Winters/Nixon Fic: "Too Far Along," 1/?
Title: Too Far Along
Rating: R for this chapter; up to NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Dick Winters/Lewis Nixon, Eugene Roe, Floyd Talbert, George Luz, Ronald Speirs, Bull Randleman, Johnny Martin, Shifty Powers, Colonel Sink
Word Count: 3,581
Notes: This is a reimagining of "The Last Patrol." Thanks so much to fenwic for the beta and cheerleading!
Summary: Sequel to A Few Degrees Warmer. In Haguenau, Lew and Dick eagerly anticipate time alone. The Germans have their own plans.
“Don’t take any chances on this one. We’re too far along for that.”
- Lewis Nixon, “The Last Patrol”
“You got any soap? I need a shave.”
“Of course you do.” With a smile, Lew adds, “I’ll send some down.”
Dick returns the smile as they sidestep one of the countless piles of rubble that spill onto the grey streets of Haguenau. “Keep some for yourself.”
“Nah.” Lew rubs his jaw. “Wanna see how long I can go before Sink says something.”
“We’re out of the Ardennes now.” They’d even had lukewarm showers and received fresh ODs upon their arrival that morning. “No excuse.”
“Right, because it’s positively tropical here.” Lew steps closer and lowers his voice. “Does your billet have a lock on the door?”
Dick nods, and they share a long, heated look that sends sparks skittering across his skin. The possibilities run riot through his mind, and he takes a ragged breath. “Think we’re in the same house; back behind HQ. I’m on the top floor.”
Lew’s about to say something else, but seems to think better of it. He glances around before leading the way down an alley and into a nearby house. They nod to soldiers walking out with bags of potatoes slung over their shoulders, and Lew takes him back to the ransacked kitchen. The small pantry, only a few feet square, stands empty but for a couple of dented cans and a broom in the corner. After another look around, he tugs Dick inside.
“Nix….” Dick’s tone is warning, but he doesn’t resist.
Lew shuts the door behind them and presses Dick against it before removing their helmets, dropping them to the creaky floor. “Just wanted to show you some very important intelligence.”
Dick tries to think of a pithy reply, but can only come up with a low groan as Lew leans into him, his thigh wedging between Dick’s legs. In Bastogne, they’d shared a collection of stolen moments in Lew’s foxhole, kisses and quick caresses, hands stealing under layers of fabric. Always fleeting, never enough. They hadn’t dared anything else, and after the weeks of build-up, Dick is stretched tight as a wire.
But here in a dusty Haguenau pantry, back in civilization, it’s all suddenly real and daunting - and more exciting than anything Dick has ever known. Lew sees something in his expression and peers anxiously. “Is it…do you want to stop?”
Dick knows he means stop for good, and the thought is so impossible that he can only smile and kiss away the sudden vulnerability softening Lew’s face. The kiss is gentle for a moment before Dick takes a breath and presses their lips together fiercely, pushing his tongue inside Lew’s mouth as he tangles his fingers in his hair. Lew returns every moan and touch and then some.
They’re both quickly hard, and Dick wonders what it’ll be like when they’re naked together, to feel Lew’s entire body against his, to touch and taste him completely. He saw Lew undressed plenty of times in the barracks at Benning and Toccoa, but never really looked.
They’re wearing too many layers of canvas and cotton, but as they kiss and tease, he manages to get a hand under the back of Lew’s jacket, and he yanks out his shirt until he can feel warm skin. As his fingers dip below Lew’s waistband, he’s struck with a memory.
In college he’d taken an elective course on the early Greeks and Romans. One rainy morning, holed up in a library carrel, he’d stumbled upon a chapter in a yellowed book from a research pile. In words and pictures, it documented the things some men had done together in ancient times, how they’d joined their bodies and pleasured each other with generous mouths. He’d devoured the chapter wide-eyed, glancing around the hushed room with every page turned.
As he ruts against Lew, moaning into his kiss, thinking of those ancient drawings, he’s going to come. He pushes on Lew’s shoulders, breathing hard. “Tonight. Twenty-two-hundred.” He smiles wryly. “I’m about to embarrass myself. Just got these ODs and don’t have a spare until my laundry’s done.”
Lew nips at Dick’s jaw and rubs against his hip. “You can just go without pants. We’re in France, after all.” Lew kisses him again before pulling back. He runs his fingertips over Dick’s chin. “Mmm, actually, I’d better shave, or everyone’s going to wonder why your skin’s redder than usual.”
“I’ll do it for you tonight.” He leans in and whispers in Lew’s ear, even though they’re alone. “Do a lot of things.”
Groaning, Lew presses against him again, rotating his hips. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
Dick’s suddenly struck by a decidedly unpleasant sensation. “Have there been…have you….” He shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“Why, Captain Winters, are you jealous?” Lew grins, eyes gleaming.
