A/N: This is in no way meant to represent the actual heroes of Easy Company; it's only based on the chemistry of the characters, as played by Damian Lewis and Ron Livingston. That being said, it's only a story. Please don't flame.

Never Overly Affectionate

Dick Winters was never one to ruin perfectly calm moments without reason. He grasped hopefully at them whenever they came. These days they rarely arrived without barking, troublesome company, always drawing weapons and cracking evenly blue skies into tumbling, hot, burning, and screaming opera scenes that ripped the hearts and souls from men in its unstoppable passion. Clumsiness and rashness had never suited him in the first place, being raised so carefully as he was. His sensibility and steady hand had come from his parents and now he knew the reason to sit and simply say nothing for hours. The peppered sounds of gunfire, distant but permanent, damaging things nonetheless, remind him of that now.

The touch of the keys comfort him at this late hour. Even if they do echo the shots even after conflict has settled in the distance, it keeps his thoughts and the blood red, white-blanched memories of war and a blue-eyed enemy soldier from creeping up on him. There's something about dreaming that gives them the time and power to organize, strategize, execute a complicated attack plan. There's little covering fire for a nightmare. So, when there is an excuse to renege on sleeping, he takes it gratefully.

Recounting missions in reports draws him gently away from reality, until there is only the rhythmic clack, the raised lump of paint on the keys, and a filmy, harmless recollection of the day translating itself onto the page. The only real interruption of this is the pause to change the page for a new, untouched one, to shift his boots beneath the table—and, as of 2302 hours, a pair of feet thumping up the stairs.

Winter's twitches his mouth, curling it into a small, subtle smile. Nixon's never been gentle of step, and he can hear the influence of his favorite substance giving them even more weight. The clack of forming words fades as Winters stops and looks evenly over at his friend, past typewriter, past glass lantern glowing.

His friend's voice enters the room first, followed by the black, messy fringe he develops after drinking and running his fingers through his hair. "Still up. Why doesn't that surprise me?" Nixon stops to observe the surroundings with a squinting, inky stare and wets his mouth with a generous swig as he twists his head. "Course, I wouldn't sleep in this place much either. Reminds me of my goddamn grandmother's room."

"That doesn't explain why you're up, Nix," Winters responds, putting his elbows on the table and slouching forward.

The green vat separates from his mouth again, leaving a warm, alcoholic ring on his lips, which he licks off and savors it with a good sigh. He nods his head, leaving the staircase to wander completely into the room. When his throat finally clears, he speaks, only encouraged by the whiskey. "Well, I'm quartered in a shit hole myself. Thought I'd come bother you for a while. You still working on those mission reports?"

Winters shakes his head and sighs, readjusting his elbows on the desk. "Yep. Someone's got to finish them."

"You lucky bastard, you," Nixon drawls. Noisily dragging his boots as he walks, he drags an antique chair in which to collapse in front of Dick's desk, the back facing his typewriter and his chest pressed tight against the backing. The opaque glass of his drink glints dusted emerald as it dances between his fingers, being twisted back and forth in thought. Winters watches him watch the candlelight on the bottle, and he furrows his brow slightly, noticing the absolute attention it gets, as if it were passing on some secret bit of information. In German, no doubt. Dark brows hide his inky stare for a moment, dirt black hair wild from drink, and Winters chuckles silently as his frame shakes with a hiccup.

He means to casually turn back to the typewriter, to note where he had been interrupted in his narration, but Nixon catches him observing his drunken state, and, though it takes another half-moment for his eyes to focus through the gentle touch of whiskey, he notices before Winters turns completely away. "Hey," he drawls impulsively, pausing to lick his lips clean. "You hungry?"

Winters tilts his head. "No. Why?"

"You're eyeing my dinner, that's why," he grins in return, summoning up his old spunk through his intoxication. To punctuate it, he swings the neck of the bottle back up to his mouth and laughs against the rim.

"If that's your idea of dinner, I'm glad I don't rely on you for my meals."

"When you get sick of army grub, Dick—" He flaunts the bottle in front of him, his movements short, sloppy. "She'll treat you pretty nice."

Winters lowers his head and shakes off the smile that grows in response. "I'm good." And, with that, the initial wordiness leads into that inevitable quiet place that follows between best friends, those who have faced the nasty faces of the world at each other's side, and Dick smiles to himself. A feeling rises up in his chest and then settles in, so thin it can hardly be touched but too thick to be broken. He sort of enjoys the fact he can drone safely back out into the typing of mission reports without once startling at some minute movement Nixon gives in his edge vision.

