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Sometimes, it hurts to look at Joe.
Nicky has been injured and killed in every way known to man, and even in some that he's sure have been lost to the history books along the way. There has never been a way more painful and beautiful than by the hands of the man he loves. There has never been a way to describe the ache, tucked just beneath his ribs, warm and secure and always there, that he feels whenever he steals a glance in the other man’s direction. Even after a millennia, there is still a question, soft but lingering in the back of his mind, if he’s ever deserved the beauty he’s so lucky to spend every morning waking up to.
Joe has always been the wordsmith between them, able to spout lines of poetry effortlessly the moment he needs them, whether it be a sun-soaked bedroom in Malta or the back of a dimly lit van full of soldiers with hateful hearts. Nicky needs time to think, to prepare, to perfect, and it’s been building since that night, months ago, when Joe so effortlessly deconstructing and rebuild him with his words.
Joe makes him fall in love again, every day, as it were the first time.
They’re in a hotel in Amsterdam, waiting for Nile and Andy to arrive tomorrow so they can execute a small mission for Copley when it finally happens.
There is nothing special that sparks it, just Joe watching the football game on their ratty hotel TV, the heaviness of the empty seat next to him unspoken between them. There are no homophobic soldiers to silence or important anniversaries to celebrate. It is just them, existing, despite it all, and Nicky can suddenly not think of a more perfect moment to do it.
“Il dolcissimo amore mio, I’m sorry to say this, but I bear bad news. You are wrong. I cannot be the most beautiful man in the world, because I am looking at him right now.”
That is nowhere near enough to express the surge of love Nicky feels swelling in his chest, so strong and sure he swears if Joe were looking he would see it through his sweater, pulsing and warm and bright. Before he can waste another second thinking himself into action, he moves forward, interrupting Joe's line of vision to the television by sitting directly on the other man's lap.
"Are you truly that opposed to my enjoying of one football game?" Joe teases, but both men know his words mean nothing. Joe is grinning widely now, even as he leans forward to kiss Nicky's lips softly. "You could ask to share my spot."
"Comfortable here," Nicky murmurs, bending his head down to steal another kiss from Joe, before he takes the other man's face in his hands gently.
"Have I ever told you that you are the most beautiful man in the world?" Nicky asks, and Joe's laugh echoes loudly throughout the small apartment and its thin walls. He knows immediately what Nicky is referencing and Nicky can't find it in himself to even be the slightest bit frustrated at the foiling of his romantic ploy; Joe's joy is contagious.
"What was it? Maybe once or twice?" Joe answers, and it's Nicky's turn to grin at his words. Their love is still as effortless and easy as it was hundreds of years ago.
"Your eyes," Nicky begins, voice softening as he becomes more sincere with each word, "are the richest shade; you may be the artist between us, habibi, but there is no pencil or paint that could capture the light behind them. I have walked to the ends of the earth, back and again, and I have yet to see a single artist who could capture the beauty in them." Nicky leans forward to press a light kiss to both of Joe's eyelids, and he feels Joe's hands come up to circle around his wrists, thumbs brushing against his skin softly.
"Your curls," Nicky continues, fingers reaching up to card through Joe's hair; they're long overdue for a haircut, but Nicky will never complain — he loves them, especially at this length. "There is nothing I love more than running my hands through them, seeing how it calms you. How they show so much of your personality. How soft they are."
"Your beard," Nicky's fingers move down the side of Joe's face, to once again hold between his hands, "you know how I feel about your beard, habibi, especially when I feel it between my thighs —." Joe cuts Nicky off with a ravenous kiss, grip tightening on Nicky's wrists. For a moment, Nicky loses himself in the other man, only focused on Joe beneath him, before he reminds himself that he has a mission and agonizingly pulls himself from Joe's embrace. Joe instantly pouts at the loss of contact, which Nicky soothes with another, quicker kiss.
They're impossibly close now, Nicky's forehead pressed against Joe's, their noses bumping each time they breathe, holding each other in their own unique way, as Nicky continues.
"And your smile," Nicky breathes, gently tracing Joe's lips as he smiles softly, "has been the brightest light in my life, more than any star or moon we have slept under, since the first time I saw it out in the desert. You give it so willingly to the strangers we meet, to the man from the market and the dancing children in the streets, but it is still mine. It is beautiful no matter when you give it or who receives it. You wax to the sun and moon about the kindness and warmth I give you without realizing how much you store yourself. You are the sun in the darkest of my days, you are the light that guides me —."
Joe cuts Nicky off again, now with a deeper and more passionate kiss before. They stay that way, the two of them almost one, as they always have been, before Joe forces himself to pull away, cheeky grin on his face.
"I believe I bear bad news," he teases, and Nicky buries his face into Joe's neck, his sweater muffling his laugh. "I think we will be at this forever."
Nicky doesn't mind; he knows there are worst ways to spend forever.