Title: Nile Looks After Nicky, Nicky Takes Care of Nile
Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Pairing: Nicky/Joe, Nicky/Nile (fwb)
Summary: Nicky and Nile are separated from Andy and Joe for a while as they all lie low when Nicky starts to act strangely. Sometimes immortals have to resort to odd coping strategies and the care Nicky needs leads Nile to some unexpected places.
Rating: NC17/18
A/N: So The Old Guard has kind of eaten my brain and this was a bunny that popped into my head this morning and refused to leave, so I had to write it down. This is my first TOG fanfic, but I already have another 2 on the go that are longer, this one just wouldn't shut up until it was in words :D. Movie canon only. Thanks to Soph for the beta.
~*~
Nile was worried. She was so worried she had broken protocol and called Copely, asking for a contact for Andy and Joe, even though they were supposed to be laying low in two separate groups for a few days with no contact. They even only had burner phones with them. The last mission had been complex and required them to come at it from different angles and these days they always went to ground while Copely made sure there were no traces of them left behind.
Joe and Andy were in Berlin, Nile and Nicky were just outside Frankfurt.
"This had better be important," Andy said when she answered the phone.
"I need to talk to Joe," Nile said, "it's Nicky."
She didn't have to say any more as she heard the phone being passed over.
"Nile?" Joe asked.
"Joe," she replied, "Nicky's acting weird."
"Weird how?" was the immediate response.
"It started with cleaning his gun," she replied. "He took it apart and reassembled it twelve times. Then he cleaned the whole cottage twice, and he's started on the kitchen again. Joe, his hands are bleeding and he won't talk to me."
"Fuck," Joe said, but it sounded resigned to Nile.
"What?" she heard Andy say in the background.
"He's gone again," Joe said and Nile realised this probably wasn't a new thing.
"The kids," Andy said.
"Joe, what's going on?" Nile demanded, dragging attention back to the conversation on the phone.
"Nile, I'm sorry, I need you to look after Nicky for me," Joe replied. "He's not capable of looking after himself at the moment."
"Of course," she replied, "whatever he needs, but I need to understand what's happening."
"Fuck," Joe said again, clearly distressed.
"Joe, I will look after him," Nile told him very firmly and clearly, "he will be fine. This has happened before, yeah? Explain it to me so I know what to do."
She heard Joe take a deep breath.
"Nicky was never really supposed to be a fighter," Joe eventually said, "not at his core. He was a priest, but when someone in his family needed to fight for the cause he took up the mantel. He became what he needed to be, but sometimes what we are, what we do, it breaks him. He retreats to someone who needs to serve, to be of service. He'll be blaming himself that we didn't get all the kids out, that we were too late to save them all."
Nile bit her lip.
"Yeah," she said, "he was beating himself up about that when we got here. We couldn't have got to the target any faster, I thought I'd got that through to him."
"And logically you probably did," Joe said, "but this isn't logical."
"Okay," Nile agreed. "So, what do I need to do. He is literally going to work himself to the bone if I don't do something."
Joe was silent for a few moments.
"You need to take control," Joe said eventually, "get him focused on you. This has to run its course, he has to achieve whatever it is his subconscious is pushing him to do, and that never works with tasks, it's really about people."
"And normally you'd be here, and he'd focus on you and it would all be okay," Nile filled in the gaps.
"Exactly," Joe replied. "Dammit, I should have known this was going to happen. Everything lately…"
"Yeah, it's been full on," Nile agreed, "but you beating yourself up about not being here isn't going to help. Tell me what to do."
"Do you like foot rubs?" was not exactly what she expected to come back.
"Well yeah, who doesn't?" she replied.
"Nicky gives great foot rubs," Joe told her.
"So what, I just order him to give me a foot rub?" she asked, because that sounded preposterously easy.
"Yes," Joe replied, "but," she'd known there had had to be a 'but' coming, "it might become more, he might…"
"Are you trying to tell me your husband might try and take it to the next level?" Nile asked as she caught up.