“No. Maybe.”
Lew shrugs. “There were a couple times at boarding school. You know, just…boys being boys. No girls around, and we were horny little bastards. But not since then, and it wasn’t like this.” He brushes his thumb across Dick’s lower lip. “This is….”
Dick’s mouth is unaccountably dry. “What?”
“Different.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Lew nods. He blinks as if something’s just occurred to him. “Have you? You know, the way Speirs was looking at you the other day at the CP-”
Dick laughs in a way he hasn’t in months, warmth rumbling up from his belly. “Speirs? Yes, you’ve caught us, Nix. My secret’s out.”
Truth is, aside from some awkward and unsatisfying fumbling with two girls in college, Dick’s barely done anything with anyone. They’d been nice girls, but he hadn’t wanted to marry either of them, and it had all seemed wrong somehow. He’d lived at home on the farm and worked nights in the kitchen of a diner near campus, and after a while he’d decided he was just too busy to bother with girls. Yet with Lew, everything makes sense and falls into place as Dick imagines it should. Now that they’ve started, he can’t believe they waited so long.
Lew’s laughing, too. “Look, I don’t trust that crafty son of a bitch as far as I can throw him.”
“I’ll tell Ron it’s over. I’m sure his wife will be relieved.” As soon as the words are out, Dick’s smile fades, and guilt slices through him. Honestly, most of the time he forgets Lew is married. He thinks that Lew does, too.
Lew seems to read his mind. “It was over a long time ago, Dick. Hell, it was over before it began. Kathy got pregnant, and what was I supposed to do? I barely knew her. I'd already joined up. We've barely even lived together. She and the kid…don’t get me wrong, I love that little girl. I want to know her. But I wouldn’t recognize her if she toddled into this pantry right now. I barely remember what Kathy looks like. She’s probably just waiting for the war to end before she files for divorce. And if she doesn’t, I will.”
“You could have gone home. Taken that pass. Maybe things would be different.” He’s shamed to remember how glad he was when Lew turned down the chance to go back.
“And leave you in Bastogne? Who’d feed you?” He leans in and kisses Dick softly. “Who’d keep you warm?”
Dick sighs into him, pressing his lips against the fading wound on Lew’s neck that doesn’t need a bandage any more. He wraps his arms around him tightly, and for a minute, they just stand there, holding each other. Dick closes his eyes.
They pop open as footsteps pound through the house. Neither he nor Lew breathes as they listen, frozen, to someone in the kitchen just beyond the thin, wooden door. Carelessly opening drawers and cupboards, the man mutters under his breath. A voice calls in the distance. “Hey, Cobb! C’mon!”
Cobb’s typically sour voice replies. “Yeah, yeah, hold yer horses.” His footsteps retreat, and Dick and Lew exhale as one.
“Nix, if we get caught….”
“We won’t. Too smart for that. I’m an intelligence officer, remember?” Stepping back, he straightens his uniform and tucks the back of his shirt into his trousers. “All right. Twenty-two hundred hours.”
It’s all so incredibly surreal, and Dick thrums with anticipation. “Twenty-two hundred.”
Lew slaps his helmet back on. “I’m going for a walk down the river. Regiment wants me to get the lay of the land. I’ll probably see you around this afternoon.”
“Okay, see you then. You go first.”
After listening at the door for a moment, Lew’s gone with a final wink.
*
Dick doesn’t see Lew that afternoon.
When he’s released from one of Sink’s mind-numbing supply briefings - Dick bit his tongue and didn’t relay to the colonel how glad he is they’ve finally received the winter equipment they needed months ago - he looks for Lew at HQ but can’t find him. He asks a young orderly who appears all of fourteen, and the boy squeaks that he thinks he saw Captain Nixon going off with Colonel Strayer.
As Dick gets called into another briefing with Sink, he checks the time, and calculates the minutes remaining until twenty-two hundred.
*
Chow is hot, which is all Dick can really ask for at this point on the wrong end of the supply chain. He tries to avoid the eager new lieutenant, Jones, and eats at one end of a long dining table with Speirs while artillery explodes a few blocks away. The best thing about Speirs, other than his fearlessness and outstanding skill as a soldier and leader, is that he doesn’t feel the need to fill a silence.
Dick finds himself thinking of his earlier conversation with Lew, and he covers his huff of laughter at the thought of himself and Speirs with a round of coughing. Ron regards him evenly, swallowing his stew. When Dick drinks some water and goes back to eating, Speirs turns his attention back to his bowl. Now that he’s unlocked the door in his mind, Dick can admit that Speirs is an attractive man, but….
When he thinks of the pantry again, he coughs to hide his shudder of desire, and Ron refills Dick’s cup with water.
