Chapter Text
It’s not the worst job Ambroos has had this month.
Sitting safely, holed up in a car outside a nicer building, listening to the beautiful couple arguing on the third floor. Ambroos has certainly worked worse jobs than this.
He’s grateful that his mother had so insisted he learned Italian as a boy; it’s why Van Dijk had asked him to sit out here, sipping coffee, idly following the conversation coming through from the device planted behind a lamp in the handsome little flat above the street.
There’s a crackle of interference, and he looks up from the newspaper as the fierce argument, delivered in beautiful Italian that would have made his tutor weep, resurges.
“ I don’t see why you have to flirt with him so much!” The lower of the two voices he’s been listening to this week, belonging to the attractive Italian with ice-blue eyes.
Ambroos listens more intently now as their argument tilts towards an interesting topic.
“My love, I’m not flirting, but if a handsome man talks to me so politely, and treats me with such respect, I am obliged to respond the way I would to a less handsome man!” That would be the man from Egypt, also attractive.
Ambroos wonders at how two such attractive men found each other across culture and language and geography; but, he wouldn’t be here if they weren’t so … compelling.
The Egyptian is spoken over quickly by the Italian, Nicolaas -- no, just Nicky, Ambroos remembers. A strange, childish nickname, but sweet. The man doesn’t sound sweet right now as he shouts at Joe, his fiance.
“It’s always like this! You make me feel insane! Why did you ask to marry me if you wanted to go on holiday with handsome older men, hm?”
“I cannot talk to you when you are like this, Nicolo -- Nicolo, where are you going?”
“I’m leaving!” Nicky shouts, and Ambroos winces and lowers the volume on his stereo; he eyes the third floor window as Nicky continues, “Maybe you should call Abbe while I am out, see if he is willing to get on his knees for-”
“-if you walk out that door,” Joe warns.
“What? Tell me, Joe, what will you do if I walk out?”
“You shouldn’t come back.”
A breathless, tense moment of quiet, and Ambroos feels his own mouth opening at the sheer drama blossoming out from his speakers.
Someone takes a ragged breath, and Ambroos frowns when he hears someone speaking in an unfamiliar language in the crackle of the speakers. Arabic, maybe? A soft exhalation, almost like a laugh, and then --
Ambroos smacks the speaker, shaking it a little, in time for Joe to speak again: “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I am doing?”
“What are you doing, huh?” Ambroos mutters, unable to see into the flat.
“Nicolo, stop this-”
There’s a gasp, and a strange metallic noise as though someone had dropped something very close to the well-hidden bug, metal clattering on the small table.
“Keep it,” Nicky doesn’t bother to hide the tears in his voice. “Maybe your new boyfriend Abbe will like it.”
“Nicolo, wait!”
A door slams, and Ambroos clears his throat and dials the sound down on his radio, flipping his newspaper back open; the door to the building opens, and Nicky stumbles out into the sunshine, wiping at his eyes. His long, graceful legs stumble on the curb; taking long, purposeful strides, he swiftly moves down the street, his hands gripping the back of his shaggy hair.
“Nicky!” Joe shouts from the window. “Nicky, baby, please-”
Nicky doesn’t turn around, and Ambroos tries to sink low in his seat until he hears Joe curse and slam the window shut again.
Ambroos taps his fingers against his steering wheel and then leans over to grab his phone; he dials the number of Van Dijk’s personal assistant.
“Hallo?” He says, pleased with the information of the afternoon. “Ik heb interessant nieuws.”
Three Weeks Earlier
“You look beautiful,” Joe croons as Nicky steps out of the cab, long legs unfolding with that easy grace he’s possessed for a thousand years; his darling fusses with his long hair and smiles uncertainly.
“You always say that,” Nicky mutters, checking his hair one last time in a nearby window.
“It’s always true.”
Nicky smiles more surely this time and takes Joe’s hand; they both sigh contentedly as Nicky kisses Joe’s fingers devotedly. His sharp tongue teases the blunt tip of Joe’s ring finger, making him groan slightly.
“Amore mio, if you do that much longer, we will miss the art show.”
