transfuge | Captured - with peace_inthe

Captured - with peace_inthe_violence & nickysnotmybf

Paris felt like a breath of fresh air after Marseille. The trip had healed him but it was still the most emotionally draining thing he'd done in years. Booker felt weirdly heavier and lighter. It was just a weird state of being that he didn't really like but would have to live with.

He was almost so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice his apartment door open without needing keys. Almost. Booker drew his gun and stepped in, ready to shoot whatever asshole thought he had stuff worth stealing. He froze. The woman he dreamed of drowning at the bottom of the ocean was there.

And then she kicked his ass. He didn't expect her to spring at him like a snake or tear into him so viciously. Booker fought for his life but she beat him down and then he was dead.

He wasn't dead in a trunk a few minutes later. Even though he kicked and fought to escape this was a serious trunk, almost like it was specifically designed to keep in a two hundred year old warrior.

Quyhn took him to a warehouse and secured him with heavy chain to a wall. All she wanted was help finding Andy. Booker refused. That got him another ass kicking. She asked again and he refused. Whatever she wanted from Andy it couldn't be good. He had betrayed them all once. He wouldn't do it again.

Booker realized he was bait about two days into being her prisoner. She stopped asking for his help and just made sure he suffered.

Finally, someone was treating him like he deserved. Booker settled into the pain as he tried to focus on how to escape. Very hard to do when he was chained to the wall with heavy iron manacles but a man could hope.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Marseille had been a breakthrough. He knew that and did not regret his decision to start helping the man who had betrayed them. Was he still mad? Yes. But he was also mad at himself for not noticing. And really, being mad was exhausting.

Of course, having someone mad at you was just exhausting.

He didn't try to plead with his husband. He didn't try to bribe or sweet talk him. Joe was angry and he had every right to be, so Nicky gave him his space and tried to ignore the tight feeling in his spine that he got every time Joe was mad at him. It only slightly worked.

After a few days, when he knew that Booker would be back in Paris, he sent off a text just to make sure that he was still alright. When it went unanswered, he didn't worry. Not right away. Booker had just reworked his entire world. Surely a little time was needed. But when a full week had gone by and he hadn't gotten a text in return, he started to worry.

Another two days and he was risking bringing it up to his still very angry husband. Joe's rationalization was true, but only mildly reassuring.

He waited another couple of days, then sent off another text. This time, however, he got an answer. A grainy, too dark picture of Booker chained to the wall, followed by nothing but an address. His phone was tossed in Joe's lap on his way over to the closet that held their gear.

Joe was so angry he could barely speak. It was a foreign feeling for him to feel that way when it came to Nicky. He hadn't experienced it for so many years he barely remembered what it was like. Miserable, was what it was. Utterly miserable and exhausting, but he couldn't just let it go. Not this time.

Nicky had his reasons. Joe knew that. He'd heard them all so many times as they argued and fought about his plans. And even though he understood them and on some level agreed, he just couldn't accept his husband taking it upon himself to go and ruin their agreed upon punishment because he believed his rationale was more important than the team's for justice.

It was a betrayal in its own right. Their family had been given up to cruel, sadistic people and the man responsible needed to pay a price. Every time Nicky ignored that and went to him, he was saying that Andy and Joe's pain meant less that his guilt. Than Booker's grief. Than Joe's arguments and pleading that their friend needed to have this time alone to reflect and realize the impact of his decisions. It had been loud, ugly fights between the two lovers and the fallout from them was even uglier. For the first time in so long, Joe slept separately from Nicky. He barely spoke to him. He left rooms when he came in and nursed his own broken heart alone.

It was exhausting and he hated it but he couldn't bring himself to forgive yet. Not yet. Not when Nicky was still hurting him so badly. Which was why, when he came to him with concerns about unreturned texts, Joe's mind focused on the fact that there were still texts as opposed to the fact they were going unanswered. 'Maybe he finally figured out what you haven't and went to take his punishment,' he'd reasoned. But then, a few days later, the phone was thrown in his lap with a response.

It wasn't what he had expected to receive.