*
At twenty-one hundred, the soap finally arrives at Dick’s small, faded room. The worn furniture doesn’t match and seems collected from a number of houses, remnants from the rubble. Dick asks the courier when he last saw Captain Nixon. The private hasn’t, and when questioned further says he doesn’t know who made the request for soap, and that he has a long list of deliveries to make.
As the minutes tick by, Dick shaves himself carefully, thinking of how he’ll glide the razor over Lew’s skin. How he’ll touch him everywhere. It’s intoxicating, and so strange to have thoughts of intimacy with a man - with Lew - running freely through his mind. If Lew wasn’t arriving in thirty-six minutes, Dick would undo his trousers and pleasure himself with long, hard strokes.
Instead, he changes into his dress uniform and straightens the bedspread.
*
By twenty-two eighteen, Dick quietly paces the length of his room, which is all of twelve feet. He can’t stop thinking about what it’s going to be like to go to bed with Lew, and perhaps he should take himself quickly in hand, because at this point he won’t last three minutes. But it’s been so long since he’s experienced release, and he wants it to be with Lew’s moans echoing in his ear, feeling the hot slide of his flesh.
The fresh water he’d prepared for Lew’s shave has grown cold, and he checks his watch again. He hears his mother’s voice echo in his mind. All good things come to those who wait. He supposes he should be ashamed to think of his mother at all when he’s about to commit a sin she wouldn’t be able to fathom. Yet it only fills him with a pleasant wistfulness.
*
At twenty-three hundred, his heels strike the floor forcefully as he strides back and forth. Lew’s probably carousing somewhere, distracted by an offer of cards and drink. He hasn’t sent a message. Perhaps hasn’t even noticed the time.
The anger ricochets through Dick, but passes as quickly as it flared up. No, Lew wouldn’t leave him hanging like this, alone and questioning. Not Lew. He may have his vices, but cowardice or thoughtlessness are not among them.
The worry begins to creep in.
*
By zero-twelve, Dick marches the crumbling streets of Haguenau in his ODs, asking the few souls he encounters if they’ve seen Lew, whose room stands empty and seemingly untouched from that morning. A shell roars its way across the river, and he takes cover in the burnt-out remains of a café.
When he approaches HQ, he’s surprised to see the young orderly walking out, still awake at this hour. He calls to him. “Soldier. Is Captain Nixon inside?”
The boy’s mouth opens and closes like a fish on a hook. “Uh…you should speak to the colonel, sir.”
The gnawing worry crystallizes into fear that grips him bodily. “Why? Where is Captain Nixon?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” The boy scurries away, head down.
Dick’s running now, and the door to HQ crashes into the wall as he barrels in. Heads swivel, and Sink’s mouth, already a grim line, compresses even further as he sighs heavily. “Captain Winters, you should be sacked out.”
“Where is he?”
Sink, who had been leaning over a map - one of Lew’s? - spread over a table, leads the way into his office without another word. Heart hammering his ribs, Dick tucks his helmet under his arm, reminding himself that the colonel is his commanding officer, and he can’t lunge across the desk and shake the information from him. Lord in heaven, please not Nix. Please.
Sink doesn’t sit. “Nixon went out on a scouting mission earlier today.”
“Yes. Down the river.” His breath lodges in his throat.
“He didn’t come back, Dick. He’s gone.”
Stomach lurching violently, Dick wishes desperately that he could wake up and make this untrue. No. Anyone but him. Not him. His vision hazes, and he shakes his head when Sink points him to the guest chair, because if he sits down now he might never get up.
Dick’s knees tremble, nails digging into his palm as he struggles to force air into his lungs. He notes, as if from a distance, that his voice is remarkably composed and even. “A sniper?” He blinks as images of Lew on the riverbank, eyes open and unseeing, flies gathering even in the cold of winter, flick through his head like stills from a silent film. Did he feel it? Did he know?
The grief cores Dick’s bones and leaves him utterly hollow.
“No. He’s not dead. At least not that we know of.”
Swallowing, his throat parched, Dick manages not to stagger with the sweet relief flooding over him. “Where is he?”
“The Krauts snatched him. Goddamned Nazi fucks. I sent a team when he didn’t report back, and they couldn’t locate him. If there’d been an accident, we’d have found him, or at least heard something by now.”
Alive. “When are we going to get him back?” Dick’s mind whirls with plans of action. “I can put a team together, and-”
“Dick.” Sink points to the chair again and sits in his own, but Dick can’t move. There’s something in Sink’s demeanour that he’s never seen before. Defeat. “I know you and Nixon are good buddies. I realize how hard this’ll be on you. But at this stage of the game, we can’t go storming across the river looking for a needle in a haystack. He’s likely miles away by now, God knows where. The war’s coming to an end. He won’t be locked up for too long. A few months, tops.”