Winters returns completely back to the realm of keys and hazy recollections, and only a little while later, after a moment's consideration, he draws a completed set of reports from the typewriter's jaws. The long strips of paper are stacked on top of each other before he sets him on the corner of his desk, to be delivered the next morning. He startles at the abrupt noise of glass clattering to the floorboards, sloshing noisily as the last few gulps of alcohol spill to the ground, unused.

Nixon has fallen dead drunk across the back of the chair, snoring a little as the noise bothers him, but eventually he settles back into awfully silent sleep. The sight takes a moment to register, as the wasted adrenaline diminishes and leaves Dick slightly drained, filled with jumpy energy. A deep breath helps to wash it away, and he then snorts to himself. The top of Nixon's disheveled head lines up perfectly with the clean, horizontal line of the typewriter, his tufts of uncombed black hair protruding like broken keys. Dick shakes his head and stands from the desk, taking the time to stretch out a few knots in his back.

Not all of them will come untied with just a simple stretch, but, for once, he doesn't have to stand so rigidly, fearlessly straight—there are no men to inspire here, at this moment.

"Just you, Nix," he mutters, as he straightens out and finds himself staring down at the drunk lump lying there. "And you aren't even listening."

The Dutch night is quiet and the white walls which so reminded Nixon of his grandparents, a mysterious unknown pair to Dick, seem to enclose the tiny sound he makes in sleepy response to that, amplifying it just enough to be heard. It seems sleep has not yet wiped him out, is only drawing him slowly down. He grunts gracelessly within his mouth and it hums behind his whiskey-sealed lips like muffled music.

Dick arches his eyebrow at this, honestly amused.

His chin rests, jutting oddly, on the back of the wooden chair. He can't help but wonder how much his friend has imbibed this night, to fall so heavily asleep in such an uncomfortable place. Nixon is not a man to grit his teeth and bare it when there's perfectly good mattress available. There will be a hellish stomach in the morning to deal with, he's sure. But Nixon can usually bear those with little more than a bleary-stare and an unhappy disposition for a while. One arm drapes itself lazily on his knee, and the other hangs limply at his side, where he has been clutching weakly at the foggy bottle for the last few minutes. His shoulders, normally soldier rigid, collapse into an equally uncoordinated lump to match, rising and sinking slow.

The corner of Dick's mouth quirks to the side, revealing the lines of worry and life etched into his face in the dim light. Without making too much noise in his boots, he walks around the desk and bends down to pick up the bottle, blubbering out the last drops of booze as it rolls gently to a stop, the opaque glass bearing a spider web of a fracture where it hit the floor. He twists it around in his hand, observing it, and then sniffs the open lip for a moment.

Alcohol greets him, sharp, bright, and a tad pungent to the nose. Then, it's a little sweet, and slightly bitter. He supposes it fits Nix. He only hopes he knows his limits with his mistress of choice as well as he knows his limits in battle. Lewis Nixon knows enough, is steeled enough not to cower in his foxhole at the bark of gunfire, but neither will he charge headlong, lion-hearted into the fray. That's 'your area of hell,' as his saying goes.

He stands up, considering the bottle, then puts it to the side, resting it on the desk. He decides to leave the spilt alcohol to soak into these old floorboards—they've probably seen their fair share of it already. He watches instead Nixon's linear face droop into sleep, lips parting as he starts to snore. It reminds him of the Toccoa face—last glimpsed eagerly bragging about breaking into Dick's footlocker without his notice on the train—before war had sharpened it to a fine, bitter point that cuts him when he appears lost and tired.

Dick Winters was also never one to forget the human need for contact, especially when wounds, physical or located somewhere deeper, troubled them. He was the first to clasp a man by the shoulder, comfort him with a calm presence at his side, flash a small, grim smile and offer a hand. And though bullets didn't chew the ground at his feet now, he felt that same instinct rise up, watching Nix slump further and further onto the chair.

Quit looking at me like that!

Yeah, Dick can imagine his face had been terrible to witness or something—but that bullet had bitten close.

He pushes out a tired, worried sigh and reaches down to the top of Nixon's head, patting his misbehaved hair down in vain. Automatically, the tip of his thumb reaches down to circle the mild bruise that his hair attempts to hide, just at the top of his forehead. Where the bullet biting into his helmet struck with so much force it burned through steel. Where, had he been even the smallest bit taller, or turned to face Dick, would have drilled cleanly through his skull, propelling blood like a cork flies from a champagne bottle. The passage of days and nights doesn't soften the memory, and the lurch of terror so sincere it comes back as white nothing in his chest and head.