Joe looked at the picture carefully, trying to piece together what he was seeing. Nicky was already starting to pack and Joe crossed over to grab his shoulder with a bracing, "Woah. Woah, habibi, wait a minute." The endearment was just habit. It fell from his lips before he realized it and he nearly winced when he realized it had. Not the time for that, though. "What is this? What are you doing? Just going to walk blindly into an obvious trap, alone? Are you insane?"

'Habibi'.

Nicky had to fight hard to keep himself from wincing. Joe hadn't called him that in months and to hear it now, when he knew he was just going to piss off the man again? It was almost too much to bear. His shoulders hunched and he looked away, trying to cover it up by pulling out a thick pair of BDUs from their hanger.

"I know it's a trap. It's so obvious it is painful." He scoffed, shaking his head and reaching for his tactical belt. "I'll do recon. Scout the area." He grabbed his backpack and started to roll his clothes. "If I need back up I'll call Nile." Here, he finally stopped, shoulders slumping and looking absolutely miserable.

"Don't worry, Zawj. I know better than to ask you to help him."

Even in his rage and pain, Joe loved Nicky more than the oxygen in his lungs. More than the flowers loved the sun. Nicky was a part of him in a way he couldn't fully articulate to someone who didn't feel the same way. So even when he was furious, he hated seeing his husband curl in on himself and look as though he were physically punched by the neglect and distance Joe had put in their lives.

He hated too that Nicky believed he would need to rely on Nile alone for something that was so clearly dangerous. Before, such a thing would be laughable. Now it was a forgone conclusion in the other's mind. After all, Andy was upset, too. And Joe? He had made his position clear.

He looked back at the phone and the picture before returning his attention to Nicky. Booker was clearly being tortured. That was just as clear as the fact that this was a trap. Part of Joe thought, 'Good. He deserves it.' He wasn't proud of that part of himself.

"Nicky," he finally said, reaching to grab his arm and stop his packing for a second. "You can't go into this alone. Look at him. He is bait. They will be expecting us and who knows what will find you as you do 'recon'? For all we know..." Joe hated that this was a possibility. He hated that his trust in Booker had fallen so low that he had to consider this and that it wasn't a laughable idea:

"For all we know, this is another set up."

"It's not." He answered immediately, with no hesitation and absolute conviction in his voice. "It's not a set up, Joe. You might not believe him, but trust me."

He could still hear the pain and surprise in Booker's voice when he'd said that he was there to make sure Book hadn't made his mistake again. Back when he'd thought that his mistake had been Merrick and not shoving them away to wallow in his own despair.

"He is not that man anymore."

As for the rest? Well, what could he say to it? He knew it was a trap. He knew that whoever was baiting the trap would know what prey they were hunting. He knew that all sniper nests would probably be covered by their own surveillance. He knew all of that, and yet he still brought Joe's hand to his lips to kiss his fingers before he reached out to grab for his boots.

"If I left him, I'd be no better than Merrick."

" 'He's not that man anymore?' How do you know that, Nicky? How can you be so sure when we were so easily led to the slaughter by him? You think he has had a stunning change of character in a year? Because of home cooked meals and his regrets?"

Joe scrubbed at his face and all but growled in his own frustration and impotence here. He had been fighting this battle for fucking months and Nicky was no closer to listening now than he was that first day. It was like talking to a wall and Joe just didn't know how to make a dent into it. He had never had a time in his long life with Nicky that had them on odds and unwilling to bend. He hated the feeling of it.

"Merrick was evil. He wanted to enslave us to profit off of our gifts. He got people close to us to lie to our faces and throw us willingly into harm's way. He was selfish and did what he did for himself and his own good. For his own profit with no regard for morality.

"You taking a fucking second to sit down and assess the risks of blowing into this building alone is not even close to being Merrick. It's just putting a value on your life that isn't subtracted from everyone else's first."

"Yes."

A simple word. One syllable. One of the most common words used by everyone over the age of 2. And yet, it carried so much weight. Nicky turned, boots still in hand, expression imploring Joe to believe him. To understand.

"I know that he has changed, Joe. He's opened up, he's talked to me. He told me about his family. Not their deaths, but their lives. I took him to visit their graves and his soul was the lightest I'd ever seen it.