“Hmm.” Nicky’s eyes twinkle as he relents, and their hands swing between them now as they walk down the narrow street.
Amsterdam is as beautiful at night as it is in the day, and Joe thinks back to the first time they visited in the 17th century. It was such a smaller town then, just becoming an important port, and seeing it centuries later causes him to feel that strange pride in all things that have survived almost as long as they have.
“Did Andy text you any additional details?” Nicky asks nonchalantly, no extraneous information in his question in case they’re being overheard.
Joe fishes his phone out of his pocket and clicks it open, showing Nicky the face of their target once more. “I hear this gallery has some important patrons,” Joe comments idly as they round the corner.
Important patrons like Abbe Van Dijk, whom Copley has been tracking for over three years. Van Dijk is a handsome, well-respected businessman who’s made his money in international trade. What few people know is that he has made much of that money in the trade of women and children.
Nicky and Joe were sent here for a very specific purpose: while Van Dijk has amassed a fortune in the bleak, twisted world of trafficking, he himself has shown a propensity for young, handsome men.
Handsome men like Nicky, Joe thinks with a faint wave of nausea. All beautiful young men, younger than thirty, with classical features and wide eyes. They end up dead or joining Van Dijk’s sick empire as employees (or worse).
He hasn’t had a ‘boyfriend’ in three months; his last one went the less fortunate way, and Joe wants to scream endlessly when he thinks about the file Copley had reluctantly showed them. He refuses to think about Nicky’s face in the photos of that file, Nicky’s body broken and beyond help.
As far as attracting older, creepy millionaires can go, Joe has to admit that his Nicky looks the part. He’s grown his hair out to look more delicate, the light brown wisps framing his jaw. He’s currently wearing a sheer silk shirt so tight he looks like he was poured into it. His pants are indecently tight as well, and his boots are heeled, giving his already tall frame the added illusion of long, sleek lines.
It’s far from the first time Nicolo has had to play the honeypot on their team -- it’s always a disaster when Andy has to do it (their targets end up with a knife buried in their ocular socket before the end of the evening), and Joe is sure they would all riot and end up bursting into Van Dijk’s headquarters to slaughter him personally if it were Nile who was asked to do this. She’s too young, he thinks as they near the gallery. Still so innocent. Untouched by the evil of this world.
But, if Nicky can gain Van Dijk’s attention and favor (and of course he will because Nicky is the most beautiful man who’s ever lived; there’s multiple oil paintings commissioned during the Renaissance to confirm Joe’s adamant opinion), he can be their eyes and ears to the Van Dijk empire, getting them a way in without having to shoot a bunch of people and potentially lose evidence.
There isn’t a shipment due for over a month, which gives them some time to collect evidence, track Van Dijk, and hopefully get into his files without being noticed.
Van Dijk likes to spoil his boyfriends, per Copley’s research: he dotes on them and courts them like he’s Cassanova himself (who, in Joe’s opinion, had not been all that charming, which has nothing at all to do with that time in Venice, Giacomo, that fucking twit) for weeks on end before inviting them to be his live-in lover. Van Dijk is not a man to say no to, even if you were unaware of the blood on his hands, so they all fall for it.
And, they’re all gone within months, discarded for a newer model.
Joe squeezes Nicky’s hand, and Nicky nods at him once as they walk through the doors of the gallery. It’s a clean, wide open space with more traditional art installations, and they walk around pretending to admire everything; Joe finds himself admiring the brushwork on a painting before Nicky drapes himself over his shoulders, and whispers, “he’s here,” into Joe’s ear.
“Caro mio, could you get us some refreshments?” Joe asks loudly, not taking his eyes off of the exquisite painting in front of him.
“Si, polpetto,” Nicky purrs with a wink; Joe snorts, barely hiding it.
Meatball. He calls me meatball. Ass.
Nicky slinks off, and Joe allows himself to watch his Nicolo walk away -- they’re all here to admire art, after all. No one would think twice if they caught him staring at Nicky’s ass. He goes back to the artwork, and considers the choice of color, wanting to look actually engaged so that Van Dijk is free to approach Nicky. He actually does like this piece; it reminds him of a less bold Rothko, without being derivative of the genius.