Am I alright?

There could have been so much blood, his palm supporting the back of his startled friend's head could have easily instead have been a poor bandage for a dying man, a sieve that could catch none of the blood pouring out from him. He could have lost all that time, all those words he'd given to Nix in that moment, beginning with a tink, a normally harmless sound, ending with… what? Nix bleeding out in his arms? Dragging Mrs. Nixon's baby boy back by his unresponsive arms that no longer reach to punch him in the shoulder? Typing the letter? The death letter, always proud and calm, reassuring all that mourned him he'd left as a soldier, a hero? That he'd left him behind?

He's only too happy to settle for a hazily drunk Nixon instead, too happy to have been pushed forcibly off, to have his hands ripped off Nixon's shaking arm, and snapped at. Snapped at for staring at him.

"Yeah, you're alright, Lew," he tells him, his hand reflexively jumping back to its original position, cradling the back of his head, fingering around for traces of an exit hole.

Dick Winters was never a man for unnecessary things. But for now, it seems completely necessary to hold his hand there, making sure no deadly wound sprouts out the back of Nixon's head when no one's watching. At the back of his mind, he wonders again what he might have looked like, and wonders if Nixon knows it would have been a lot worse to stand his face if he'd really been dying.

Nixon mutters again in his sleep. This time the corners of his brows draw together and he grumbles a roll of slurred words, probably only connected to his dreams. As light as the sound makes his heart—this knowledge of life it gives him—Dick knows he has to wake him. He'll be more upset in the morning if he lies there all night and awakes with a rickety, foxhole back for no reason. Sleep comes only sparing to a soldier, and the back of his head is strangely comfortable, but he draws his hand away to shake his shoulder.

"Nix."

Strangely, there comes no grunt at this. Usually, it's low and tinged with an utter loathing to wake in the least, sometimes curling around to lash harmlessly at Dick himself, declaring an inhuman force—but mostly just grumbling, "Go away."

Dick stands just a few inches away, staring down at the counterclockwise curl of Nix's dark hair, and grimaces. "Lew, come on, up." He pats his shoulder again, more firmly this time, and still, no response. With a sigh, he realizes he's probably drunk past his limits again this night, steadily pushing them towards some terrible vanishing point, and will be solidly unconscious for hours and hardly conscious for even longer after that. No point in beating a dead-drunk horse, he supposes.

"Alright, come on," he mutters to himself, glancing about.

All he has is his own bed. "You owe me, Lew," he mutters finally, crouching, pulling Nixon's limp arm over his shoulder, and snaking his own under his far shoulder, lurching upwards. The first attempt, Nixon's dead weight seems reluctant to shift, as comfortably as it has slumped over its original resting place. But, with a bit of grit, and a tighter grip, Dick manages to pull Nix to his feet, and his body seems to reflexively stiffen up, recognizing his weight on his own feet again. His head lolls backwards, brow drawing tighter in discomfort, but eventually smoothes back out again.

Dick stops, feeling the heat of whiskey-warmed breath run a breezy trail down his neck. Nixon's neck lolls forward again, burying his nose between the tense sinew's of Winter's neck and shoulder. And this time, he's not sure if it was gravity rolling it back. When he turns to glance over at Nix's sleeping face, he can feel the side of his face brush the welt-red bruise lingering there. A bullet's kiss, full of mercy and damaging in the same breath.

Dick Winters was never a man to be overly affectionate, to stop and smell the roses as the pastoral saying goes, but he remembers feeling, even for a false moment, that he'd lost his best friend in the world, the only person who will ever know exactly what he means when he says three miles, or jokes about a footlocker, to a strayed bullet and a lurch backwards. So, he stands there, smelling the smoke and tinge of alcohol in Nixon's hair as his face presses just below his chin, just to know that he's still there.

Then, when he's finally decided to break the moment, feeling it fill him too full to understand, and put Nix in bed, where his body happily adjusts to the mattress, he says, "You owe me, Lew. For scaring me like that." He peels off his boots, climbs into the spacious box-frame and over the drunken lump to lie down and sleep. He looks at the back of Lewis Nixon's head, tries to smooth it out again, and then smiles and drifts off when it doesn't succeed.