"He is healing, Joe. Healing enough that he is willing to face the punishment we gave him without it only ripping us apart even more. I know you hate that I went. I know you are angry with me for not letting him rip himself into pieces and bash himself to death over and over again on the rocks of his own mind, but at least trust me on this one thing.

He is better."

It was probably the most he'd spoken to Joe in weeks and it made his heart ache enough that he had to look away.

"Merrick took a broken man who was willing to do anything to end his pain and manipulated him. He twisted his words and Booker's mind until he got what he wanted.

"Yes, he is bait. But he knows he is bait. What would you have me do, habibi? Leave him there to serve his century under someone's blade, knowing that someone knew where he was and still left him there?"

Joe's eyes narrowed. "You are naive," he said. "And your trust in people and their goodness will be your undoing one day. The world is not as kind as you wish it was." He exhaled, full of pain and anger still, but it was receding like a teapot that had already boiled and was now left with trembling water on the stove. He shook his head, resigned and miserable. "It doesn't deserve you."

But it had him. And Joe wasn't about to let his anger put that at risk for either of them.

He crossed over to the closet and started to pull items out for himself. Clothes. Boots. A bag of his own to fill with the firepower he expected they would need to actually get out of this mess without being captured. He scowled the whole time.

"If he betrayed us again," he warned in a voice of pure violence, "He will be spending his hundred years in agony. And you will not stop me."

Naive?!

Anger flared up, white hot and vitriol and his lips curled back in a disbelieving smile. He wanted to lash out, to let his anger uncurl like the raw wire it was to wrap around the man he loved.

Naive?

He knew better than anyone else alive save for his family exactly how cruel the world was. Exactly how little it cared for the weak and the kind. He'd spent centuries fighting alongside this man to protect people from that cruelty and now Joe calls him naive?

His hand darted out to catch Joe's wrist, grip like iron and his voice just as cold.

"I am not naive and you know that well. I have done horrors this world has not even dreamed of and I've seen worse by tenfold. I love you with every ounce of my being, every breath in my lungs...but do not ever call me 'naive' again.

"Do not mistake my love for this family for weakness or stupidity, Husband. If he has betrayed us again and you come to harm because of it, I will drop him in the ocean myself."

It was the wrong word. Joe didn't realize it until he heard it repeated in Nicky's voice and saw the incandescent rage on his face. The reminder was there in that flame; how Nicky had lived the worst of humanity in his time and fought against it. How he continued to fight against it and hold his beliefs in spite of all he has seen. It was what Joe, other times, loved so much about him.

Remembering that now made him feel that love again, acutely, for the first time in a year.

He bowed his head in a silent apology, turning his hand to take Nicky's in his own and bring it to his lips. That kiss was the first his lips had felt of the other's skin in so long. Joe missed it. More than he realized. He missed his husband's closeness. But he had no idea how to even begin getting it back when he still felt like knives were being shoved into him, night and day.

"I am sorry, angelo. I spoke from my anger instead of my brain." He looked at Nicky and, even sorry, he had to harden his gaze a bit. "I take back that word. But nothing else. There aren't words for what I will do to him if he abused your kindness and brought you to harm."

His eyes closed a bit, almost pained.

"I can still remember the sounds of your torture in that lab. The feeling of helplessness as I could do nothing but watch. You may be able to forgive such a thing but I cannot. Not yet."

The kiss to his hand soothed his anger, but it still thrummed under his skin. He was angry...but it wasn't his husband he wanted to aim that anger at. Turning his hand against Joe's face, he cupped the man's cheek for the first time in far too long.

"I've never said that I'd forgiven him, zawj. Only that I can acknowledge my part in what happened. He still has a long way to go before I completely forgive him for the pain that woman put you through. But for him to take that path, we have to first get him back.

He is to be punished for what he did, but he is ours to punish. No one else's."

And then he was stepping forward to give his husband a kiss that was just as much teeth as it was desperate love. When it broke, he went right back to packing his gear.

