Bask in your Light a While
Characters: Winters/Nixon
Based on the HBO mini series Band of Brothers and is not intended to represent any real people. No infringement intended and no profit is being made.
October 1944 Schoonderlogt, Holland
It's late and Nix has come sauntering up the stairs to the attic where his best friend is quartered, in search of a drink (Vat 69, hidden in Dick's footlocker) and some company, only to find Dick still sitting behind the typewriter that's all but replaced the M1 Garand since his promotion to battalion XO. Nix fills his flask and studies the other man. Dick's brow is deeply furrowed and his lips are tightly drawn, the picture of excruciating concentration as he types.
"Enough work for tonight!" Nix proclaims, sliding aside a stack of reports and requisitions and hopping up on to the desk. He throws Dick a boyish smile, mischief glinting in his dark eyes. Dick smiles back, the corners of his lips turning up only slightly as he straightens the papers that Nix has disturbed. Nix tips back his flask, offers it to Dick, who shakes his head, as he always does. They sit, Nix kicking the legs of the desk with his heels as he swings his feet, and Dick in his chair, back straight, hands laced behind his head, not speaking, just sitting and smiling. They have whole conversations like this, silent, eyes and lips only, no words needed.
Nix breaks the silence. "Do you have any idea what you look like right now?" His voice is husky, almost a whisper, as he drinks in the whisky and the sight of Dick with the lamplight in his copper hair.
Dick is amused. "Unless I've grown another head, I assume I look the same as I did when I shaved this morning, Lew." He pulls the sheet of paper from the typewriter and sets it on top of a stack of forms, that little smile still tugging at his lips.
Nix rises and comes around the desk, standing over Dick, who looks up at him with those patient, gentle eyes, blue, sometimes green. There is a hint of question in those eyes and they search his friend's face for answers. Nix is overcome, and it's not just the booze, no, it's more than that. Dick's face is pale, freckles standing out against white skin, he's still smiling, and Nix can't help it, he's bending down, his hands are stroking Dick's cheek, cupping his face, and his lips are brushing the other man's lips, for just a second, and then Dick is breathing heavily against Nix's mouth before placing his hands on his chest, pushing him back and laughing.
"Cut that out Lew! I'm not your wife!"
And Nix steps back, not too quickly, also laughing. "Thank God for that! Jesus Christ, Dick, you'd drive me up the wall, what with your being so perfect all the time!" He is sarcastic as he shoots Dick an insolent grin, grabs another bottle from the footlocker and then disappears down the stairs without another word.
Dick stares after his friend, his skin flushed and his breath unsteady. Lew must have had an awful lot to drink tonight, he tells himself as he licks his lips, now tasting faintly of Vat 69.
Nix strolls out into the night air with the scent of Dick's soap lingering in his nostrils, surprised and pleased with the results of his impulsive act. Dick may have pushed him away, but Nix knows him better than anyone in the world, can read volumes in his silences and in his barely there smiles, and he knows that he did not imagine the way his best friend had responded in the brief instant when their lips had touched. Nix smiles and resolves to try again, soon.