He can’t believe what he’s hearing. “A few months. Of torture.”
“Well now, they signed the Geneva Convention just like we did. They’re not as bad as the Japs, I can assure you of that.”
“He’s an intelligence officer. They’ll do anything to make him talk. Just like we would.”
Sink has the grace to meet his eyes. “Yes, they will. But we know Nixon won’t give in. He’s far too stubborn a son of a gun.”
“No, he won’t talk.” Instead he’ll suffer endlessly, and Dick has never wanted to kill the way he does in this moment as he thinks of the faceless Germans who will pound and tear Lew’s flesh and mind.
“Dick, you know if I thought we could get him back, I wouldn’t hesitate, and neither would the general. We have to stay on target; stay focused. But we’ll give them a taste of their own medicine, don’t you worry. Nixon’s tough. He’ll get through it.”
“Yes.” There’s no other option.
“Now get to your quarters and rest up, son. It’s been a hell of a day.”
Dick’s head moves in a nod, and his legs go one in front of the other until he finds himself back on the street. He makes it around the corner of HQ before vomiting into the slushy dirt. He braces himself against the brick wall, his helmet rolling away. Coughing and heaving, he closes his eyes to the thought of Lew across the river and possibly forever out of reach.
He thinks of Christmas, and Lew’s low chuckle as they’d heard McAuliffe’s response to surrender. Nuts!
Dick wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and retrieves his helmet. His mind stills, calm clarity taking the place of the dizzy whir of emotion and memory. He knows Sink is right. If it were anyone else taken behind enemy lines, he’d hate it. But he’d accept it, and the impossibility of pursuit.
If it were anyone else.
*
The pile of laundry is strewn on Lew’s floor. Dick brings the undershirt to his face, breathing deeply of Lew’s sweat and scent, of the foxhole in Bastogne. He folds it into his pocket and returns to his own room. Peering into the chipped mirror, he smears dark grease over his freshly shaven cheeks.
He finds Talbert on a makeshift bunk in the corner of a basement crowded with several squads. He knows Randleman is watching as he steps carefully over sleeping men. Trigger sits up as he approaches, ears alert, and Dick reaches out his hand for the dog, who sniffs it and licks tentatively. A Regiment lieutenant had kept the animal for Talbert while they were in Bastogne.
He shakes Talbert’s shoulder gently. “Tab.”
Talbert blinks at him, puzzled. “Captain?”
“Shh. Yes. I need your dog. I’ll bring him back in a few hours.”
“Uh, sure. What’s up?” He blinks again. “You look like you’re going into battle, Cap.”
Randleman picks his way over to them with Martin on his heels, and Powers is now awake in the next bunk. Dick keeps his voice low. “I need to go downriver. Follow a trail. I just need the dog. You all go back to sleep and get some rest. You’ve earned it.”
They’re unmoving, and now Luz has joined them in the dim light. He asks, “What’re you looking for, sir?”
Dick scrapes the words out of his throat. “Captain Nixon was captured today.”
The men jerk in surprise and there are a few muttered curses. Powers sits up. “But Captain Nixon, he…well, he always seems to have the answer, sir. If you know what I mean. Gosh, I can’t imagine him getting caught by anyone.”
Dick concentrates on keeping his voice steady. “I need to find out exactly where he was taken.” He pulls the undershirt from his pocket and addresses Talbert. “The dog can track, can’t it?”
Tab’s already pulling on his boots. “Yeah, Trigger’ll find him. You bet.”
“We’ll get our gear and meet you outside, sir,” Randleman whispers.
“No. This isn’t a sanctioned mission. You men all get back to bed. That’s an order.” He takes Trigger’s leash.
“Sir, with all due respect, we’re just going to follow you, so it’ll be easier if we set out together.” Martin’s tone is matter of fact, and he and the others all go about quietly gearing up.
Dick knows he should argue, but he can’t seem to. He feels a rush of pride in these Toccoa men he’s served with, and affection for each of them. He lets Talbert take the dog, and waits outside, studying a map in the moonlight. When the men come, he holds out the undershirt for Trigger, letting him take a good sniff and thanking God that Lew hadn’t done his laundry yet.
They’re about to move out when Roe appears. Dick shakes his head. “Eugene, go back inside.”
“He could be hurt, sir.”
“He’s on the other side of the river. We can’t cross tonight.” As he says the words, Dick knows with certainty that they will cross.
“What if he escaped, and got back across and can’t walk?”
Dick wants to argue, but all he can see is Lew in a ditch, broken and waiting for him.
Roe watches him with those haunted eyes. “It’s Captain Nixon, sir.”
Dick nods. “Stay low, and stay close to Bull.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turns to lead the way, but pauses, looking back. “Thank you, men.”
