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Del (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} big_bad_wolf) wrote,@ 2007-05-31 18:08:00 |
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Band of Brothers (5)
Title: Kiss Me Like You Mean It.
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Rating: PG-13. Possibly R if you're really sensitive.
Word count: 2,296
Pairing: Winters/Nixon
Disclaimer: This is speculative fiction based on the HBO miniseries, and is not intended to a) earn money or b) depict or in any way demean the real men the series was based on.
Notes: Sequel to Five Different Approaches to the Same Problem, which was the sequel to You Don't Remember Paris, Hon (But It Remembers You. Also, Emo!Nix!
It took most of Sunday for Nix to crack. There was silence through Saturday, and silence through breakfast on Sunday. Silence and hedging met his every attempt at conversation until he was feeling less contrite and more aggravated. He finally cornered Dick as he returned from dealing with letters, probably interrupting a long over-due report that Nix couldn't have cared any less about if it had been detailing the contents of Eisenhower's sock drawer.
"Dick."
"Mmm?"
"Look, I'm going crazy here," he said, the words coming out in a rush of held breath. "Whatever it was I did, it obviously bothers you. Will you please tell me what I've done to offend you so I can apologise for it properly?"
It didn't prove the crowbar he needed to get an open response, though. Dick just looked at him with a coolness Nix had never experienced before and said calmly, "If you really don't remember I think it's better for you if you don't know."
Ice ran down Nix's spine like condensation down the side of a beer glass. He swallowed. "Was what I did really that terrible?" And behind the words he couldn't help the mute pleading that crept into his eyes; please don't let it have been what I think it is. Don't let me have broken this friendship. In that moment he considered becoming a devout man, just so he could petition God for clemency. So he could make this not be as fucked-up as he suspected it was going to be.
Dick's face softened a little, and Nix allowed himself to breathe. "It's not what you did, it's what I did."
Nix held his breath again.
Dick sighed. "I lost control. It won't happen again. I don't want to spoil your good opinion of me, Lew."
Nix realised it was time to play his hand. "Dick." He bridged the gap between them, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder almost regretfully. "I found teeth marks. On my ass. I want to know what happened or it's going to bother me for the rest of my life."
Dick's face went as red as his hair. "I suppose I do owe you an explanation," he acknowledged, not catching Nix's eye. He did remove Nix's had, very gently, as though it was made of paper, with both of his own. He let Nix's hand drop away from him.
"Well?"
"It all started because you were adamant I should see Montmartre," Dick began. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, and settled for clasping them behind his back.
"What was I doing in Paris anyhow? I thought I was back to Aldbourne to look up Mary …"
"You said someone had to make sure I had fun and didn't spend all weekend worrying about supplies," Dick said with a wry smile, "and apparently this was to involve Montmartre. You went on a tear when we got there, trying to find absinthe, and wouldn't listen when I told you it was outlawed years ago."
"Christ, I'm sorry," Nix licked his lips. So far, so typical. "Go on."
"You were kinda into it by then," Dick said with one of the small, fond smiles that Nix felt he'd been missing all day, all weekend since they'd returned. He felt a little better. "So I thought it was best to find us a hotel and put you to bed to sleep it off." Dick sighed. "But you didn't want bed, and started telling me you were going to find a prostitute."
Nix buried his face in his hands in dismay, but from between his fingers said only, "Go on."
"It would have been okay," Dick said, surprising him, "but you were insisting that we find you a boy -"
"What?"
"Yes. 'A nice French boy to fuck senseless' is what you said. About four times," Dick went on, going red as the f-word hit his palate and still managing to sound unimpressed.
"Christ, Dick, that word sounds obscene on you."
"It is an obscenity."
"On you it's worse."
"It didn't sound pristine on you either. I managed to convince you that … your plan … was a recipe for blackmail and court-martial, so you calmed down a bit and agreed to come to a hotel with me and get some sleep."
Nix took his face out of his hands and nodded for Dick to continue, but it was a wasted gesture. His friend was staring at the ceiling and all but wringing his hands. Nix cleared his throat. "Go on."
"The proprietor was very understanding," Dick began, and his voice cracked. He stopped, composed himself and tried again. "I was intending to put you to bed."
"Didn't you?"
"Oh I did. Eventually." Dick's cheeks were burning like coals. "Look, can I skip this part? It makes you sound complicit."
"Maybe I was," Nix shrugged, and said in a very serious voice, "Dick, I want to know."
Dick nodded almost wearily. "I thought you would, but I had to try." He clasped his hands behind him like a pastor and went back to studying the ceiling. "I was helping you get your boots off," he went on, "because you were having difficulty with the laces. And you …" he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and Nix started. It was a very un-Dick gesture, and his hand wobbled as he did it.