"He's not thinking," Joe said very quickly.
"I get that," Nile replied before Joe could keep going, "I just need to understand here. Shouldn't the fact I'm a woman put an end to that?"
"Well, sexuality is a spectrum," Joe replied, "but that's not the relevant part at the moment. Once you get Nicky's attention on you, he will be totally focused on you, on what you need, not what he needs and … well …"
Nile sighed.
"I need to get laid," she said, rubbing her temple with her fingers.
She had been meaning to do something about that, but the opportunity had never presented itself. It wasn't something that was at the top of her priority list, but with all the moving around she didn't even have a vibrator to help out at the moment. She had seriously considered sounding Andy out before the latest mission had dropped in their laps and she might have complained out loud about her lack of action a couple of times.
"Okay," she said, "so what do I do if he does try and take it further?"
"Let him?" Joe kind of asked.
That was not what Nile had expected at all.
"You want me to have actual sex with your other half?"
Her voice might have been a wee bit louder than she had meant it to be.
"I doubt it will go that far," Joe replied. "He will probably not be remotely aroused himself, he will be focused on your pleasure. My Nicky has a very talented mouth and hands, such magic hands."
God help her, Nile felt a pulse run through her neither regions at that.
"And that's okay with you?" she had to check.
"It will not be because he loves me less," Joe said in that sure and certain way that always had Nile marvelling at his and Nicky's relationship.
They had such complete faith in each other it was breath-taking.
"And would you be okay with that?" Joe added before she could say anything.
Nile did take a moment to think about that.
"Yes," she said eventually, "this is Nicky, he needs my help, I'm fine with it. But what happens, well after?"
"Once you are satisfied," Joe explained, "whatever that turns out to be, Nicky will sense it. He is very empathic with others when he is like this. Job done he will probably sleep. When he wakes he should be more normal."
"Okay," Nile said, making sure she had made the necessary mental adjustments, "but you're coming, right? You will be here?"
She heard Joe ask Andy something, but it was muffled this time.
"Andy says Copely thinks we should be able to move in about ten hours," Joe replied. "Then we will be driving straight to you."
"Good," she said. "Okay, right, I'll go and look after your husband then."
"Thank you, Nile," Joe said and sounded so pathetically grateful she couldn't remotely fault him.
"See you soon," she said and hung up.
Putting her phone back in her pocket, she walked back into the small house she was currently sharing with Nicky. She could hear the floor in the kitchen being scrubbed the moment she walked in. Nicky was on his knees with an old-fashioned looking brush, moving around bloody water on the flagstones. His knuckles were red raw and bleeding.
"Hey, Nicky," she said, but he didn't remotely respond to her, so she walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
At this he stilled.
"I need your help with something," she told him.
Almost immediately she was rewarded with wide, grey eyes looking at her in an unsettling, non-blinking way.
"Come on," she said, smiling at him as if this was all perfectly normal, "the floor's plenty clean. I need you for something else, okay?"
He blinked once and, for a second, she thought she might have jogged him out of wherever his brain was at the moment, but it turned out that was it.
"My feet are killing me," she said, going with Joe's suggestion, "and this immortal gig is great, but it can't shift that final ache. Think you can help me out."
Nicky dropped the scrubbing brush with ridiculous speed and stood up.
"Okay," Nile continued, taking charge, "let's get your knuckles rinsed off, because I don't think we want to leave blood across the house."
She gently led him across the room to the sink and he followed her direction without comment. His knuckles were already almost healed as she held first one hand, then the other under the running tap for a few moments. The rubbed raw skin was all but perfect by the time she was done and drying them on the cloth on the side.
Taking his hand, she led him into the tiny, old fashioned sitting room with the incongruous flat screen TV in the corner. She popped herself down on the couch and patted the seat next to her. Hence is was a bit disconcerting when Nicky knelt down in front of her. She was wearing boots, because old habits died hard, and he set about unlacing them with a focus that was kind of disturbing.
