A/N: Written because when wheel-of-fish asked me how Erik would fare on a farm, my brain invented an AU for it.
It was Nasir's idea, moving to the country. And Erik wasn't exactly in a position to protest at the time, still weak from his recent illness and in no condition to do anything more strenuous than sleep as the packing was carried out and arrangements made. And then he was bundled into a brougham, and then into a private coach on a train ("your generosity knows no bounds, my friend", Nasir told him cryptically when he dozed awake long enough to enquire about the expense). They left the train at a provincial station, and from there it was a wagon that carried them out to the farmhouse.
The cool evening air was enough to revive Erik somewhat, and he looked around himself with a mounting sense of horror. The rolling fields and tumbling walls, the trees, and ramshackle little house, the barns.
The cows. Ten of them, some with calves alongside. He had not been close to a cow since—since—since long before the siege of Paris. Probably not since his flight from Persia. And now suddenly there were ten cows, looking at him with curiosity in their dark eyes, their white heads tilted, the evening sunlight tinting their red patches blood and the remaining white parts of their bodies golden.
He barely had the strength to stand alone, but when he stretched out his fingers, the leader of the little herd (he has since named her Anka) snaked her head forward to sniff his palm. And then her rough tongue licked him and she walked forward, and her small calf, one of the younger ones, came up to nose at his legs.
Something cracked open inside him, then and there. Some great reluctance, some secret part of him long hidden away, gave way like a river breaking through a dam, and his heart swelled, tears prickling his eyes, and he would have fallen to his knees, then and there, if Nasir had not put a steadying arm around him.
"Let's get you to bed, all right? It's been a long day."
As his strength returns, the cows become his responsibility. He milks them, morning and night, sitting on a little stool and tipping the milk from the bucket under the cow into a bucket behind him, to keep it clean. The cows stand peaceful for him, chewing hay, chewing their cud.
Three months after they arrive, one of them (Rosetta), who is not milking, is soon due to calve. He knows by the fullness in her udder, by the slight weakness in the bones at her tailhead. At night she lies up in her stall, and he watches as her side jumps, with the calf within kicking.
The first time it happens it makes his heart stutter to see.
The second time he smiles to himself, and pats her side.
The cows all take to him, quicker than he had any right to expect. They accept his hands on them, under them. Some of the calves follow him as he fixes the stone walls and fences.
Rosetta delivers a tiny little daughter, who is curled asleep in the straw when Erik goes out one morning. And it is that night when he works up the energy to play his violin, standing in the middle of the barn. And the calves settle down to sleep listening to him play. And the cows are quiet as he leaves them.
Anka is asleep, her head tucked into her side, and even in her sleep she snuffles at the straw beneath her.
He quietly slips out, back to the house, where Nasir is sipping tea and reading a book, his feet propped up. Darius has already retired to bed, and it is only the two of them, left alone by the fire.
Afterwards, Erik will not know what possessed him. Some sentiment of old, fought off decades ago. The newfound warmth in his heart. Either possibility. Or both. But it catches him off guard when he leans in, and brushes his lips gently over Nasir's forehead.
And his breath hitches.
Nasir stares up at him, lips parted, and Erik understands less what possesses him when he bows his head again, and kisses him again, ever so lightly, on his lips.
And when Nasir softly leans in, and kisses him back, Erik sinks to his knees, and wraps his arms around him. Nasir's hand comes to rest on the back of his neck, draws him closer. And there is nothing, nothing in the world, that could possibly be better than this.