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“Stay.”
The fraught rasp of Dick’s voice is oddly diffident: the clipped pronouncement more plea than command.
It’s a tone Lew’s never heard from him before - Dick’s fabled stoicism legendary to a fault - but the loathsome depravity they’d witnessed at the camp near Landsberg went beyond the accepted horrors of war, and to see the fear, the disgust, the futile, crushing guilt reflected in Dick’s hunched form inevitably knocks him for six.
Christ knows there’s no discernible logic to war. They’ve all accepted that. Every life matters, and the best a man can do is try not to brood on those they’ve lost. Yet the memory of those prisoners? Captive skeletons, in the main - nothing but skin and bones and sheer force of will beneath their ragged clothing - was completely fucking harrowing.
The impotent fury that raged inside him was unlike anything Lew’d ever experienced.
He’d wanted to sob.
To vomit.
To drown his sins in a bottle of Kraut liquor, then funnel his frustration into a white-knuckled punch.
Though in what specific order he cared not which.
Most of all, however, he’d wanted to take Dick in his arms: a vain and wistful attempt to shelter him from the storm.
Dick, who’d been hell-bent on not losing it in front of their men, his exhaustion evident as he formulated plans and relayed orders right up to the point Lew’d swallowed down the bile in his throat and nudged him towards an idling jeep; bypassing a mound of callously discarded corpses to urge him into the passenger seat.
Martial law was in effect, and he’d been worryingly still, had Dick, when Lew jumped behind the wheel and put it in gear: his expression chillingly blank as he’d peered straight ahead in a shell-shocked stupor, his balled up fists looking like an open wound. In all honesty, Lew’d feared he was gonna pop a vein, and by the time they’d escaped the German forest his own thoughts were clouded by a pervasive numbness he hadn’t felt since the snow-covered void of the Bois Jacques.
Clearly, Dick was faring little better, but when they’d pulled up beside his commandeered two-story he’d glanced from the abandoned ground-floor metzgerei to the timbered apartment above, summoning forth the ghost of a smile. The gesture was somewhat reassuring as he’d retired to his billet with a whispered goodnight, so Lew’d left him to it for a while; returning to his own lodgings across the street in hopes of patching up his threadbare composure.
No simple task with the putrid stench of death irrevocably steeped into his cursed uniform.
Out of sight, but not out of mind, he’d stripped, showered, and changed like the Devil was hot on his heels - banishing the filthy garments to the bottom of his kit bag. Like so many maps and edicts, the images seemed branded to the backs of his eyelids, and certain he’d be unable to sleep with such nightmarish visions he’d topped up his flask with every intention of seeking out a diversionary card game. Relieving Speirs of some Nazi silver, maybe, if fortune favoured the damned.
Ultimately, the thumping drumbeat of concern proved impossible to ignore, and plagued by uncertainty, Lew’d shuffled back to Dick’s quarters not twenty minutes later, only to find him slumped at the foot of his wrought-iron bed, blinking at his mud-covered boots in a monochrome pool of moonlight.
“Dick? You okay?” he’d asked over the tick, tick, tick of an ornate carriage clock, and Dick, who was usually a pretty convincing liar - even if he rarely partook - offered up a nod so mechanical Lew’d wanted nothing more than to wipe it from existence. “You sure?”
Another nod, barely stronger than the previous.
Not buying it for a second, Lew hadn’t known what to say - how to give him what he needed - and reluctant to leave he’d wavered on the threshold: right hand clenching the polished brass doorknob when Dick’s one-word outburst effectively shattered the stalemate.
“Stay,” he’d said, tremulous but sincere.
A benediction, almost: that lone, hallowed syllable striking a deliberate chord.
And Lew’s never had much faith in the traditional sense. In truth, Dick’s become the sole totem of his convictions. So here he is. Caught off balance as he turns to see Dick now angled towards him: the humble request written large across his weary features. Emblazoned in the plaintive furrow of his brow. The erratic bob of his Adam’s apple. The subdued set of his shoulders. But it’s his eyes - and the raw, unguardedness within - that tell the whole story, and when Lew stares shamelessly into them, he knows.
He knows exactly what Dick’s thinking.
What he’s asking.
Because he’d resigned himself years ago, had Lew, to the inappropriateness of his feelings. The unapologetic attachment they’d forged at Fort Benning. Such steadfast friendship should have been prize enough, but Mrs Nixon’s baby boy hadn’t merely fallen in love, he’d plummeted heart-first without a ‘chute. And this? This isn’t just stay for a while. This is stay with me tonight. Better yet, it’s stay with me tomorrow, and the day after that, too.
This is Dick laying his cards on the proverbial table, and Lew - not at all averse to raising the stakes - makes a silent vow to stay with him forever.
Impulse might be the instrument of fools, but he’s been desperate to hold him for far too long, and when a choking sigh rattles his chest he doesn’t so much as cough to contain it. Instead, Lew gathers his wits and bolts the door - an illusion of safety as much as a deterrent for those who might court Dick’s attention - then hurriedly closes the distance between them; both palms framing Dick’s stricken face as he whispers words of broken comfort; the uncharacteristic prick of stubble catching against his livewire skin.