"Well, okay," she said and decided to just let him get on with it.
By the time Nicky had ever so gently loosened her laces and removed her boots from each foot with the care of a mother looking after a child, she was beginning to feel kind of special. She couldn't help wondering what it was like for Joe when all of Nicky's attention was on him. However, she forgot any remotely deep thoughts the moment Nicky pulled one of her feet into his lap, pulled off her sock and pushed a thumb against the base of her big toe.
The moan was totally beyond her control as she kind of melted.
Joe had not been kidding when he'd said Nicky had talented hands.
It took her all of thirty seconds to forget that she was doing this for Nicky as her bones turned to water and she sank further into the couch. Her vocalisations really were out of her hands as her body reacted to Nicky's touch like it was opium. Possibly she's been craving human contact other than the odd hug more than she had anticipated.
Nicky said not a solitary word, but he was clearly listening and watching her, because every time he found a spot that made her melt a little more, he made sure he focused on it for a while. Nile might have mentally described the whole experience as magical, although she did manage to keep that observation to herself.
When he finished her feet, he moved on to her calves. Before he could move up any further, she managed to put the brain power together to head him off, at least for now.
"Y'know," she said, wiggling her shoulders, "my neck and back have been complaining I don't give them enough love."
Nicky looked at her for a moment with barely a blink, as if processing that, before he stood up, pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over the rug on the floor. He followed this up by grabbing one of the cushions, putting it on the blanket and waited. Nile took the hint.
She climbed off the couch, shedding her jacket as she went and laid down on the blanket face down, with the cushion under her head and neck. Any feelings of awkwardness evaporated as soon as Nicky went to work on her shoulders. It appeared she really was carrying some tension around, because she went non-verbal for a good few minutes.
As Nicky put her neck, back and shoulders in order she couldn't help wondering if he'd been trained in massage, because she'd had a few in her time, it had been a favourite treat for downtime for her and her girlfriends, or if practice just made perfect. Either way she was pretty sure she died a little.
It was when he reached the base of her spine that she realised the massage wasn't just relaxing her. As she shifted a little, she realised she was unmistakably wet. She buried her face in the cushion and prayed for something, she wasn't sure what.
When Nicky massaged her buttocks, she bit the cushion to stop the debauched sounds that wanted to come out of her mouth. Luckily for her he moved on to her thighs and worked all the way down her legs for her again. It was lovely, even if she was now hideously aware she was as aroused as hell.
When he ever so gently urged her to turn over, the fact she wasn't wearing a bra under her thin shirt, and her nipples could take someone's eye out was all too obvious. She saw Nicky's gaze focus on her breasts for a second with that same blank stare, more like he was cataloguing than ogling, before he started on her arms instead.
Nile lay back and went with the flow.
She was resigned to being a puddle of her former self. Except, of course, for her nipples, which were clearly aiming for bullet status. She gave up being embarrassed, it just wasn't worth it.
Nicky moved back down her body to her legs and worked his fingers in circles over her right thigh. When his index finger ever so gently slid just a fraction too high, she realised that was the only kind of question she was going to get. He wasn't looking at her, but there was tension in his stance that hadn't been there before.
Lifting her leg slightly, Nile parted her thighs and let him continue.
When he touched her this time it was still light and teasing, but much more deliberate. She gasped at the tiny shots of delight the attention sent through her body. It had been too long.
His fingers moved with the confidence of someone who definitely knew their way around the female anatomy. Nile couldn't help wondering who, when, how. Probably Andy, maybe others over the years. Nicky seemed to pick up just what she liked, what made her wetter and more aroused, as he petted her through her clothes.
God he was good.
His fingers rubbed deep between her legs and his thumb stroked over her clit through her pants. It shouldn’t have been as amazing as it was, but it was undoing her from her pussy out. Nicky reached up with his other hand, cupping her breast through her shirt, lightly pinching her strainingly-hard nipple. That was it. That was all it took, and she gasped, hips tilting off the floor as her orgasm ricocheted through her.