"I what?" Nix prompted, staring at Dick's hand.
"You tried to kiss me, Lew. On the mouth." Dick didn't sound as disapproving as he might, as the words came out in a rush – but Nix's blood still ran cold in his veins, and his head began to feel detached from his body, from the room, the way it always did when something too emotional happened near him. He'd gone through his entire wedding ceremony feeling like his brain was on the moon.
"And then what?" he said, trying to sound jovial. "You socked me one, I suppose. My face is still kinda sore. I definitely earned that, though." Nix felt his jaw; it hurt a lot, and there had been a hint of a bruise that morning. He thought, poor Dick and did not challenge the rationality of it.
"Ah, no," Dick said softly, not looking at him. "No. I'm afraid I … I kissed you back, Lew."
He looked distraught, guilty, red as beets, but Nix couldn't help laughing. "That's it? That's all? Geez, Dick, you had me really worried … for a minute … there …" he trailed off, remembering the tooth-marks. One look at Dick's averted face was all it took to confirm it, and he sobered immediately. "That's … not it. Is it?"
"No." Dick wouldn't look at him at all, apparently mesmerised by the ceiling rafters. "No, it's not."
Nix chewed his lip. "Go on."
"I'm not sure I can."
"Dick, please."
Dick spread his hands and sighed. "Your face hurts because I held it too hard while I was kissing you. Very enthusiastically, and, I suspect, not very well. As up to this Friday I hadn't exactly kissed anyone before. Not like that. And certainly not … a friend." Dick struggled for words, his eyes searching the beams as if looking for some celestial dictionary. "And although you were the worse for drink –"
"Or better," Nix said, half-heartedly. It was taking a great deal of effort on his part not to gape like an idiot.
"Lew," Dick said sternly, "you are never the better for drink."
Nix thought about it. "Yeah. Go on."
"Well, you clearly had." Dick looked so uncomfortable that Nix wanted to pat him on the shoulder and tell him everything was going to be okay, even though he was kinda sure it wouldn't be. Instead he smiled inanely and said:
"I am married."
"You were also raving about rent boys less than thirty minutes before," Dick pointed out.
"Ah. I, uh, I have some explaining to do, don't I?" Nix said, his breath catching in his throat. Who had heard him, while he was too drunk to have any sense of propriety? And what the hell had Dick thought of it?
"So do I," Dick reminded him, flushing pink again.
"Right. You do. Go on." Nix swallowed, ran a hand through his hair, completely failing to flatten it, and waited.
"Are you sure you want to hear this, Lew?" Dick murmured, staring intently at Nix's mouth now. It was an improvement on the ceiling, anyhow.
"Goddamnit, yes," Nix said impatiently. "All of it."
"You weren't as drunk as I'd thought, or you're better at undressing while inebriated than your penchant for sleeping in your clothes when you don't need to suggests," Dick went on, smiling again. It was brief and sudden and warming, cutting the sting from his words.
"I've had a lot of practice," Nix said, almost sour.
"But all of sudden you were naked and I … wasn't." Dick looked distant; Nix wondered if he was calling the memory to mind and, if he was, how it made him feel. His hands had clenched into tight fists, the knuckles turning even paler than usual. "And – Lew. I really don't want to tell you this –"
"Dick, please."
"It … excited me," Dick said, his face as red as Russia. He seemed stuck on the words again, choking them up past his tonsils with considerable difficulty, as though the shape of them hurt his mouth. "You naked. Me clothed." He twisted his hands around each other, and took a deep, shuddering breath apparently to stabilise himself. "God help me, it … I pushed you down onto the bed."
Nix felt something stir in his insides; if Dick was excited by this, or had been, there was simply no word for what the idea of such a situation was doing to him. He hoped he at least looked more together than he felt.
"And," he said, managing by some miracle to keep his voice steady.
"I took your …" Dick made a helpless gesture, and finally caught Nix's eye in passing, his gaze on its way to some other point of distraction, "Your …your Johnson in my mouth." He looked fidgety, unstable. It was beyond shocking to see him like this, but Nix was having a much harder time concentrating on not letting on how much even this hesitant, fumbling account of events was getting to him. His clothes felt too small – too warm, and too heavy. He wondered if this was what had prompted him to undress in Paris, this feeling of being constricted by layers of suffocating wool.