“I’m sorry,” Dick rasps; the last vestiges of rank and restraint tumbling by the wayside as fumbling fingers clutch in turn.
“Don’t be,” Lew tells him, equally struggling to process such grotesque hatred. “Jesus, Dick. Cut yourself some slack, yeah? No one in their right mind would walk away from that place unscathed.” Dick frowns, but doesn’t disagree as Lew smooths a thumb over the apple of his cheek. “Listen,” he continues, buffing their foreheads together. “What d’ya say we lie down for a bit? Take advantage of these fancy digs?”
“Nix…”
“Mind outta the gutter, Major,” he teases, thighs aching from the crouch. “No funny business, I swear. Let's just get ourselves comfortable: pull back and regroup.”
Dick scoffs. “You know I hate to retreat,” he says, capitulating nonetheless as someone hollers on the street outside, and well-aware of his fastidious nature, Lew encounters a vague feeling of accomplishment when he not only remembers to draw the heavy blackout curtains, but remove their jackets and jump boots before joining him below the musty sheets.
“Scoot over.”
Dick grunts. “There’s no more room to scoot.”
In any event, the single mattress creaks with their combined weight, yet safe from prying eyes he nuzzles the stiff barrier of Dick’s collar, their bent knees slotting together as Lew snakes an arm across his midsection, hand flat upon Dick’s ODs to pull him flush against him. The other, he tunnels beneath their shared pillow, and they drift, the pair of them: half-conscious but safe as they straddle the knife’s edge of anticipation: something elemental waiting on the other side.
“I’m tired, Lew,” Dick mutters absently, grasping him by the wrist. “I’m just… so, so tired...” Blunt nails dig through the drab cotton of his cuff; visceral and bruising, yet inherently grounding. “Those people -”
“We can’t save everyone, Dick.”
“I know.”
“And not for the lack of trying,” Lew stresses, his next exhalation a tougher job than usual as Dick’s thumb ventures to his jackrabbit pulse. “But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? That’s why we fight? To defend the ones who cannot protect themselves. To save them from the things folks back home couldn’t even comprehend.”
Dick rolls over, putting unbearable inches between them. His eyes are closed - underscored by matching shadows - and with their fates already sealed Lew combs his fingers through that burnished-copper hair, causing his tear-damp lashes to flutter open.
“You’re a good man, Lew,” Dick says, the tension leaching out of him in increments, even if it’s the greatest misconception since Berlin by Christmas.
“My father might argue that toss.”
“To heck with your father,” Dick mutters: reading him like a book, soothing him like a lover. “There’s a whole other world beyond his expectations.”
“Just as there’s a whole other life beyond this madness,” Lew insists, stretching out the kinks in his neck. “We make war that we may live in peace: according to Aristotle.”
“D’you really believe that?”
“Peace is subjective,” Lew mutters, picturing the signed divorce papers and bleak, windowless office that awaits him in New Jersey. “One man’s Heaven is another man’s Hell. There’s no set blueprint for happiness.”
“Maybe not,” Dick replies, squeezing his nape with a surreptitious sniff. “But I reckon a quiet plot of land would do us wonders.”
Lew smirks. “You can take the farmer out of Lancaster county…” he drawls - melting like spun-sugar in his palm - and Dick huffs; thick, woolen socks bracketing his ankle like they’ve always belonged there.
“How many times do I have to tell you? Just ‘cause I’m from Pennsylvania, doesn’t mean I’m a farmer.”
“Easy, Winters.” Lew grumbles, burying his face in Dick’s scratchy jaw. “Don’t go ruining my fantasy. I’m itching to see you milk a cow.”
“Lord almighty…” Dick’s chuckle is rusty, but there’s a decisiveness in his gaze. A challenge, likewise. A question and a plea all in one. “I’m going to kiss you, Lewis Nixon.”
His tone brooks no objections.
There are none Lew wishes to give.
“And here I thought you were the brains of this outfit,” he says, dizzy with need as his chin tips up, Dick’s slants down, and their wretched mouths meet somewhere in the middle.
It takes a moment to find their rhythm, but Dick’s lips are just as soft as he’d imagined, and when Lew traces the seam his tiny gasp sends a shiver shooting up the length of his spine.
Teeth scrape, but don’t bite. Tongues dip, but don’t delve. Patience is a virtue - of which ordinarily he has few - but cradling the hinge of Dick’s jaw they learn each other in clumsy caresses and sipping breaths: nerves giving way to covetous greed as Lew’s fingers tighten against his scalp.
Not pulling. Just anchoring.
A reminder that this is real.
“You sure this is what you want?” he pants, noting the rapid rise and fall of Dick’s sternum: the thumb that brushes his lower lip as if comparing the sensations; committing it to memory. “You and me?”
“Me and you,” Dick confirms, skimming his nose from carotid to ear.
He looks calm - he looks resolute - he looks like salvation, and that’s all the incentive Lew needs to kiss him again: letting the dormant potential simmer and flare as his heart trips over itself; reborn, he believes, in the cathartic freedom therein.