"Fuck," was about the most eloquent she could manage as she rode out the high with quivering shakes.
Nicky didn't stop stroking until she finally relaxed back to the blanket.
Her panties were so wet she was sure she had to have soaked all the way through her yoga pants too. Maybe that was why when Nicky carefully hooked his fingers in her waistband, she simply lifted up for him to take both off in one move. Then again, maybe it was just because she was too far gone to care anymore.
She glanced at Nicky's crotch, she couldn't help it, and it was all too obvious Joe had been right. There wasn't even the slightest bulge. Nicky wasn't remotely aroused, but he was very, very focused on her.
He lay down along her side so his head was level with her breasts, and his fingers went back to stroking her ever so gently. She could feel him watching, listening, learning, and she gave up holding anything back. She moaned, long and low as he mouthed her nipple through the cloth of her shirt as he slid his fingers either side of her very well lubricated clit.
He hadn't even gotten his fingers inside her yet and she was a quivering wreck. She couldn't help trembling in anticipation at what might come next.
~*~
Nile had not meant to fall asleep, really she hadn't, but what was a girl to do after so many mind blowing orgasms? She had lost count of how many, and how long Nicky had kept her in perpetual ecstasy, but it had to have been hours. He'd used his hands and his mouth in ways Nile had never had anyone do before, like he was worshiping her body. She was pretty sure he had set the bar so high only another immortal was ever going to get close.
When she had finally collapsed without another need in her body, Nicky had done just what Joe said, he'd put his head on her thigh, closed his eyes and gone to sleep.
Nile had planned to put the cushion under his head, get up and sort things out, but somehow that hadn't happened. She'd only meant to close her eyes for a moment. It was movement from Nicky that woke her. She opened her eyes in time to see him sitting up and back and blinking like he had just woken from a very deep sleep.
"Hi," she said, since he didn't look quite with it just yet.
She was more than aware she was lying there without pants, but that seemed kind of secondary at the moment.
"I did it again," Nicky said, "and I have inflicted my peculiarities on you. My apologies, Nile."
He went to move, but she was faster, sitting up and grabbing him by the shoulder.
"Hey," she said, "we all have ways of coping. Believe me I saw some strange ones in the marines. And just to be clear, you did not inflict anything on me. I called Joe, he explained what was going on, and I walked into this with my eyes wide open."
"I shouldn't have…"
"Shouldn't have what? Given me some of the most earth-shattering orgasms of my entire life?" she decided that blunt was the only way to go. "I get there's some Catholic guilt running around inside there," she leant forward and gave him a ridiculously platonic kiss on the forehead, "but you haven't done anything wrong and boy, you have talent."
For a moment Nicky had such a scandalised look on his face, Nile had to laugh. She would have made more of a joke to lighten the mood, but she didn't think Nicky was quite with it enough to appreciate it yet. She'd save those for when his brain was fully functioning again.
"Come on," she said, looking at her watch, "if my calculations are correct, we have about three hours before Andy and your worried other half arrive. We've been asleep over eight, clearly we both needed it. I'll introduce you to my mom's recipe for chilli and it should be just about done by the time they get here."
Nicky clearly wasn't quite back yet, but he perked up considerably at the mention of cooking.
"I'll be in in a minute," she said, grabbing her discarded clothes and running up the stairs in the hallway. "You start chopping onions. And make sure you wash your hands first," she added as an afterthought. "Actually," she changed her mind, came back down again, and grabbed his hand, pulling him up the stairs, "you need to wash up and change too."
She didn't wait to find out if he agreed or not, just pushing him towards his room, because she had to find some clean underwear and she hadn't planned for panty soaking encounters with her teammates. Joe owed her a huge favour, not Nicky, because he hadn't had any say in the matter and there were the orgasms to take into account, but Joe was going to be out a very expensive box of chocolates at least.
The End