"Ours to punish..." Joe shook his head and tried not to let the kiss impact him as much as it did. He missed Nicky so badly. Just being able to pull him close and breathe him in. But those words brought all the hurt right back. "He was ours to punish. And then you decided to stop the punishment. Which, if you haven't forgiven him seems like a fairly odd decision to make, marito."

He used the Italian instead of the Genoese for that word. Maio was too special for him to use when he was still so estranged from his husband.

He gave up though and flapped his hands in complete surrender. Joe went to the closet himself and went to finish packing his gear as well. They would have to leave a note for Andy and Nile in case things went belly up. He scribbled something out and left the address at the bottom with a request for back up no matter what in three hours but possibly sooner if they were texted. Satisfied, he grabbed his scimitar and favorite rifle before letting Nicky lead the way.

This was his idea, after all.

Marito. The same fight they'd been having since Nicky had first announced that he was going to try to do some good for their wayward Booker. The same pain in Joe's eyes.

Nicky's jaw set in a hard line to keep himself from wincing.

Once Nicky's bag was packed and his sniper rifle was secured in it's own bag, he set about making travel arrangements to get them to the country that Booker was being held in. He wasn't skilled enough to find blueprints of the building, but even he could manage to get a google satellite overhead view.

He changed the timeframe on Joe's 'come save us' note to account for travel time, then slung both his bags over his shoulder and hefted up the hard case that held both Joe's scimitar and his own longsword.

The flight there wasn't particularly long, but it gave them some time to study the maps that Nicky had found and come up with a plan, as rudimentary as it used to be before the internet and Booker's quick adaptation to it. It was almost thrilling to be working a job like this again. More variables, less hard set information. It required thinking and skill and Nicky's anger burned quietly in his stomach.

Getting to the address wasn't particularly difficult. Getting set up in a nest was surprisingly easy. There were no guards, no cameras, nothing. It set his nerves on edge and he was quick to set up his rifle and lay out flat so he could get eyes through the windows.

"Holy Mother of God....Quyhn?!"

Edited 2020-08-23 18:45 (UTC)

The flight was quiet aside from planning. Joe longed for the days when any sort of journey with Nicky meant held hands and naps against each other's shoulders. This was more of two acquaintances flying off on a business trip. Joe couldn't help but feel renewed anger at Booker for that, too. It wasn't fair, maybe, but emotions were as they were. And Joe was never the most logical or fair in his furies.

When they landed though, he pushed it all aside. Him distracted meant Nicky exposed and there was no way that he was going to allow the other to come to harm just because he was in a funk. He would never forgive himself if that happened. So Joe got to work watching the perimeter and keeping an eye on the area around them as Nicky looked inside. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but 'Quynh' wasn't it.

"What?" Joe turned and pressed close to Nicky, trying to see what he was able to in his rifle. "That's not possible. That can't be possible. It's been centuries..."

The days had a rough pattern to them. Quyhn would come see him and ask for his help finding the others. He would refuse. What happened next depended on her mood. Sometimes, she left and Booker would be alone with his thoughts for the day.

In a bad mood she would beat him and ask again. He still refused. That's when he usually ended up dead for awhile.

He asked what she wanted with them. She wouldn't tell him. He didn't good considering her unpredictable temper. Insanity would do that to a person he supposed. Booker was simply grateful that he was apart from the others. She wouldn't find them through him and they wouldn't come for him.

Until she figured out his phone and took the picture. Booker knew then what her plan was. He was bait. That was when he started trying to plan an escape.

Today he rested his head back against the wall as he stared down Quynh. "They're not coming," he said with a con man's confidence. "You're wasting your time. After what I did to them, they'll leave me to rot. Hell, they probably think I deserve it. Are you gonna waste your time like that?"

Joe crowded against him and it was the most they'd touched in a year. In any other situation, being crowded off his rifle would piss him off. In any other situation, being pressed up like that against Joe would have earned a softly murmured bit of Genoese in his ear. In any other situation, seeing Quynh would have been an amazing, wonderful thing.

As it was, it still made his stomach leap and his hands shake a little as he pushed his gun over so that Joe could see through it's scope.