Luz whispers, “Currahee!” as they surge into the night.
Part Two
Rating: R for this chapter; up to NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Dick Winters/Lewis Nixon, Eugene Roe, Floyd Talbert, George Luz, Ronald Speirs, Bull Randleman, Johnny Martin, Shifty Powers, Colonel Sink
Word Count: 3,581
Notes: This is a reimagining of "The Last Patrol." Thanks so much to fenwic for the beta and cheerleading!
Summary: Sequel to A Few Degrees Warmer. In Haguenau, Lew and Dick eagerly anticipate time alone. The Germans have their own plans.
“Don’t take any chances on this one. We’re too far along for that.”
- Lewis Nixon, “The Last Patrol”
“You got any soap? I need a shave.”
“Of course you do.” With a smile, Lew adds, “I’ll send some down.”
Dick returns the smile as they sidestep one of the countless piles of rubble that spill onto the grey streets of Haguenau. “Keep some for yourself.”
“Nah.” Lew rubs his jaw. “Wanna see how long I can go before Sink says something.”
“We’re out of the Ardennes now.” They’d even had lukewarm showers and received fresh ODs upon their arrival that morning. “No excuse.”
“Right, because it’s positively tropical here.” Lew steps closer and lowers his voice. “Does your billet have a lock on the door?”
Dick nods, and they share a long, heated look that sends sparks skittering across his skin. The possibilities run riot through his mind, and he takes a ragged breath. “Think we’re in the same house; back behind HQ. I’m on the top floor.”
Lew’s about to say something else, but seems to think better of it. He glances around before leading the way down an alley and into a nearby house. They nod to soldiers walking out with bags of potatoes slung over their shoulders, and Lew takes him back to the ransacked kitchen. The small pantry, only a few feet square, stands empty but for a couple of dented cans and a broom in the corner. After another look around, he tugs Dick inside.
“Nix….” Dick’s tone is warning, but he doesn’t resist.
Lew shuts the door behind them and presses Dick against it before removing their helmets, dropping them to the creaky floor. “Just wanted to show you some very important intelligence.”
Dick tries to think of a pithy reply, but can only come up with a low groan as Lew leans into him, his thigh wedging between Dick’s legs. In Bastogne, they’d shared a collection of stolen moments in Lew’s foxhole, kisses and quick caresses, hands stealing under layers of fabric. Always fleeting, never enough. They hadn’t dared anything else, and after the weeks of build-up, Dick is stretched tight as a wire.
But here in a dusty Haguenau pantry, back in civilization, it’s all suddenly real and daunting - and more exciting than anything Dick has ever known. Lew sees something in his expression and peers anxiously. “Is it…do you want to stop?”
Dick knows he means stop for good, and the thought is so impossible that he can only smile and kiss away the sudden vulnerability softening Lew’s face. The kiss is gentle for a moment before Dick takes a breath and presses their lips together fiercely, pushing his tongue inside Lew’s mouth as he tangles his fingers in his hair. Lew returns every moan and touch and then some.
They’re both quickly hard, and Dick wonders what it’ll be like when they’re naked together, to feel Lew’s entire body against his, to touch and taste him completely. He saw Lew undressed plenty of times in the barracks at Benning and Toccoa, but never really looked.
They’re wearing too many layers of canvas and cotton, but as they kiss and tease, he manages to get a hand under the back of Lew’s jacket, and he yanks out his shirt until he can feel warm skin. As his fingers dip below Lew’s waistband, he’s struck with a memory.
In college he’d taken an elective course on the early Greeks and Romans. One rainy morning, holed up in a library carrel, he’d stumbled upon a chapter in a yellowed book from a research pile. In words and pictures, it documented the things some men had done together in ancient times, how they’d joined their bodies and pleasured each other with generous mouths. He’d devoured the chapter wide-eyed, glancing around the hushed room with every page turned.
As he ruts against Lew, moaning into his kiss, thinking of those ancient drawings, he’s going to come. He pushes on Lew’s shoulders, breathing hard. “Tonight. Twenty-two-hundred.” He smiles wryly. “I’m about to embarrass myself. Just got these ODs and don’t have a spare until my laundry’s done.”
Lew nips at Dick’s jaw and rubs against his hip. “You can just go without pants. We’re in France, after all.” Lew kisses him again before pulling back. He runs his fingertips over Dick’s chin. “Mmm, actually, I’d better shave, or everyone’s going to wonder why your skin’s redder than usual.”
“I’ll do it for you tonight.” He leans in and whispers in Lew’s ear, even though they’re alone. “Do a lot of things.”
Groaning, Lew presses against him again, rotating his hips. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
Dick’s suddenly struck by a decidedly unpleasant sensation. “Have there been…have you….” He shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“Why, Captain Winters, are you jealous?” Lew grins, eyes gleaming.