"Oh," Nix said, helpfully. "You, er, you – " he seemed to have caught Dick's primness, or lost the ability to connect actions with words. His hand worked its way up into his hairline at the back of his head, trying to dislodge his language skills. "You …"
"Blew you," Dick said, going even more scarlet. The phrase sounded so fantastically profane on his lips that Nix nearly went cross-eyed. On anyone else (except maybe David Webster, who wasn't much given to swearing even though he's frequently looked like he wanted to be) it would have seemed natural and unremarkable, just another foul moment in the daily dirty discourse, but on Dick it sounded outlandish.
"Christ," Nix murmured, and then, "So how did I … the teeth marks?"
"I really don't think I can explain," Dick said, looking and sounding as though he'd been sentence to a particularly warm purgatory. "I can only hope you'll forgive me. We both behaved in a manner unbecoming of an officer. Can we leave it at that?"
"You could show me," Nix said. He hadn't intended for it to come out at all, let along for it to be such a breathy, throaty whisper. "That is – oh, fuck -"
"I really don't think it should ever happen again," Dick said, somewhere between wistful and guilty, his cheeks glowing like beacons, so red it was a wonder they didn't burst. "Once was dangerous enough."
Nix noticed that he didn't say he hadn't liked it.
"I want it to," he said, aware that he sounded petulant and that he was potentially getting them both in more trouble than either could handle, potentially sabotaging both of their careers and destroying his family's reputation. The latter would almost be worth it on its own, he thought. "I want to remember this time, damnit, or it's just not fair." He segued into an uneasy laugh that had more than a tinge of hysteria in it. "Dick?"
The next thing he knew he'd been pinned to the unplastered wall by Dick's hips, rough stone digging into his spine, and a tongue halfway down his throat while Dick's hands clasped his chin to hold it steady.
"Ow, my face – " he blurted, pulling away.
"Sorry," Dick said breathlessly, though he did not sound very sorry at all. He kissed Nix again, pressing him into the wall, his hands touching on a hundred different smouldering hot spots all over Nix's body, like irons singeing away his uniform. He was a bad kisser, Nix noted with surprise, but he guessed that was lack of practice. There would, he hoped (as Dick's hands pulled at his shirt buttons), be plenty of time for practice now.
"Jesus," he added, as Dick's mouth slipped to his throat and he discovered that what seemed wrong and sloppy on his lips was ingenious against his unshaved neck. "Dick – " he lapsed into incoherence again, lost for words for once and reduced only to holding onto the back of his friend's head like a drowning man. "Fuck me," he managed, the right words finally falling into place, "dear God, please –"
Title: Kiss Me Like You Mean It.
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Rating: PG-13. Possibly R if you're really sensitive.
Word count: 2,296
Pairing: Winters/Nixon
Disclaimer: This is speculative fiction based on the HBO miniseries, and is not intended to a) earn money or b) depict or in any way demean the real men the series was based on.
Notes: Sequel to Five Different Approaches to the Same Problem, which was the sequel to You Don't Remember Paris, Hon (But It Remembers You. Also, Emo!Nix!
It took most of Sunday for Nix to crack. There was silence through Saturday, and silence through breakfast on Sunday. Silence and hedging met his every attempt at conversation until he was feeling less contrite and more aggravated. He finally cornered Dick as he returned from dealing with letters, probably interrupting a long over-due report that Nix couldn't have cared any less about if it had been detailing the contents of Eisenhower's sock drawer.
"Dick."
"Mmm?"
"Look, I'm going crazy here," he said, the words coming out in a rush of held breath. "Whatever it was I did, it obviously bothers you. Will you please tell me what I've done to offend you so I can apologise for it properly?"
It didn't prove the crowbar he needed to get an open response, though. Dick just looked at him with a coolness Nix had never experienced before and said calmly, "If you really don't remember I think it's better for you if you don't know."
Ice ran down Nix's spine like condensation down the side of a beer glass. He swallowed. "Was what I did really that terrible?" And behind the words he couldn't help the mute pleading that crept into his eyes; please don't let it have been what I think it is. Don't let me have broken this friendship. In that moment he considered becoming a devout man, just so he could petition God for clemency. So he could make this not be as fucked-up as he suspected it was going to be.
Dick's face softened a little, and Nix allowed himself to breathe. "It's not what you did, it's what I did."
Nix held his breath again.
Dick sighed. "I lost control. It won't happen again. I don't want to spoil your good opinion of me, Lew."
Nix realised it was time to play his hand. "Dick." He bridged the gap between them, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder almost regretfully. "I found teeth marks. On my ass. I want to know what happened or it's going to bother me for the rest of my life."
Dick's face went as red as his hair. "I suppose I do owe you an explanation," he acknowledged, not catching Nix's eye. He did remove Nix's had, very gently, as though it was made of paper, with both of his own. He let Nix's hand drop away from him.