However, the euphoria seeing Quynh again was cooled rather quickly by seeing Booker chained to the wall in front of her. Booker, bloodied and broken, looking every bit like she'd been taking him apart piece by piece for days.

He thought back to the last few weeks of silence from the other man and his mouth went dry.

"We need to get in there."

His own anger aside, Joe could read things in this room that made him very quickly concerned. For one, Quynh's face looked entirely wrong. Before she'd been quick to smile and a harsh, incredible fighter but not a sadist. The smile she was giving Booker now was one of malice and self-satisfaction at his torment. Something he of all people did not deserve from her. He hadn't even been around at her internment in the iron casket. Of that, Booker was completely innocent.

For another, he looked far too comfortable in the position he was currently in. Like he'd been there for awhile. Joe mumbled a curse as he passed the rifle back and pursed his lips, thinking.

At this point, Nile and Andy would likely be on their way or at the very least getting ready to leave. Warning them about what they found would only make them come faster, not do the sensible thing and stay away. This was a trap. Clearly a trap. Quynh knew exactly how to lay it out so that everyone she wanted came right into her grasp.

He and Nicky couldn't let it happen.

"She will be expecting us. We have to be smarter than that."

He looked at the rifle and at the window. An idea came to mind that was awful but was still the best he'd have:

"You stay here. I'll go in and you can keep your sights on her. If she makes a move, drop her and keep her down. Head shots. I need her down so I can search her for a key and get Booker out." The window didn't cover the whole room, he knew. It wouldn't take care of everything. But he would at least have a shot.

"Wait until she goes for me. I'll...I'll try talking to her first. See...if I can figure out what she wants."

"It is not in their nature to leave one of their own."

Booker chuckled. This was going to get him killed. He knew it but he couldn't help himself. He didn't want to stop himself. The only advantage he had was his wits. Each time he riled Quyhn up, each time she came unhinged and came at him, Booker gained a chance to counter.

He had the disadvantage of being chained and not in the best health of his life but all Booker needed was one opening. One chance to take her down and possibly get free.

"They left you, didn't they?" Booker expected fury. He expected Quyhn to rush him to kill him with her bare hands. She went still though. Booker watched as she went back, clearly went back, to the ocean floor and drowning over and over.

It was the first time he saw fear in her.

She snapped out of it and looked almost serene which was more terrifying than her fury. "More reason they'll come for you."

He heard that mumbled curse and in some pushed aside part of him, he felt a small spark of hope. Maybe Joe would see how torturing Booker hadn't been something that Nicky could just let happen. Maybe later, when the mission was over and they were somewhere safe (because in his mind, all missions were a success until they weren't), he and his husband could actually talk without losing their tempers.

It was wishful thinking. It was also far from his forethought.

Accepting his rifle back, he replaced it where it had been, the sights and balance carefully chosen so that the huge gun didn't break his shoulder with recoil. The plan made him purse his lips...but he nodded. It was the only choice they really had.

And really...he shouldn't be needed at all. It wasn't like Quynh was going to attack them. Right?

He caught Joe's chest plate and used it to pull him forward so he could press their foreheads together. Be careful, it said. I love you, it said.

"If it comes to that, don't bother searching her. Just crush his wrists. She...she probably won't stay down for long anymore."

Joe nodded. For a second, he paused. Going up against Quynh was unlike anything they'd done so far. They hadn't ever needed to fight someone like them who couldn't die and who, clearly, had spent the last few centuries nurturing a grudge. This could go ugly very fast. Worse than with Merrick. Worse than they've ever seen.

In the face of that, the months of fighting between the two of them seemed petty.

He pulled Nicky back in close to him, forehead pressed and rubbing into his husband's for a second before he indulged in a kiss. Nothing long but not chaste, either. 'I love you, too,' it said. 'If things go wrong, I am sorry. I love you and always have. Always will.' And with that settled, he was off.

Joe clung to the wall. He knew Quynh well enough to anticipate she had some security around here. But she had been underwater for awhile so he was betting it wasn't all that advanced. Still, he was careful and slipped into the building as quiet as he could. Melting into the shadows as he got himself into a better position. One where he could both alert Booker to his presence and also get a better idea of what the Hell was going on, here.