“No. Maybe.”
Lew shrugs. “There were a couple times at boarding school. You know, just…boys being boys. No girls around, and we were horny little bastards. But not since then, and it wasn’t like this.” He brushes his thumb across Dick’s lower lip. “This is….”
Dick’s mouth is unaccountably dry. “What?”
“Different.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Lew nods. He blinks as if something’s just occurred to him. “Have you? You know, the way Speirs was looking at you the other day at the CP-”
Dick laughs in a way he hasn’t in months, warmth rumbling up from his belly. “Speirs? Yes, you’ve caught us, Nix. My secret’s out.”
Truth is, aside from some awkward and unsatisfying fumbling with two girls in college, Dick’s barely done anything with anyone. They’d been nice girls, but he hadn’t wanted to marry either of them, and it had all seemed wrong somehow. He’d lived at home on the farm and worked nights in the kitchen of a diner near campus, and after a while he’d decided he was just too busy to bother with girls. Yet with Lew, everything makes sense and falls into place as Dick imagines it should. Now that they’ve started, he can’t believe they waited so long.
Lew’s laughing, too. “Look, I don’t trust that crafty son of a bitch as far as I can throw him.”
“I’ll tell Ron it’s over. I’m sure his wife will be relieved.” As soon as the words are out, Dick’s smile fades, and guilt slices through him. Honestly, most of the time he forgets Lew is married. He thinks that Lew does, too.
Lew seems to read his mind. “It was over a long time ago, Dick. Hell, it was over before it began. Kathy got pregnant, and what was I supposed to do? I barely knew her. I'd already joined up. We've barely even lived together. She and the kid…don’t get me wrong, I love that little girl. I want to know her. But I wouldn’t recognize her if she toddled into this pantry right now. I barely remember what Kathy looks like. She’s probably just waiting for the war to end before she files for divorce. And if she doesn’t, I will.”
“You could have gone home. Taken that pass. Maybe things would be different.” He’s shamed to remember how glad he was when Lew turned down the chance to go back.
“And leave you in Bastogne? Who’d feed you?” He leans in and kisses Dick softly. “Who’d keep you warm?”
Dick sighs into him, pressing his lips against the fading wound on Lew’s neck that doesn’t need a bandage any more. He wraps his arms around him tightly, and for a minute, they just stand there, holding each other. Dick closes his eyes.
They pop open as footsteps pound through the house. Neither he nor Lew breathes as they listen, frozen, to someone in the kitchen just beyond the thin, wooden door. Carelessly opening drawers and cupboards, the man mutters under his breath. A voice calls in the distance. “Hey, Cobb! C’mon!”
Cobb’s typically sour voice replies. “Yeah, yeah, hold yer horses.” His footsteps retreat, and Dick and Lew exhale as one.
“Nix, if we get caught….”
“We won’t. Too smart for that. I’m an intelligence officer, remember?” Stepping back, he straightens his uniform and tucks the back of his shirt into his trousers. “All right. Twenty-two hundred hours.”
It’s all so incredibly surreal, and Dick thrums with anticipation. “Twenty-two hundred.”
Lew slaps his helmet back on. “I’m going for a walk down the river. Regiment wants me to get the lay of the land. I’ll probably see you around this afternoon.”
“Okay, see you then. You go first.”
After listening at the door for a moment, Lew’s gone with a final wink.
*
Dick doesn’t see Lew that afternoon.
When he’s released from one of Sink’s mind-numbing supply briefings - Dick bit his tongue and didn’t relay to the colonel how glad he is they’ve finally received the winter equipment they needed months ago - he looks for Lew at HQ but can’t find him. He asks a young orderly who appears all of fourteen, and the boy squeaks that he thinks he saw Captain Nixon going off with Colonel Strayer.
As Dick gets called into another briefing with Sink, he checks the time, and calculates the minutes remaining until twenty-two hundred.
*
Chow is hot, which is all Dick can really ask for at this point on the wrong end of the supply chain. He tries to avoid the eager new lieutenant, Jones, and eats at one end of a long dining table with Speirs while artillery explodes a few blocks away. The best thing about Speirs, other than his fearlessness and outstanding skill as a soldier and leader, is that he doesn’t feel the need to fill a silence.
Dick finds himself thinking of his earlier conversation with Lew, and he covers his huff of laughter at the thought of himself and Speirs with a round of coughing. Ron regards him evenly, swallowing his stew. When Dick drinks some water and goes back to eating, Speirs turns his attention back to his bowl. Now that he’s unlocked the door in his mind, Dick can admit that Speirs is an attractive man, but….
When he thinks of the pantry again, he coughs to hide his shudder of desire, and Ron refills Dick’s cup with water.