Suddenly, there is another at his side.
“Hallo,” the man greets him in Dutch. “It is exquisite, is it not?”
“Yes,” Joe answers readily, in Dutch as well. “I have not seen anything like it in many years.”
“Are you an artist?”
Joe turns and controls his surprise; Van Dijk stares back at him, brown eyes murky but curious.
“Yes.” That’s an honest answer; Joe had been an artist before he’d fallen in the Crusades. He enjoys when he and Nicky can have a quiet decade here or there where he’s free to paint and sculpt and live. “A painter. But not as good as this, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Van Dijk says graciously, and Joe smiles at him as warmly as he can smile at a monster.
“I always love seeing the art in this city,” Joe says to continue the conversation. “How it can sweep from Rembrandt to the likes of this … it never fails to impress.”
“Joe.” Nicky’s returned now, and he hands him a flute of champagne. Unlike the two men, he speaks in accented English -- he does not speak Dutch, another element to this job that has Joe nervous as hell. “Introduce me to your friend?” His voice, usually so lovely to begin with, sounds darker than normal, dripping with promises that only Joe has seen fulfilled.
(He thinks of this monster touching Nicky and wants to strangle the life from Van Dijk; but he must show patience and trust)
“Oh, we had not yet done the introductions yet.” Joe smiles at Van Dijk, who extends his hand to Joe first. “I am Joseph Jones, but you can call me Joe.”
“Joe,” Van Dijk repeats with a slick smile. “I am Abbe, Joe.”
Nicky bumps into Joe’s shoulder endearingly, and he gives them a shy smile. “And this is Nicky, my fiance,” Joe says with all the pride he really feels to call Nicky his.
“Fiance.” Van Dijk doesn’t seem happy about that.
“It’s very new,” Joe says with a happy sigh - and it does feel new, even though it’s older than all of the architecture in this city.
Van Dijk lifts his eyebrows but then returns his attention to the painting; Nicky is clever enough to insert himself between Joe and Abbe, and they talk of art, the businessman at times lapsing into Dutch so that only Joe understands. It is a tense evening for Joe, but Nicky plays the part well, bashful and sweet and charming where Joe is calm, reticent, but worldly. The artist and the muse, as they’d planned.
He thanks Copley’s skills for giving them fake degrees from university, for forging resumes and LinkedIn profiles, gallery showings of Joe’s, Facebook pages and Instagram profiles (not with their real faces of course, but with various outlines of information and connections to the travels they mention casually to Van Dijk).
Joe eyes the security detail behind Van Dijk and notes that they have taken an avid interest in the three of them; his eyes linger on Nicky, who is hanging off of every word Van Dijk had, his broad shoulders rounded to make himself look smaller, sweeter, more vulnerable.
(Joe thinks of Nicolo holding his longsword aloft, blood splattered on his cheekbone like a careless brush of rouge, beautiful and terrifying as he cuts down enemies -- there is very little that is vulnerable about his Nicolo, but Van Dijk will have to discover this later)
Before they leave, Van Dijk inquires after their lodging situation, and Joe gives the street name peacefully - he’s sure they’ll be ‘running into’ this man by the end of the week. He keeps a firm hand to the small of Nicky’s back as they walk away from the art gallery, and Nicky’s eyes, dark in the moonlight, are impossibly coquettish as he glances at Joe.
“Do you think he’s interested?” He asks in Arabic, and Joe snorts.
“He’d be an idiot if he weren’t.”
He pauses and kisses Nicolo deeply in sight of the gallery, one hand in his long hair. Joe relishes the taste of his love, as full on it as he was a millennium ago, and Nicky sighs, clearly sated as well.
They press their foreheads together and breathe deeply until they are once again in perfect sync. “Let’s get you home, Nicolo.”
Andy paces in the back of the safehouse, far at the edge of the city. Their rented flat is kilometers away, on the other side of Vondelpark.
At the small kitchen table, Nile shuffles a pack of cards, showing off by flipping them in an arc; Nicky looks amused at her attempts to best him once again at blackjack.
“He’s going to cheat,” Joe warns, propping his feet up on the coffee table.