If he wasn't discovered immediately, of course. Time to pray.

Booker hadn't observed anyone else around. When he listened he didn't hear other footsteps. It seemed like he and Quyhn were alone but he wasn't entirely sure of that. Someone got her out of the ocean. Someone helped her navigate the modern world.

There were other people but none of them were near Booker. Quyhn's personal army was kept far away from Booker where he couldn't take advantage of them or use them. It made things very easy for the others to find him. Exactly what Quynh wanted.

"They looked for you!" he argued, jerking forward on his chains. "They tried to find you. They didn't have the means to reach you. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"They will answer for what they did." She had said the same thing before. Booker couldn't get a plan out of her... and then there was movement in the corner of his eye. He glanced over and almost cursed.

Joe. It was clearly Joe. They had come for him. The idiots.

"What about me?" he asked trying to keep Quyhn's attention. "I betrayed them. What do you think I have to answer for?"

"They abandoned you. I expected you to be more helpful."

Her private army was scattered, but once Nicky had lowered himself back into position next to his rifle, they didn't stand a chance. He didn't take any of them out, not yet. He didn't want to risk losing any chance of talking to their long lost sister. Instead, he quietly and expertly guided his husband (and oh how that kiss still burned on his lips) through the building to avoid them.

As soon as he saw the dark shape of Joe moving through the shadows in the same room as Booker and Quynh, he felt his stomach tighten and he took a couple deep breaths to keep himself perfectly steady.

It felt strange to hold her in his cross hairs, not because he was aiming at her but because they'd lost her before the rifle had been invented. Holding his family in his cross hairs was nothing new, but she... everything in her body screamed violence and his finger tapped lightly on the trigger guard.

"Be careful, Joe. She has a blade on her left hip. Short. Dagger of some kind."

The thing about instant healing was that you couldn't look at someone and immediately get an idea of where they had been hurt. There were ways to tell, though. Dried blood on clothes and skin, for instance. Tears or holes in clothing. The amount of gore remaining on the floor. Joe met Booker's eyes and looked him up and down, taking in all these clues. Days of torture were clear. Joe frowned deeply both in distaste of what had been done and at the knowledge Quynh had done it.

This wasn't going to go well.

Joe nodded at the blade and appraised her once more before stepping out of the shadows and making himself known.

"We didn't abandon him," Joe said. "We punished him. And even then he's been having pretty regular visits from Nicky, so..." He shrugged in an attempt to seem at ease. His scimitar was holstered, guns resting in their spots at his side and on his back. He spread both hands out in front of him, signalling his intention to come in peace. For all the good that wouldn't do.

"Hello, Quynh." It had been so long. Even in this situation his eyes got bright and his heart soared to see his old sister again. Joe swallowed it away. "I see you met Booker. How about you let him go and you and me talk, huh? Just you and me."

Oh, fuck.

Booker thought Joe would do something useful like shoot Quynh from the shadows. No, apparently, he decided to walk right into the trap instead. These were the people he had eternity with. Honest and noble to a fault. They couldn't even be backhanded when it would help them.

God help him, he loved them fiercely for it though right now it would get them all killed.

"It is not just you." Quynh started to look around, her eyes sharp. "He is here too, isn't he?"

Well, she hadn't forgotten that. Joe and Nicky were a unit. Where one went so did the other. Booker didn't dare glance towards the windows and give it away. He slumped back against the wall and glared.

"Careful. She's not reasonable," he warned. "She'll turn on you as surely as I did."

Joe didn't let his eyes drift toward the window. Instead he scowled a little and walked into the room with his arms folded across his chest. "The little mention I made of Nicky coming out to meet Booker? Yeah. We haven't been exactly meeting eye-to-eye on that. Sometimes even old married couples need to take a break.

"I'm alone."

The chances of Quynh believing that were slim but it was worth the attempt at least. He stopped a few paces off from her and met her eyes.

"Booker has got nothing to do with this," he reminded her. "Let him go. He served his purpose."

Captured - with peace_inthe_violence & nickysnotmybf

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