*
At twenty-one hundred, the soap finally arrives at Dick’s small, faded room. The worn furniture doesn’t match and seems collected from a number of houses, remnants from the rubble. Dick asks the courier when he last saw Captain Nixon. The private hasn’t, and when questioned further says he doesn’t know who made the request for soap, and that he has a long list of deliveries to make.
As the minutes tick by, Dick shaves himself carefully, thinking of how he’ll glide the razor over Lew’s skin. How he’ll touch him everywhere. It’s intoxicating, and so strange to have thoughts of intimacy with a man - with Lew - running freely through his mind. If Lew wasn’t arriving in thirty-six minutes, Dick would undo his trousers and pleasure himself with long, hard strokes.
Instead, he changes into his dress uniform and straightens the bedspread.
*
By twenty-two eighteen, Dick quietly paces the length of his room, which is all of twelve feet. He can’t stop thinking about what it’s going to be like to go to bed with Lew, and perhaps he should take himself quickly in hand, because at this point he won’t last three minutes. But it’s been so long since he’s experienced release, and he wants it to be with Lew’s moans echoing in his ear, feeling the hot slide of his flesh.
The fresh water he’d prepared for Lew’s shave has grown cold, and he checks his watch again. He hears his mother’s voice echo in his mind. All good things come to those who wait. He supposes he should be ashamed to think of his mother at all when he’s about to commit a sin she wouldn’t be able to fathom. Yet it only fills him with a pleasant wistfulness.
*
At twenty-three hundred, his heels strike the floor forcefully as he strides back and forth. Lew’s probably carousing somewhere, distracted by an offer of cards and drink. He hasn’t sent a message. Perhaps hasn’t even noticed the time.
The anger ricochets through Dick, but passes as quickly as it flared up. No, Lew wouldn’t leave him hanging like this, alone and questioning. Not Lew. He may have his vices, but cowardice or thoughtlessness are not among them.
The worry begins to creep in.
*
By zero-twelve, Dick marches the crumbling streets of Haguenau in his ODs, asking the few souls he encounters if they’ve seen Lew, whose room stands empty and seemingly untouched from that morning. A shell roars its way across the river, and he takes cover in the burnt-out remains of a café.
When he approaches HQ, he’s surprised to see the young orderly walking out, still awake at this hour. He calls to him. “Soldier. Is Captain Nixon inside?”
The boy’s mouth opens and closes like a fish on a hook. “Uh…you should speak to the colonel, sir.”
The gnawing worry crystallizes into fear that grips him bodily. “Why? Where is Captain Nixon?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” The boy scurries away, head down.
Dick’s running now, and the door to HQ crashes into the wall as he barrels in. Heads swivel, and Sink’s mouth, already a grim line, compresses even further as he sighs heavily. “Captain Winters, you should be sacked out.”
“Where is he?”
Sink, who had been leaning over a map - one of Lew’s? - spread over a table, leads the way into his office without another word. Heart hammering his ribs, Dick tucks his helmet under his arm, reminding himself that the colonel is his commanding officer, and he can’t lunge across the desk and shake the information from him. Lord in heaven, please not Nix. Please.
Sink doesn’t sit. “Nixon went out on a scouting mission earlier today.”
“Yes. Down the river.” His breath lodges in his throat.
“He didn’t come back, Dick. He’s gone.”
Stomach lurching violently, Dick wishes desperately that he could wake up and make this untrue. No. Anyone but him. Not him. His vision hazes, and he shakes his head when Sink points him to the guest chair, because if he sits down now he might never get up.
Dick’s knees tremble, nails digging into his palm as he struggles to force air into his lungs. He notes, as if from a distance, that his voice is remarkably composed and even. “A sniper?” He blinks as images of Lew on the riverbank, eyes open and unseeing, flies gathering even in the cold of winter, flick through his head like stills from a silent film. Did he feel it? Did he know?
The grief cores Dick’s bones and leaves him utterly hollow.
“No. He’s not dead. At least not that we know of.”
Swallowing, his throat parched, Dick manages not to stagger with the sweet relief flooding over him. “Where is he?”
“The Krauts snatched him. Goddamned Nazi fucks. I sent a team when he didn’t report back, and they couldn’t locate him. If there’d been an accident, we’d have found him, or at least heard something by now.”
Alive. “When are we going to get him back?” Dick’s mind whirls with plans of action. “I can put a team together, and-”
“Dick.” Sink points to the chair again and sits in his own, but Dick can’t move. There’s something in Sink’s demeanour that he’s never seen before. Defeat. “I know you and Nixon are good buddies. I realize how hard this’ll be on you. But at this stage of the game, we can’t go storming across the river looking for a needle in a haystack. He’s likely miles away by now, God knows where. The war’s coming to an end. He won’t be locked up for too long. A few months, tops.”