Nicolo presses a hand to his thin chest and scoffs indignantly. “I would never cheat!” He declares; Nile snorts and goes back to the cards, and Nicky catches Joe’s eye, winking insolently. “Cheating is a sin.”
“Mhm.” Nile nods her chin at Nicky, having dealt their cards. “I’m watching you.”
Nicky peers at his cards and then smiles innocently. “Hit me.”
“She might just by the end,” Joe teases, and he smiles, warm in the chest, when that gets a sweet giggle from Nicky.
If Booker were here, he’d make some smartass comment about the time in Monaco when Nicky nearly got them all murdered because he was counting cards at the poker table (he’d say I was just minding my own business, enjoying a nice scotch, when it was suddenly oh bonjour, Monsieur Pistolet, no I have never seen that bad man in my life! ). Joe tries not to think too much about it, but the warmth in his chest staggers a little at the thought of their exiled friend.
He’s just thinking to himself that a hundred years might have been a little too strong - just look at their family, still living, still fighting, down an important member - when Andy ends her call and walks into the main part of the house towards the kitchen table. She sets her phone down and drops into an empty seat, her eyes flicking between Nicky and Joe.
Nile sets her own cards down, watching Andy watch them with a learned wariness.
“How did it go?” Joe asks, standing quickly and crossing to the table to sit down as well.
“The bait was taken,” Andy says calmly.
“Ah ha!” Joe leans over and kisses Nicky on the shoulder. “I knew they could not resist my beautiful Nicolo-”
Andy smirks while Nicky smiles fondly at Joe. “Actually … they wanted to know about you, Joe.”
Joe blinks, surprised, and sits upright. He stares at Andy, waiting for her to let him know that she was kidding, but that doesn’t happen.
Nicky leans over this time, and he bites Joe’s forearm playfully while he is still frozen, staring at Andy. “No one can resist my Yusuf.”
The flowers come first: dozens of tulips delivered to the front door of their flat. It’s been three days since they met Van Dijk, and suddenly they live in a botanical garden.
It provides a major distraction when he tries to pray at fajr; he goes to perform sujud, catches a whiff of pollen, and sneezes so hard he considers starting all over again.
Nicky smiles at him charmingly after he rises from prayer, and Joe resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him. “They’re pretty,” he says, after sipping his espresso. “Just like you.”
“Ugh.” Joe kisses his cheek and nips at his earlobe, but then he sneezes again, and Nicky tsks gently while offering him a tissue.
After the flowers are the endless barrage of invitations; to art galleries, museums, high-end restaurants. Nicky is invited too, at first, but then when his invented job makes up invented reasons for him to miss mid-day activities, it’s Joe, Abbe, and fifteen bodyguards traversing the city.
More information comes in from Copley’s office, and Nicky’s teasing breaks down into endless anxiety, tense hands that embrace Yusuf when he walks through the door, kisses dropped into his hair as Nicky performs another needless physical examination.
“He hasn’t touched me,” Joe says each time, patting Nicky on the hip or cheek. “He hasn’t.”
“If he does-” Nicky swears, low and in old Genoese, and Joe kisses him until the darkness leaves his bright eyes.
“He will not.”
Nicky’s anxiety for him doesn’t lessen over the next few weeks, and it’s only when they’re at the safehouse, discussing the layout of Van Dijk’s major buildings and storage facilities that Joe is able to ask him frankly about it -- they’ve been bugged since the sixth day of Van Dijk’s courtship, a tiny pathetic thing stuck to their lamp.
“You’ve done this at least a dozen times,” Joe argues. This comes after Nile tells them about one of the more heinous results of Van Dijk’s greed: Nicky had shattered the wine glass he was holding. “Maybe more. With no lasting damage to yourself.”
Nicky is silent as he stares out the window of the small bedroom (Nile and Andy had cleared out with the flimsy excuse of grocery shopping while Nicky was sweeping up the glass).
“Nicolo?” Joe’s throat tightens at his lack of response. “You were never hurt, correct? They never … never touched you.”
Nicky winces. “Would you hate me if they had?”
