tere hath chumme soneya

oh FUCK yeah #10 nfwmb!!

10. Give your heart and soul to charity. 'Cause the rest of you, the best of you, honey belongs to me. // NFWMB, hozier

Thank you for picking the horniest lyrics on the list, gene. I hope you enjoy

-

Desire makes its way up from Yusuf’s stomach, carves into his breastbone, settling deep into the marrow there. Nicolò moves with a rippling purpose, and Yusuf is offering himself up like the hilt of his naked sword.

The air is perfumed with sweat and sultry humidity. He’s almost groggy with languid, piercing desire, disoriented and throbbing with the heat in his gut.

It reminds him of the previous summer, tucked away in Florence. Of watching Nicolò split open the furrowed flesh of the apricot, with his thumbs hooked in the soft divots. How he wanted to be held in Nicolò’s palms like that, to be the tart sweetness soaking his fingers.

In Ligurian, the word love still feels foreign in that indefinable way – like the way the apricots tasted different suckled from the tip of Nicolò’s tongue. How it felt like swallowing a beast into his belly when Nicolò fed him his cock for the first time later that afternoon, full of fruit and falsehoods like; surely, this immense, terrifying feeling with subside with time.

It’s in Arabic that he confesses to Nicolò that the ecstatic frustration he feels will surely be his demise. Nicolò makes a considering hum, pinning Yusuf with the ocean depth of his eyes, but he doesn’t alter his movements at the altar between Yusuf’s thighs.

Instead, Nicolò traces along the back of Yusuf’s skull, circles the cradle of his cerebellum:

Do you feel it here?

He runs it down around Yusuf’s neck, fingers trailing across his larynx, his clavicle, before finally resting over his sternum.

What about here?

Down, down, down, to the freckles along his iliac furrow, so close to where he needs it.

And here?

Yusuf has never thought of himself as truly infallible, as unbreakable; he’s been killed too many times to believe otherwise. His skin will split open on a blade, his blood vessels will rupture and contusions will rise underneath his flesh. He is still only a man.

But Nicolò’s shaking him right down the foundations of his body, threatening to tear him down the middle like a ripe apricot.

(Yusuf would let him,

and he’d say thank you,

and he’d say, again.)

hi seph! if you're still doing those prompts, can i ask for 26. Cuddling in comfortable silence before murmuring “I love you” ?

maybe this turned into In How Many Ways Can I Say I Love Yusuf Without Saying It Until I Can

this safehouse is comfortable and warm, just what they needed that last grueling job. two bedrooms on opposite ends of the house, and they could in theory drag the narrow cots together, but they're all just too exhausted. so andy and nile claim the single beds and that's how nicolo finds himself curled around yusuf on the couch under a threadbare blanket that's more dust then cloth.

one of the many enduring things about his joe, one of his little quirks and habits that nicky has grown to know as well as his own over the last nine hundred years, is his ability to sleep well about anywhere. he’s not yet mastered andy’s shut-your-eyes-and-breathe technique, which works in water and upright, but nicky figures in a couple hundred more then yusuf will be sleeping on his feet. he sleeps quickly and heavily, wakes up slowly, and gets endearingly grouchy the sleepier he gets. which is why nicolo finds it so odd that joe’s eyes are still open now, albeit heavily lidded. the couch isn’t so uncomfortable. they’ve slept in worse places.

he doesn’t trouble himself to speak, however, just watches him. breathes in as he breathes out, their limbs tangled together hopelessly, tucked so close as to be one soul, one body. there’s a curl hovering just above his right eye, joe’s hair is getting long now, and nicky would reach out to push it back, but he’s too comfortable right now and his hands are full of joe. he wonders if he’ll cut it. yusuf goes through long phases where he lets his hair grow and grow and grow, past his shoulders even, and others where it’s like he cannot bear the extra weight on his skull and shaves it all off. nicolo doesn’t really have a preference for how long joe’s hair is, he looks fantastic with any length. he feels like he’s seen yusuf with anything, in anything, and the effect on him is always the same. 

you think we’ll ever grow tired of each other? asked joe once, sometime long ago somewhere far away. nicky remembers it as a bitter winter but joe remembers early spring, later, when they revisit the conversation in the morning. he can’t remember his response exactly, but it was somewhere between cautious mirth and disbelief. grow tired? of seeing this man at every hour, going to sleep with him every night? of the way he laughs with his whole body, the easy, blinding smiles? the charcoal-smudged fingers and how he’ll praise every dish nicky serves with gusto even if he’s had it a thousand times before, of the silly way his face scrunches up when nicky “folds” the clothes- “no, you cannot just throw them in, nicolo.” there have been millions of people, all living and dying throughout the history of the world that nicky has been alive for, and of all of them, this man has been closest to his soul.

i died and lived, all so i could meet you.

“i love you,” he tells yusuf, and his husband smiles as bright as if it’s the first time, the second time, every other moment inbetween from the beginning until now. kisses the skin of his shoulder, and they lean into one another, yusuf’s breath feathering over his jaw. 

it’s a small couch and the blanket’s made of dust and held together by a dream, but they sleep easy, wrapped in each other’s arms, wrapped in their love.