He can’t believe what he’s hearing. “A few months. Of torture.”
“Well now, they signed the Geneva Convention just like we did. They’re not as bad as the Japs, I can assure you of that.”
“He’s an intelligence officer. They’ll do anything to make him talk. Just like we would.”
Sink has the grace to meet his eyes. “Yes, they will. But we know Nixon won’t give in. He’s far too stubborn a son of a gun.”
“No, he won’t talk.” Instead he’ll suffer endlessly, and Dick has never wanted to kill the way he does in this moment as he thinks of the faceless Germans who will pound and tear Lew’s flesh and mind.
“Dick, you know if I thought we could get him back, I wouldn’t hesitate, and neither would the general. We have to stay on target; stay focused. But we’ll give them a taste of their own medicine, don’t you worry. Nixon’s tough. He’ll get through it.”
“Yes.” There’s no other option.
“Now get to your quarters and rest up, son. It’s been a hell of a day.”
Dick’s head moves in a nod, and his legs go one in front of the other until he finds himself back on the street. He makes it around the corner of HQ before vomiting into the slushy dirt. He braces himself against the brick wall, his helmet rolling away. Coughing and heaving, he closes his eyes to the thought of Lew across the river and possibly forever out of reach.
He thinks of Christmas, and Lew’s low chuckle as they’d heard McAuliffe’s response to surrender. Nuts!
Dick wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and retrieves his helmet. His mind stills, calm clarity taking the place of the dizzy whir of emotion and memory. He knows Sink is right. If it were anyone else taken behind enemy lines, he’d hate it. But he’d accept it, and the impossibility of pursuit.
If it were anyone else.
*
The pile of laundry is strewn on Lew’s floor. Dick brings the undershirt to his face, breathing deeply of Lew’s sweat and scent, of the foxhole in Bastogne. He folds it into his pocket and returns to his own room. Peering into the chipped mirror, he smears dark grease over his freshly shaven cheeks.
He finds Talbert on a makeshift bunk in the corner of a basement crowded with several squads. He knows Randleman is watching as he steps carefully over sleeping men. Trigger sits up as he approaches, ears alert, and Dick reaches out his hand for the dog, who sniffs it and licks tentatively. A Regiment lieutenant had kept the animal for Talbert while they were in Bastogne.
He shakes Talbert’s shoulder gently. “Tab.”
Talbert blinks at him, puzzled. “Captain?”
“Shh. Yes. I need your dog. I’ll bring him back in a few hours.”
“Uh, sure. What’s up?” He blinks again. “You look like you’re going into battle, Cap.”
Randleman picks his way over to them with Martin on his heels, and Powers is now awake in the next bunk. Dick keeps his voice low. “I need to go downriver. Follow a trail. I just need the dog. You all go back to sleep and get some rest. You’ve earned it.”
They’re unmoving, and now Luz has joined them in the dim light. He asks, “What’re you looking for, sir?”
Dick scrapes the words out of his throat. “Captain Nixon was captured today.”
The men jerk in surprise and there are a few muttered curses. Powers sits up. “But Captain Nixon, he…well, he always seems to have the answer, sir. If you know what I mean. Gosh, I can’t imagine him getting caught by anyone.”
Dick concentrates on keeping his voice steady. “I need to find out exactly where he was taken.” He pulls the undershirt from his pocket and addresses Talbert. “The dog can track, can’t it?”
Tab’s already pulling on his boots. “Yeah, Trigger’ll find him. You bet.”
“We’ll get our gear and meet you outside, sir,” Randleman whispers.
“No. This isn’t a sanctioned mission. You men all get back to bed. That’s an order.” He takes Trigger’s leash.
“Sir, with all due respect, we’re just going to follow you, so it’ll be easier if we set out together.” Martin’s tone is matter of fact, and he and the others all go about quietly gearing up.
Dick knows he should argue, but he can’t seem to. He feels a rush of pride in these Toccoa men he’s served with, and affection for each of them. He lets Talbert take the dog, and waits outside, studying a map in the moonlight. When the men come, he holds out the undershirt for Trigger, letting him take a good sniff and thanking God that Lew hadn’t done his laundry yet.
They’re about to move out when Roe appears. Dick shakes his head. “Eugene, go back inside.”
“He could be hurt, sir.”
“He’s on the other side of the river. We can’t cross tonight.” As he says the words, Dick knows with certainty that they will cross.
“What if he escaped, and got back across and can’t walk?”
Dick wants to argue, but all he can see is Lew in a ditch, broken and waiting for him.
Roe watches him with those haunted eyes. “It’s Captain Nixon, sir.”
Dick nods. “Stay low, and stay close to Bull.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turns to lead the way, but pauses, looking back. “Thank you, men.”
Luz whispers, “Currahee!” as they surge into the night.
Part Two