Title: Bad Luck and the Law of Averages (14/14)
Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Pairing: Nicky/Joe
Summary: Nicky can't help assisting people in need, but this time he's being played and those duping him come with fangs. When he goes missing the whole team are frantic, particularly when they start having strange dreams, especially Joe. They have to find Nicky before it is too late.
Rating: mature
Warnings/Tropes: Vampires, Immortal!Husbands, Nicky Whump
A/N: Yes, of course I wrote vampires into TOG – it is my mission in life to write vampires in every fandom. 😂 You're welcome 🧛😂.
Seriously though – I hope everyone enjoys reading this one, I have so enjoyed writing it. Thanks to Soph for the beta.
Links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
Chapter 14 – Epilogue (aka the in-credit scenes)
There was only one loose end left once Elise and Paul left the country to go home, and Nicky went looking for him, because he needed to make sure Bryce was alright now that everything was over. He found the kid suspiciously easily, but put it down to dumb luck.
Bryce was standing next to a stall in a street market. He was playing with a phone, but Nicky recognised the tension in the kid's shoulders as someone who was much more aware of their surroundings now. Not that it made any difference.
Nicky squeezed Joe's hand, pushed his borrowed sunglasses up his nose, and walked across the street. He came from directly behind Bryce, knowing that the kid would never see him coming, and then silently stepped up beside him.
"Hi," he said.
The way Bryce completely froze made him smile, just a little. Wide, shocked eyes very slowly turned to him and then narrowed.
"You are a fucking arsehole," Bryce said. "Don't sneak up on people like that."
Nicky smiled a bit wider.
"Did you need something else?" Bryce asked.
Nicky shook his head, sobering a little.
"You do not have to be afraid anymore," he said simply.
"They're dead?" Bryce asked, suddenly breathless. "You got them?"
"All of them," Nicky replied with a nod. "My family do not take kindly to attacks on their own."
He inclined his head slightly towards the other side of the road and Bryce turned to look. Joe gave them both a salute.
"That must be Joe," Bryce said.
"It is," Nicky agreed.
"So, did you just want to let me know the bad guys are dead?" Bryce asked.
"That and this," Nicky said and handed the kid a card.
The only thing on it was a number, one Copely assured him was untraceable.
"What's this?" Bryce asked.
"Call it a repayment for your gift," Nicky replied.
"Gift, what gift?"
"Your courage and your blood," Nicky said.
"Hey, man," Bryce said, "you repaid that in full ten times. You got me out of there."
"Maybe, maybe not," Nicky replied, "but keep it anyway. If you need help, call."
"What kind of help?" Bryce asked looking at the number.
"Well I would suggest you keep it for something important," Nicky said, giving Joe a smile as his husband gave him a questioning look. "You might say my family are fixers."
"Oh fuck," Bryce said, "you're actually mafia aren't you. Of course you are, the way you talk about family."
That made Nicky laugh.
"Our group is much older," he said, grinning, "and we try to be the good guys. That number will get a message to me."
It was a risk, one he did not need to take, but Nicky was a big believer in the balance of life. Bryce had risked everything and given him the strength to try and fight off Ruth and her clan. That he had failed was not something that mattered or something that Bryce needed to know. Blood was something Nicky had shed a lot of over the years, but now he had a whole different outlook on it.
Bryce looked at the card again.
"Thanks," he said.
Nicky nodded and walked back over to Joe.
"Happy now?" Joe asked, taking his hand.
With a smile, Nicky pecked his husband on the cheek.
~*~
Nicky hadn't said yes when Joe had asked him if he was 'happy now' at the market, because there was one more thing that was bothering him. In actual fact, it was driving him a little crazy that he wasn't sure about it, so he finally stood up from where he had been pretending to read.
"Booker," he said, since the other man was the only one in the room at the time, "I need you to do me a favour."
Booker looked up at him from whatever he had been doing on a laptop.
"Go somewhere else."
For a second Booker looked stunned and then stricken and Nicky realised what he had said. He'd been feeling so protective of the whole lot of them that he had all but forgotten Booker was technically only there on suffrage.
"Not like that," he said, "sorry," he added, running his fingers through his hair. "Somewhere else in the city for an hour or so. I need to check something."
He could see the questions flying across Booker's face, but the relief there was so ridiculously palpable that it swamped everything else. Booker had royally fucked up over the whole Merrick affair, but so had they in exiling Booker when clearly the one thing he really, really needed was a family. Nicky was all too aware of that now. His instincts were yelling it so loudly he was surprised the others couldn't hear it too.