"Well?"
"It all started because you were adamant I should see Montmartre," Dick began. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, and settled for clasping them behind his back.
"What was I doing in Paris anyhow? I thought I was back to Aldbourne to look up Mary …"
"You said someone had to make sure I had fun and didn't spend all weekend worrying about supplies," Dick said with a wry smile, "and apparently this was to involve Montmartre. You went on a tear when we got there, trying to find absinthe, and wouldn't listen when I told you it was outlawed years ago."
"Christ, I'm sorry," Nix licked his lips. So far, so typical. "Go on."
"You were kinda into it by then," Dick said with one of the small, fond smiles that Nix felt he'd been missing all day, all weekend since they'd returned. He felt a little better. "So I thought it was best to find us a hotel and put you to bed to sleep it off." Dick sighed. "But you didn't want bed, and started telling me you were going to find a prostitute."
Nix buried his face in his hands in dismay, but from between his fingers said only, "Go on."
"It would have been okay," Dick said, surprising him, "but you were insisting that we find you a boy -"
"What?"
"Yes. 'A nice French boy to fuck senseless' is what you said. About four times," Dick went on, going red as the f-word hit his palate and still managing to sound unimpressed.
"Christ, Dick, that word sounds obscene on you."
"It is an obscenity."
"On you it's worse."
"It didn't sound pristine on you either. I managed to convince you that … your plan … was a recipe for blackmail and court-martial, so you calmed down a bit and agreed to come to a hotel with me and get some sleep."
Nix took his face out of his hands and nodded for Dick to continue, but it was a wasted gesture. His friend was staring at the ceiling and all but wringing his hands. Nix cleared his throat. "Go on."
"The proprietor was very understanding," Dick began, and his voice cracked. He stopped, composed himself and tried again. "I was intending to put you to bed."
"Didn't you?"
"Oh I did. Eventually." Dick's cheeks were burning like coals. "Look, can I skip this part? It makes you sound complicit."
"Maybe I was," Nix shrugged, and said in a very serious voice, "Dick, I want to know."
Dick nodded almost wearily. "I thought you would, but I had to try." He clasped his hands behind him like a pastor and went back to studying the ceiling. "I was helping you get your boots off," he went on, "because you were having difficulty with the laces. And you …" he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and Nix started. It was a very un-Dick gesture, and his hand wobbled as he did it.
"I what?" Nix prompted, staring at Dick's hand.
"You tried to kiss me, Lew. On the mouth." Dick didn't sound as disapproving as he might, as the words came out in a rush – but Nix's blood still ran cold in his veins, and his head began to feel detached from his body, from the room, the way it always did when something too emotional happened near him. He'd gone through his entire wedding ceremony feeling like his brain was on the moon.
"And then what?" he said, trying to sound jovial. "You socked me one, I suppose. My face is still kinda sore. I definitely earned that, though." Nix felt his jaw; it hurt a lot, and there had been a hint of a bruise that morning. He thought, poor Dick and did not challenge the rationality of it.
"Ah, no," Dick said softly, not looking at him. "No. I'm afraid I … I kissed you back, Lew."
He looked distraught, guilty, red as beets, but Nix couldn't help laughing. "That's it? That's all? Geez, Dick, you had me really worried … for a minute … there …" he trailed off, remembering the tooth-marks. One look at Dick's averted face was all it took to confirm it, and he sobered immediately. "That's … not it. Is it?"
"No." Dick wouldn't look at him at all, apparently mesmerised by the ceiling rafters. "No, it's not."
Nix chewed his lip. "Go on."
"I'm not sure I can."
"Dick, please."
Dick spread his hands and sighed. "Your face hurts because I held it too hard while I was kissing you. Very enthusiastically, and, I suspect, not very well. As up to this Friday I hadn't exactly kissed anyone before. Not like that. And certainly not … a friend." Dick struggled for words, his eyes searching the beams as if looking for some celestial dictionary. "And although you were the worse for drink –"
"Or better," Nix said, half-heartedly. It was taking a great deal of effort on his part not to gape like an idiot.
"Lew," Dick said sternly, "you are never the better for drink."
Nix thought about it. "Yeah. Go on."
"Well, you clearly had." Dick looked so uncomfortable that Nix wanted to pat him on the shoulder and tell him everything was going to be okay, even though he was kinda sure it wouldn't be. Instead he smiled inanely and said:
"I am married."
"You were also raving about rent boys less than thirty minutes before," Dick pointed out.
"Ah. I, uh, I have some explaining to do, don't I?" Nix said, his breath catching in his throat. Who had heard him, while he was too drunk to have any sense of propriety? And what the hell had Dick thought of it?
