fic: Darling, You Look So Afraid (1/?)
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Babe Heffron/Eugene Roe, Joseph Liebgott/Kenyon Webster, Carwood Lipton/Ronald Speirs, Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters, Kitty Grogan/Harry Welsh, Muck/Malarkey
Characters: various other guys from Easy
Summary: "Sometimes you never meet your soulmate. Sometimes you have to settle for less. That doesn't mean you don't love each other--it just means you could love someone else more. And, to be honest with you, it also means you live your life as just a half and an empty heart."
The universe likes to play with people.
Series
Disclaimer: this is soley based off the HBO show Band of Brothers. No relation to the real men, and no disrespect meant. Along with that, nothing belongs to me.
notes: also on AO3
AND a huge thank you to Liv because this wouldn't exist without her and here inherent need to think of AUs at 3am, and then the following need to hash it out on Skype.
Nix has been sober for two days and a captain for five when he meets Dick Winters. He’s had the words Richard D. W. inscribed on the inside of his wrist for months-woke up one day to find it burning, his heart thumping a bit louder-but he knows he and his “soulmate” (whatever the fuck that is, he doesn’t like the sappy names everyone insists on slapping onto this biological norm) haven’t been within miles of each other just yet.
Not until he’s introduced to Richard Winters while in Fort Benning, that is.
And if the sudden roll in his stomach and the boy’s name and the brand on his skin weren’t enough, he knows he could have fallen in love with those eyes and that smile alone.
---
Dick is honest and respectable and everything that Lewis Nixon is not. How or why he becomes friends with Nix is still a mystery, but he’s not going to question this One Good Thing anytime soon.
So they meet and shake hands and Dick says he’s heard a lot about Nix and Nix says he can’t exactly return the sentiment, which makes Dick laugh, which in turn makes his entire face light up, and it’s beautiful. Nix wants to slap himself for being so sappy but then he and Dick finally part ways and his mind is clear again and then-then he remembers. He stops, lifts his wrist, stares at the familiar swirling letters. Letters that have been a part of him for so long now, and letters that make up the name of the boy he just met.
Well, assuming.
There were a lot of people named Richard D. W., he’s sure, but there’s a feeling in his gut (soul, more like, but he’s not admitting that anytime soon) that screams to live out the rest of eternity with Dick Winters.
And, well, if that isn’t an indicator, then he’s probably drunk again.
---
They’ve gone to Toccoa, trained with Sobel and the tough men of Easy, and run up Currahee more times than he’d care to count. They’ve made it to Aldbourne, gotten rid of Sobel, and now gained Meehan. Easy has been through a lot in the years building up to their part in the war, and all it serves to do is make Nix feel tired beyond his years.
He and Dick have stayed friends and maybe-just maybe-there’s something unspoken beneath the surface. He almost brings it up a few times, but then he sees the genuine respect from the boys, hears Sink waxing poetic about Dick’s leading abilities, notices him helping out people he doesn’t have to help out, and then Nix remembers how Dick will always be too good for him.
So he moves and keeps hiding his Vat-69 in Dick’s footlocker and acts like friendship will always be enough for him.
Which, okay.
It actually would be enough, because just having someone like Dick Winters in your life should be enough for God himself.
But.
But the name on his wrist and the stupid fluttery feeling he gets every time they’re near each other begs to differ. And isn’t life just fucking dandy-giving him a perfect soulmate, and making him a dumb, drunk captain. Lucky as all hell, isn’t he?
Dick, of course, doesn’t seem to hold the alcohol or the irresponsibility or the unwillingness to move before 10AM (among dozens of other things) against him. At all. Which is also a little bit unfair because Nix knows anyone else would have given up on him by this point; but, well, Dick doesn’t.
Actually, it’s more than a “little” unfair because that means Dick taking care of him when he has a hangover, and Dick letting Nix hide his pilfered alcohol in his footlocker, and Dick getting him out of trouble, and Dick standing by him when he’s done something bad or unseemly. Most of all, it means Dick still smiles at him when the entire Company is jogging in the early morning and while they’re eating a shitty dinner of who-knows-what and when Nix drinks a little too much and stumbles (on purpose) into him.
His luck.
---
Nix got the news about the jump just hours ago. Jumping into Normandy, they say, the Invasion.
The words on the paper and from Sink’s mouth suddenly makes it all wildly and completely real. Before, he hadn’t let his mind wander too far in the future-kept it firmly in Toccoa with mountains and poker games or in dreary Aldbourne with failed exercises and quiet days-but now he’s stuck firmly on what’s about to happen.
Easy is going to jump, along with several other airborne units. They’re going to jump and most of them won’t come home.
He drinks.
Dick, predictably, is the one to seek him out. He’s gone through a bottle and a half by now and is only a little bit drunk. Maybe more than that.
Maybe it was two bottles and a half.
Point is, Dick walks in and Nix is laying on his back, empty bottle number something dangling between his fingers. When Dick stands over him, Nix can’t tell if the look on his face is disappointment or exasperated fondness.
“Lew.” Dick says, all quiet-like and gentle. Fucking typical, of course, because when is Dick every anything but understanding and good?
Nixon grins a little unsteadily at him, but doesn’t say anything.
“Lew.” Dick says again. He shakes his head a little, then crouches down. “Let’s get you to bed, alright?”
Nix raises his bottle-gripping hand and waves it around precariously, narrowly hitting Dick in the face, then slurs, “I’m-I’m not ready.”
They both know what he’s talking about, and something in Dick’s eyes shift. Nix thinks he looks a little sad. “I know,” He says, voice somewhere between amused and soulful, “no one is. But Vat-69 isn’t going to stop Hitler, and it sure isn’t going to stop Taylor or Sink or any of our higher-ups.”
“Fuck them.” Nix says vehemently.
Dick laughs a little at that, and then carefully pulls the bottle from Nix’s loose fingers. He sets it on the table with his growing collection of empty bottles, pausing a little, staring (counting), then turns back to Nix. His smile is a little tight this time.
But then he freezes and Nix knows automatically why.
He rolls over quickly (as quick as a drunk man can), pulls his arms close to himself, and tries to regulate his breathing, tries to make his heart stop jumping. And, God, this would be so much easier if he was sober and if he didn’t get that stupid fluttery feeling every time Dick was simply in the same room. Of course, the fluttery thing is increased tenfold because he can feel the heat radiating off Dick’s body, washing across his back, can hear his breathing.
The sound of Dick inhaling deeply is what he first registers, followed the sudden presence of his warm hand on Nix’s wrist, and-
“Please don’t.”
Dick doesn’t move his hand.
“Dick,” he says, voice clearer than he ever remembers it being. “Please, just-”
“If my name is there, Lew…” His voice trails, and Nix can feel his eyes on the back of his wrist, can practically hear Dick’s frown.
“And what if it’s not?” Maybe if he smothers himself, Dick will leave.
There’s a long moment of silence, then suddenly Dick isn’t there anymore. When Nix turns over it’s to see his best friend hovering near the door. He doesn’t look at Nix, but his lips quirk a little, and there’s something changed in the air. “If it is.” He pauses, eyes focusing somewhere in Georgia, “If it is, I don’t think I’d really mind.”
And then he’s gone.