fredbassett

Title : My Enemy, My Friend
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : The Old Guard
Rating : 15
Characters : Nicolò di Genova/ Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : A coward dies many deaths, a brave man dies only once. But some die many times. This is the story of how two brave men died together. Many times.
A/N : Written for

louisedennis’s

primeval_denial Gift Box.

The last thing Nicolò remembered was the sharp bite of the Saracen’s scimitar cleaving his skull at the very moment he thrust the tip of his own sword into the man’s chest.

Nicolò di Genova slumped forward, driving his sword home to the hilt through flesh and bone.

They fell together, locked in the eternal dance of death.

They awoke together, too.

Nicolò rolled off the other man’s body and looked up at a velvet black sky studded with myriad diamond stars, drinking in a sight that he had never expected to see again.

He came to his knees, head clasped in his hands, feeling sick and dazed.

The Saracen blinked and pushed himself up on one elbow, looking as confused as Nicolò felt. “We live?”

“So it would appear,” Nicolò agreed, his Arabic halting but understandable. He had always picked up languages with ease.

The dead lay around them, Christian and Muslim alike. The battle no longer raged. Both sides would now regroup and tend their wounded. The dead were a lesser concern. Their time would come.

“I do not understand.”

Nicolò laughed. “Neither do I. But it seems fate has not yet finished with us. May I know the name of the man who killed me?”

“Yusuf Al-Kaysani. Will the man who killed me give me the gift of his name?”

Nicolò clambered to his feet and held his hand down to his enemy. “I am Nicolò di Genova.”

Yusuf seized the proffered hand and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet.

The two men stared at each other, their faces bathed in pale moonlight.

After a long moment of silence, they embraced warmly and then turned away to pick their way through the dead to return to their own lines.

They met again ten days later by the walls of the Saracen fort.

The fight was hard and dirty. No quarter asked, no quarter given.

This time death was dealt at knife point; sword and scimitar long since broken and cast aside.

The point of Nicolò’s knife slipped between Yusuf’s ribs and slid into his heart.

At the same moment, Yusuf’s knife edge slashed a deep red gash across his enemy’s throat.

Their blood pumped over each other and stained the sandy rocks red, mingled in death.

They awoke together in darkness once again, this time under a rock overhang at the base of a cliff, their bodies cold in the desert night.

Yusuf’s head rested on Nicolò’s chest. Nicolò’s arm thrown around Yusuf’s shoulders.

They lay together, not speaking, each simply listening to the other’s quiet breathing in the dark of the night. Lungs that should no longer work drew breath into bodies that should be dead, while hearts beat together in the rhythm of life.

When the first grey light of a dawn that neither had expected to see illuminated their resting place, Yusuf stirred. “We can no longer ignore the day, my enemy. Make your way back to your compatriots while you can still take advantage of the shadows.”

Nicolò nodded. “Take care, my enemy. I would hate anyone to have the privilege of killing you other than me.”

Two days later, a dusk skirmish brought them together again. They fought with silent intensity, neither giving ground. They had cheated death twice but neither knew if they would awaken from the dark sleep a third time.

They did.

And a fourth time.

And then a fifth.

The sixth time they came together was once again during a night attack.

Nicolò’s captain was determined to take the fortress that commanded a significant supply route to Acre. Yusuf’s garrison commander was equally determined to deny the Crusaders their prize.

This time their combat lacked its former ferocity. They had awoken too often in each other’s arms for the sharp sting of hatred to be maintained. They had seen the moonlight reflected in each other’s eyes and breathed in the night air together. They had felt the warmth of each other’s bodies and taken silent comfort in each other’s arms.

“Do you like waking up next to me so much that you seek me out in battle as often as you can, my friend?” Nicolò panted.

“You have such pretty eyes, Nicolò di Genova. How could I resist their lure?” Yusuf’s smile lacked his habitual mocking amusement.

“Your god and mine forbid love between a man and a man,” Nicolò replied, his heart quickening in his chest as he spoke the words.

Yusuf laughed. “We are soldiers, my friend. We know our gods avert their eyes from our deeds. Men grow lonely and seek comfort where they can in the dark of the night.”

“The night is indeed dark,” Nicolò agreed. He stepped back and sheathed his sword. “I tire of this war, Yusuf Al-Kaysani. We have fought over this miserable scrap of land and its hill while the moon has waxed and waned. Men have died for nothing. We have died so often I am starting to lose count of the times and the many ways we have looked death in the eye and spat in the face of fate.”

“I too tire of this dance of death, Nicolò di Genova.” Yusuf thrust his scimitar through his belt. “Come, I prefer to remain alive this night.”

Nicolò smiled. “As do I. Death has lost its appeal. As has war.”

Together they slipped away into the shadows.

Later that night, they lay in each other’s arms in a shallow cave in the hills, trading lazy kisses rather than blows while hands that had dealt death all too often now gave pleasure not pain.

They awoke together in sunlight and left that war behind them.

There would be other wars, they knew that.

But from that day on, they would fight by each other’s side.

Standing together.

Standing proud.