"So do I," Dick reminded him, flushing pink again.
"Right. You do. Go on." Nix swallowed, ran a hand through his hair, completely failing to flatten it, and waited.
"Are you sure you want to hear this, Lew?" Dick murmured, staring intently at Nix's mouth now. It was an improvement on the ceiling, anyhow.
"Goddamnit, yes," Nix said impatiently. "All of it."
"You weren't as drunk as I'd thought, or you're better at undressing while inebriated than your penchant for sleeping in your clothes when you don't need to suggests," Dick went on, smiling again. It was brief and sudden and warming, cutting the sting from his words.
"I've had a lot of practice," Nix said, almost sour.
"But all of sudden you were naked and I … wasn't." Dick looked distant; Nix wondered if he was calling the memory to mind and, if he was, how it made him feel. His hands had clenched into tight fists, the knuckles turning even paler than usual. "And – Lew. I really don't want to tell you this –"
"Dick, please."
"It … excited me," Dick said, his face as red as Russia. He seemed stuck on the words again, choking them up past his tonsils with considerable difficulty, as though the shape of them hurt his mouth. "You naked. Me clothed." He twisted his hands around each other, and took a deep, shuddering breath apparently to stabilise himself. "God help me, it … I pushed you down onto the bed."
Nix felt something stir in his insides; if Dick was excited by this, or had been, there was simply no word for what the idea of such a situation was doing to him. He hoped he at least looked more together than he felt.
"And," he said, managing by some miracle to keep his voice steady.
"I took your …" Dick made a helpless gesture, and finally caught Nix's eye in passing, his gaze on its way to some other point of distraction, "Your …your Johnson in my mouth." He looked fidgety, unstable. It was beyond shocking to see him like this, but Nix was having a much harder time concentrating on not letting on how much even this hesitant, fumbling account of events was getting to him. His clothes felt too small – too warm, and too heavy. He wondered if this was what had prompted him to undress in Paris, this feeling of being constricted by layers of suffocating wool.
"Oh," Nix said, helpfully. "You, er, you – " he seemed to have caught Dick's primness, or lost the ability to connect actions with words. His hand worked its way up into his hairline at the back of his head, trying to dislodge his language skills. "You …"
"Blew you," Dick said, going even more scarlet. The phrase sounded so fantastically profane on his lips that Nix nearly went cross-eyed. On anyone else (except maybe David Webster, who wasn't much given to swearing even though he's frequently looked like he wanted to be) it would have seemed natural and unremarkable, just another foul moment in the daily dirty discourse, but on Dick it sounded outlandish.
"Christ," Nix murmured, and then, "So how did I … the teeth marks?"
"I really don't think I can explain," Dick said, looking and sounding as though he'd been sentence to a particularly warm purgatory. "I can only hope you'll forgive me. We both behaved in a manner unbecoming of an officer. Can we leave it at that?"
"You could show me," Nix said. He hadn't intended for it to come out at all, let along for it to be such a breathy, throaty whisper. "That is – oh, fuck -"
"I really don't think it should ever happen again," Dick said, somewhere between wistful and guilty, his cheeks glowing like beacons, so red it was a wonder they didn't burst. "Once was dangerous enough."
Nix noticed that he didn't say he hadn't liked it.
"I want it to," he said, aware that he sounded petulant and that he was potentially getting them both in more trouble than either could handle, potentially sabotaging both of their careers and destroying his family's reputation. The latter would almost be worth it on its own, he thought. "I want to remember this time, damnit, or it's just not fair." He segued into an uneasy laugh that had more than a tinge of hysteria in it. "Dick?"
The next thing he knew he'd been pinned to the unplastered wall by Dick's hips, rough stone digging into his spine, and a tongue halfway down his throat while Dick's hands clasped his chin to hold it steady.
"Ow, my face – " he blurted, pulling away.
"Sorry," Dick said breathlessly, though he did not sound very sorry at all. He kissed Nix again, pressing him into the wall, his hands touching on a hundred different smouldering hot spots all over Nix's body, like irons singeing away his uniform. He was a bad kisser, Nix noted with surprise, but he guessed that was lack of practice. There would, he hoped (as Dick's hands pulled at his shirt buttons), be plenty of time for practice now.
"Jesus," he added, as Dick's mouth slipped to his throat and he discovered that what seemed wrong and sloppy on his lips was ingenious against his unshaved neck. "Dick – " he lapsed into incoherence again, lost for words for once and reduced only to holding onto the back of his friend's head like a drowning man. "Fuck me," he managed, the right words finally falling into place, "dear God, please –"
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