Joe wants to fall to his knees and weep at the suggestion. “Of course not.” He walks towards Nicky, hand already outstretched, praising God when he does not flinch away at the light touch to his elbow. “Nicolo, look at me. Look at me.”
Nicky obliges, his eyes nearly silver and a thousand miles away.
“Did they ever-”
“There were many who tried,” Nicky says hesitantly, back in the first language he ever spoke. “I never… consented.”
Joe bites his lip and looks away, his heart breaking: he does not know how to say that it would be a million times better if Nicky had consented, even under the dubious consent of being the bait to their targets.
“None succeeded,” Nicky assures him, switching to Arabic now as he embraces Joe. “Yusuf, I swear to you --”
“It is done now,” Joe whispers. There hasn’t been one person in the world Nicky had seduced that hadn’t ended up dead or imprisoned as a result of their missions. “You are safe.”
Nicky’s breath staggers and he buries his face in Joe’s neck, holding him delicately. “But you aren’t,” he whispers. “Yusuf.”
“Shh.” Joe cups the back of Nicky’s head and feels his love tremble weakly. “You will not let anything terrible happen to me.”
“Never,” Nicky promises. “Sono il tuo scudo.” He pulls back and kisses Yusuf deeply, his tongue slipping between his lips with the ease and familiarity of the million-odd kisses they’ve traded.
“Sono il tuo riparo,” Nicky murmurs, holding Joe’s jaw tenderly as he brushes his nose against his.
They stay in the room then, Nicky only parting from him to lock the door. It’s a touch of manners that Joe knows Nicky only bothered with in case Nile tried to come in. Andy knows better now, knows their rhythms and habits (knows how Nicky gets when he’s anxious about Joe in the slightest)
The sheets tangle around them, points of contact to ground Joe as Nicky fucks into him, his chest and shoulders radiating tension, even though his hips roll as smoothly as ever.
“Hayati,” Nicky mumbles, pink in the cheeks, the flush a fascinating contrast to his pale eyes. “Ouḥibouka -- Yusuf--”
Joe puts his hands to Nicky’s stomach and discovers it trembling; Nicky adjusts Joe’s leg, where it wraps around his slender waist, and looks away, blinking so that a tear slips down his cheek.
He wants to brush it away, but Nicky does something unfair with his hips, and his eyes slip shut. Groaning, Joe pants out the various invocations of Nicky’s name, trying to assure him that he’s real, that Nicky feels wonderful, that they’re both real and here and safe -
Nicky slips out when he’s so close that Joe could curse him, his beautiful, cruel husband - but his fingers replace his cock inside the tight clutch of Joe’s body, right before Nicky bends down to take Joe into his mouth.
“I love you,” he mumbles whenever his mouth is free to speak, “Yusuf-”
He comes, his body arching off the bed as Nicolo attends to him so devotedly, and Nicky doesn’t even attempt to seek completion for himself. He swats at Joe’s grasping hand half-heartedly as he crawls up his body, covering him completely before he kisses him, drowsy, sweet things that still match the fervor with which Nicky had just made love to him.
Sono il tuo scudo, Nicky had sworn. Joe thinks to his impassioned words as Nicky covers his jaw and neck and shoulders with kisses. Sono il tuo riparo.
I am your shield, your shelter.
With Nicky currently between him and the world, his body pressed to his so completely, their bodies sticky and warm and loose, Joe thinks that Nicky had spoken truly.
He cannot be worried about what Van Dijk might be planning, not with Nicky watching over him. His avenging angel, his perfect knight. Joe accepts Nicky’s kiss and is lost to the sensation - both of them crying, both of them comforting, in equal turns and measures.
They break up loudly a few days later; Joe watches Nicky storm down the street and glances at the ring on the table near the door.
The car driven by Van Dijk’s henchman is parked out front, not even a hint of subtlety - Joe has to roll his eyes at that. Nicky disappears around the corner, and Joe rubs his neck, looking around the apartment, filled with tokens of Van Dijk’s affection and desire.
This will be an unpleasant week; but, Joe’s sure he’s had worse.
(When this is all over, they’re going back to Malta, no matter what job Copley has lined up for them)