Fanfic Recs / The Old Guard

Proof that the remaining 10% is worth being locked in an Iron Maiden below the sea forever here.

These are recommendations made by Tropers for The Old Guard fanfics, all of which have to be signed to stay on the page. Feel free to add a fanfic of your own to the list, but remember to use the template found here.

You can also add to the current recommendations if you want. Refrain from posting Conversation in the Main Page though; that goes in the discussion page.

Do warn when a fanfic may head into non-canon territory. Some people just don't like it, and as we all know, Shipping is Serious Business.

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General Fics

I couldn't help but ask for you to say it all again by crookedcrown

• Recommended by: Aer^note Reminder - if you want to recommend the fic but not write a review, add your Troper name to this line after the original name
• Status: Complete^note the author considers it finished
• Synopsis: The five times Booker and Joe were mistaken for a couple.
• Pairing(s): Joe & Booker, minor Joe/Nicky
• Tags: Humor

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Holiest Among the Living by angrymermaids

• Recommended by: talewind
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: It is the Year of Our Lord 1096. Nicolò di Genova, a pious cleric seeking forgiveness for his sins, takes up the Cross on an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
• Pairings: Nicky/Joe, Nicky/OC
• Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Historical Accuracy, Character Study
• Comments: This 86k behemoth took the author over a year to write, and it shows in the ludicrous period-accurate detail, from the purely historical to the religious to the social (as the AO3 tags say, there's a fucking bibliography). A brilliant study of what creates a man like the present-day Nicky we know. Be mindful of the content warnings, as the fic doesn't shy at all away from the sheer brutality of the First Crusade.

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the space where things have been by kaydeefalls

• Recommended by: talewind
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: The one where Nile and Joe are stuck alone in a car together and talk about feelings and stuff.
• Tags: Post-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence

Shipping Fics

deo volente (lux aeterna) by qqueenofhades

• Recommended by: Aer^note Reminder - if you want to recommend the fic but not write a review, add your Troper name to this line after the original name
• Status: Complete^note the author considers it finished
• Synopsis:

Yusuf snorts, as if to say it’s mutual. But the Italian struggles to sit upright, wincing and swearing, and – Yusuf cannot pretend he does not want to know, not when a creature will always seek out its like, its matched half as the Greek philosopher Plato wrote, and there is nobody else in the world, to the best of his knowledge, like the two of them. He says, “What’s your name?”

There’s a very long pause. He can hear the other man deciding whether to lie. But there is no purpose to it, except for bitterness, and the answer is uttered cold and shortly. “Nicolò.”

(Or: The inevitable backstory.)

• Pairing(s): Joe/Nicky
• Tags: Origin Story, Enemies to Lovers, Pre-Canon, Canon Typical Violence
• Comments: THE backstory fic. Long, well researched, and utterly fantastic.

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Live By The Sword by Kaerith

• Recommended by: Aer^note Reminder - if you want to recommend the fic but not write a review, add your Troper name to this line after the original name
• Status: Complete^note the author considers it finished
• Synopsis:

Nicky feels like he’s the only true human being in the room; he’s the only one shifting with discomfort and wrinkling his nose and feeling so sick at watching what’s going on. “Hey,” he says to the scientists, “Can’t you knock him out while you do that?”

“Why should we?” One of the scientists asks blandly, and that makes Nicky feel like he’s been shoved over an abyss. There should be empathy, or professional courtesy, or common decency, but there’s just a blank look of slight annoyance.

“We don’t have the budget for sedatives or pain killers,” the other scientist says. She sticks the knife back into him and Nicky can see the sweat bead on the man’s forehead as he tenses up against the pain.

Instead of killing the doctor like he really wants to, Nicky pulls his silenced handgun from a pocket and shoots the victim in the head. “They’re immortal and I don’t get off on watching people writhe in pain. Even if drugs aren’t in the budget you can bet bullets are."

(Nicky is a modern mercenary working for Merrick. This turns out to mean very little, in the grand scheme of things.)

• Pairing(s): Joe/Nicky
• Tags: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon Typical Violence
• Comments: Lovely little modern!nicky AU, very adorable

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heaven keep the lonely by eurythmix

• Recommended by: Anon
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: Nicolò, from Jerusalem to Giza, and the things he picks up along the way: a book of poetry, a new language, and a reason to live with his guilt.
• Pairing(s): Joe/Nicky
• Tags: Origin Story, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Pre-Canon

Crossover Fics

Interlude by crookedcrown

• Recommended by: Aer^note Reminder - if you want to recommend the fic but not write a review, add your Troper name to this line after the original name
• Crossover with: Discworld
• Status: Complete^note the author considers it finished
• Synopsis: Death greets them like old friends.
• Pairing(s): Joe/Nicky