"Where?" Booker asked.
"Anywhere," Nicky replied, "just don't tell me. Find somewhere and stay there. I'll call you to come back."
Nile chose that moment to walk in.
"Everything okay?" she asked warily.
Given Booker's confused and worried expression, Nicky didn't blame her, so he made another quick decision.
"Fine," he said, turning to her. "Could you help me too? Go somewhere in the city that isn't here and isn't where Booker goes, preferably somewhere none of us would expect and wait. I need to test something out."
Nile frowned at him.
"Okay," she said, pulling out the word and all but making it a question.
"I promise I'll explain," he said, "but I need to try it first."
Nile and Booker shared a look.
"Sure," she said. "When?"
"Now?" Nicky asked.
Booker stood up.
"If I'm just going insane, I'll call and you can both make fun of me for the next century," he promised.
The wide-eyed expression of hope that crossed Booker's face at that made his heart twist even more than the stricken one of before. They hadn't talked about it yet and it definitely wasn't his decision to make alone, but he was pretty sure if the others decided to continue Booker's exile, he would throw a fit none of them would ever forget. His instincts were in overdrive at the moment and there was no arguing with them. They were screaming at him that they all belonged together and that was that.
"Come on, Book," Nile said.
As the pair headed towards the door, Nicky went to find Joe. The only reason his better half wasn't glued to his side was that he had asked for a while alone. He found Joe in the kitchen chopping what might once have been an onion, but now resembled carnage. Clearly Joe was dealing with separation for more than a few minutes as well as he was at the moment. The only reason he'd asked Joe to leave him at all was to sort out what he was feeling.
He walked over to Joe and wrapped an arm around his husband's waist, all but plastering himself to Joe's side.
"You can stop killing the helpless vegetable now," he said as he felt the tension flowing out of both of them.
"Okay?" Joe asked, looking at him.
Nicky nodded.
"I needed to see something," he said, "I'm still testing it," he added.
"Going to tell me?" Joe asked.
Nicky frowned and bit his lip.
"I think," he said, not sure how to explain it.
Before he could go on, there was a noise in the doorway.
"Where are Nile and Booker going?" Andy asked as she entered the room. "I just saw them leaving."
"I asked them to," Nicky said.
Andy raised an eyebrow at him.
"I think I can feel where you all are," he said, the words kind of tumbling over each other, "but I don't know if I'm just picking up sounds or smells or if it's something else."
"You're tracking us?" Andy checked.
"I don't know," Nicky admitted, "that's why I asked Nile and Booker to go somewhere else in the city, different places and wait."
"You want to see if you can find them," Joe said and Nicky nodded.
"Could you track them in the city?" Andy asked.
"That's not what I want to test," he replied. "I want to go somewhere completely random."
"And see if you can find them from there," Joe finished.
His husband squeezed his hand and gave him a small smile. He wasn't sure what he would do without Joe's unwavering support, because this sounded crazy even with everything that had happened over the last few days.
"I need to know if this is physical or," he made a gesture towards his head because he really couldn't explain the whole dreams thing or vampires or anything else logically. Nothing since he had been confronted with glowing eyes in an alley had been logical.
Andy looked at him for a while, that usual no-nonsense-I-can-read-your-soul-just-lo
Half an hour later they were at Edinburgh castle, a location Andy had picked at random. They stood outside the gates, Nicky in front, Andy and Joe behind as they completely ignored all the tourists. For a moment Nicky closed his eyes, breathed, and thought of Booker. There was nothing tangible in his head, nothing he could honestly explain, but an instinct was there. Opening his eyes, he began to walk.
It took twenty minutes give or take, before Nicky walked up to Booker sitting in the back of a small café in one of Edinburgh's back streets.
"How the hell?" Booker asked.
"Later," was all Nicky said and beckoned him to follow.
One could be a bizarre coincidence, at least that's what he told himself, but when he found Nile in the middle of a busy supermarket, he couldn't exactly deny it anymore. No one bombarded him with questions, but he knew they all had to be thinking the same thing he was. It was the thought that had been rattling through his brain ever since he realised what he had been doing.
Outside in the sunlight he took several long breaths and finally let himself admit what he was feeling. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes for a second and then lifted his arm, pointing into the distance.
"She's that way," he said and looked at Andy.
They all knew he was talking about Quynh.
The End