“[…] They have this fuel, which is their love, that Andy doesn’t have and Booker’s character doesn’t have, and that creates that balance within this team, and you can only imagine what it would be like if Joe would lose Nicky. That would be such a disastrous impact on their being.” (Marwan Kenzari on Joe and Nicky’s relationship)
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… if Joe would lose Nicky.
Not “if one of them died” or “if they lost each other” or even “if Joe died,” but instead, it is if Joe would lose Nicky.
Honestly, that gives the “his heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worthy of” a whole new perspective. I can’t help picturing Joe living with this constant fear of losing Nicky because Nicky, quite frankly, puts himself in danger way more than Joe does. Maybe if it were up to Joe, Nicky and him would just retire to a little house in Rabat (the one in Malta, of course) and then live in peace for the next millennia. But he knows that’s not gonna happen because that’s not “what we do.”
I am not saying Joe doesn’t care about the people they save, but he’s clearly the pragmatic one between the two of them. Joe knows that “good” and “bad” is something that History will sort out later and they have little saying in that. But Nicky? Nicky is the idealist one. He believes in destiny, in fighting for what you think it’s right.
He’s the one, after all, who left his home, took the cross and then marched two thousand miles just because he thought it was the right thing to do. He died his first death fighting for something he believed was a righteous cause, and I bet Joe is terrified that Nicky’s last one is going to be for the same reasons. Only, this time he may not be able to follow him into his eternity.
We get to see Joe being overprotective of Nicky throughout the whole movie mostly because Nicky is the one constantly putting himself in harm’s way, to defend Joe and the others. In South Sudan, Nicky opens the helicopter’s door, looks around, waiting for everyone to get off. Then, he takes the rear-guard as they walk, which is the most vulnerable position in case of a surprise attack. It’s a conscious decision, and he does it all the time. Even when they are sleeping, he’s always between Joe and the world, a weapon at hand.
When they get ambushed in the church, Joe is closer to the door, but it’s Nicky who takes longer to recover in the van. Why? We don’t see it, but he must have jumped straight to Joe and Booker, instead of taking cover or even escaping.
So Joe really does need to check if Nicky’s okay and he fights the fear in his heart with over-the-top romantic speeches and dark humour, because he loves this man beyond measure and reason and that love has been building up for the last 900 hundred years, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if he loses Nicky first.
So he holds Nicky as they sleep not because he thinks he’s protecting him. He knows Nicky doesn’t need protection, but Nicky knows Joe needs some reassurance.
I can just picture Joe waking up from a nightmare and holding Nicky tightly until he wakes up too, intertwines their fingers together and asks Joe about his dreams. After, Nicky turns around to face him and says in his “everything happens for a reason” voice that he knows they will leave that world together when it’s their time and Joe wishes he could believe in destiny and reasons the same way Nicky does.
By the end of the movie, when Copley goes on and on about “the good you’ve done for humanity” and Nile says “Maybe this is the why, Andy” this is the face that Nicky makes:
The little smirk. The “I always knew it” face.
But this one is Joe’s:
He just saw the love of his life being tortured, then shot in the head, and he knows they will keep doing this again and again, saving a world that most of the time is not worthy of Nicky’s kindness. And maybe Joe does not believe in destiny, but he believes in Nicky. And that’s enough.
