familiar words to him, simply replied; “What do you wager?”
Nicolò met his gaze, and the stubborn fire there had the nasty side effect of making Yusuf want to jump him, to take him to pieces with his hands and his mouth.
“Fifteen dirham.”
“You’re on.”
“Mnh, fuck, yes—"
Yusuf’s hips suddenly stilled, much to Nicolò’s immediate annoyance.
“Shh, Nico, listen.”
Nicolò did, however begrudgingly, attempt to listen for whatever it was that had so distracted his lover. For an obnoxiously long moment, there was nothing.
Nicolò was just about to say something when the sounds returned. He felt his mouth go very dry. They were remarkably similar to the noises he himself had just been making, louder to his own ears than they must have been to Yusuf’s.
“Ah—" Nicolò allowed himself a chance to collect his thoughts, which was difficult given the circumstances. “That doesn’t have to mean anything.”
The look Yusuf leveled him with was drier than sun-bleached bone.
A particularly loud sound from the next tent over made them both jump, the sudden twitch of Yusuf inside him making Nicolò dig his nails into his palm.
“Perhaps he is in there alone?” Nicolò tried.
The very feminine giggle that followed on the tail end of his words made that seem unlikely. If the triumphant little smirk on Yusuf’s face was anything to go by, he seemed to agree.
“None of that is—Aah!"
Yusuf’s hips slammed into him as he dropped his head down to mouth along the line of Nicolò’s neck. By god, but the bastard was insufferable when he thought he’d won.
“—Conclusive,” Nicolò managed, through gritted teeth. The rumble of Yusuf’s laugh along the sensitive flesh of his throat made Nicolò cry out.
But he was not prepared to concede. At least—as Yusuf leaned enough that his free hand was able to slide between them, moving in time with the tempo of his hips—not to their bet.
“That could’ve been Andromache,” Nicolò gasped. Yusuf did not seem convinced, nor did he slow his movements, opting instead to fist a hand in Nicolò’s hair and tug sharply to make him cry out.
“I know—unh—it has only been a few weeks in their company, but—hah—when have you ever known Andromache, Slayer of Men, to giggle?”
Nicolò merely closed his eyes and leaned into Yusuf’s touch, trying to ignore him and chase his release. However, this allowed Yusuf to continue his monologue unimpeded.
“Besides—fuck—we’ve been over this, Nico.” And here Yusuf did finally still, causing Nicolò to gasp with frustration, eyes flying open. “I think Andromache is above this sort of thing,” Yusuf continued, conversationally, in spite of how heavy he was breathing. “She’s their leader—our leader. I doubt the thought of fucking any of us even crosses her mind.”
Nicolò, hard and aching and more than a little annoyed with his lover, grabbed Yusuf’s head with both hands and pulled their faces very close.
“Yusuf,” he growled, low in his throat, revelling in the way it made his partner’s eyelids flutter. “If you don’t finish fucking me, now, this bet will be the last of your concerns.”
“How do you figure?”
Nicolò had wrapped his leg around Yusuf and flipped the two of them before his sentence was halfway out. Reaching between them he held Yusuf steady enough that he could sink back down onto him.
“Because I’ll kill you,” Nicolò responded, matter of fact. “Now for the love of God, just hold still.”
Today was a good day, Yusuf decided. Today was the day he would beat Nicolò at his own game. But it could wait until Nicolò was done with his laundry. Yusuf was more than happy to sit on his victory a little longer.
When Nicolò returned from the riverside only a few moments after having departed for it, he was flushed so brightly it shone through his beard.
“You owe me 20 dinar,” he grumbled. Yusuf raised an eyebrow, letting the sudden increase in their bet slide without comment. He patted the dirt at his side to beckon Nicolò over.
“And pray tell, sweet poppy, why I might owe you such a sum?”
Nicolò thudded down beside him, his unwashed laundry falling to lie forgotten in his lap. “Because you were wrong and have been wrong all along and yet you were so confident in your wrong-ness that you tricked me into a false sense of security.”
At this point, there was only one thing Nicolò could be talking about, but Yusuf decided to press anyway, certain the evidence he had gathered just that morning would supersede whatever it was Nicolò thought he had seen.
“I’m afraid that is not good enough to merit such a sum, Nicolò.”
“The women,” Nicolò made a vague gesture with his hand in the direction he had just returned from, “they were bathing in the river.”
Yusuf raised a brow, “Truly, Nicolò, this is even less than I had expected from you.”
Nicolò glared at the dirt for a moment before remembering he could turn that glare on Yusuf. Yusuf, who was no stranger to this look, was not swayed.
“I know you have bathed platonically with others before, Nicolò. I was not aware your sensibilities had become so delicate.”
“I have never bathed “platonically” with someone who had three fingers inside of me.”
Now it was Yusuf’s turn to blush.
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe—”
“Yusuf, I have loved you for over a century but if you even attempt to sell me on the concept of platonic fingering I will walk away from you now and never look back.”
Yusuf had to place his face in his hands, either in a show of exasperation or to stifle his laughter or both.
After a moment, he recovered enough to tilt his head to look at his beloved.
“And here I was so certain I finally had you beat.”
Nicolò’s brow furrowed with his confusion, “How do you mean?”
“Would you believe me if I told you that just this morning I had accidentally stumbled across Quỳnh and Lykon in a rather compromising position with him between her legs as she leaned against that nearby cypress tree?”
Nicolò choked on his own spit.
“…You’re not making the face you normally do when you lie,” he finally responded. For the sake of their relationship Yusuf elected to let that slide.
“It would seem, then, that we were both wrong.”
“Or, right.”
The two of them shared a long look. “So…now what?”
From her perch on the old city wall, Andromache watched as the two new ones each handed the other what looked to be an identical amount of coin.
Nicolò looked exasperated, but seemed to be smiling in spite of himself. Yusuf ducked in for a quick, dirty kiss, before linking their arms together and heading in the direction of the market square.
“Men have such convoluted foreplay,” she remarked aloud.
“Don’t look at me,” Lykon said, hopping up to join her, shoulder to shoulder, “I can’t claim to understand them either.”
Quỳnh, who was stood between Andromache’s spread legs, looked back at them over her shoulder. “Perhaps they are just odd,” she remarked, clearly overjoyed at the prospect. “They’ll fit in well.”
Lykon nodded, “Even if they seem a bit monogamous, to my taste.”
Andromache’s laugh was iron on a grindstone and it only made her two companions lean into her orbit even further.
“Their loss.”