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buckbiddick · 4 months

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all so human with our guards down.

read it here on ao3!

Upottery is a surprisingly tranquil place, at dusk.

The base has kicked up into high gear, since May gave way into June, and Dick’s grown used to the feel of plane and truck engines rumbling beneath his sternum at all hours of the day. But now, standing outside with Nix in the few hours left of burnt orange daylight, the airfield has grown quiet. Only the muted sounds of men milling in between the movie and chow tents are left to accompany them, silence broken every so often by the weak fizzle of Lew’s cigarette.

Surprising himself, Dick’s actually grown a little fond of the tent village that’s been hastily pitched up beside the tarmac. Something about the soft barrier between the outside world beyond the canvas reminds him of camping in the backyard as a boy.

He recalls one particularly hot afternoon in July, when he convinced his father to drag the old family tent off the high shelf in the broom closet. Even at ten years old Dick insisted that he pitch it himself, had wanted to learn how on his own, no matter how long it took. He slept the deepest he ever had that night, shivering in his sleeping bag against the chill, exhausted and proud.

It’s a warm, little joy—that memory. One he plans to keep very close to his chest, given the utter enormity of what tomorrow could bring.

“I used to camp like this as a kid,” he finds himself saying to Lew. They’re walking the line of the runway, a new habit that they’ve both silently fallen into at the end of particularly long days, without much thought as to why. Lew’s been claiming it as an excuse to stretch his legs—which is really an excuse for him to smoke. And as for Dick, well.

He’s never really needed an excuse to follow after Lewis Nixon, has he?

When Lew’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline, Dick motions to the green capped tents lining the grassy strip that follow the edge of the tarmac, canvas billowing in gentle, sea-like waves in the breeze. “Only had the one tent, of course. But it reminds me of summers growing up, is all.”

“Spent a lot of time in the deep jungles of Lancaster, did you?” Lew asks, the curve of his mouth lifting around the cigarette pinched between his lips. His third in as many as ten minutes. Dick doesn’t call him on it, reasoning it would be unfair to do so after the briefing they just stepped out of. Even he understands needing something to calm your nerves after finding out they’d all be jumping over the beaches of Normandy in no less than two days.

“Suppose my mother would call the yard a jungle, if Pop hadn’t mowed in a while,” he says. That earns him a smile, real and soft-edged in the sunset, and something inside of him leaps at the sight, small but ferocious in its joy. The force of it almost startles him.

It’s not often, he feels this way. Like he’s won something.

He asks, “Did you ever go camping?”

“Doris Nixon wouldn’t be caught dead sleeping in a tent,” Lew replies dryly. At Dick’s snort, he continues, eyes warm with amusement. “No, sir, it was a lakeside cabin with two baths or bust, I’m afraid. Not exactly the rustic wilderness vacation every young kid dreams of.”

He pulls his lighter free from the chest pocket of his coat—odd, because that’s not where he usually keeps it. Dick pauses at that thought, catching himself. He grabs hold of it and swiftly tucks it away.

“Can’t have been all bad,” he offers. “No leaks in the roof to worry about if it rains, at least.”

“The Nixons’ biggest adversary,” Lew muses, flicking the lighter to life with a fond shake of his head. “The horrible rains of New Jersey.”

There’s a pause as he cups the tiny flame close, the bridge of his nose bathed in a soft yellow. Shadows dance in the smudged hollows beneath his eyes, sharpening the crease between his brows. He looks tired, Dick notes. And he’s not hiding it as well as he usually does.

He doesn’t know when he started noticing things like that about his friend, where he keeps his lighter and how he bites the inside of his cheek when he wants to keep his thoughts to himself. But here in the moment, watching Lew’s side profile bathed in the lukewarm heat of English summer—far enough away from the buzz of the base that Dick can pretend the inevitability of tomorrow is not moments away from pounding at his door—he’s not altogether sure he’s ready to explore why.

The silence stretches, and Dick doesn’t feel the need to fill it. They meander farther and farther away from the tent village, and he finds it a bit easier to breathe with each step. Lew polishes off his cigarette before flicking away the bud with a sigh. He doesn’t go for another, to Dick’s mild relief, but his mouth stays pursed as they walk. He glances over at Dick every now and again, like he wants to say something but isn’t.

A few more minutes pass, the sun crawling lower and lower towards the horizon line in the corner of his eye. When Dick finally opens his mouth to ask, Lew suddenly halts.

“I got you something,” he says, out of the blue.

Dick stops short, too. He stares at him for a beat. “You got me something,” he repeats, dubious. It earns him an eye roll, and a small, knowing smile pulls across Nix’s face at his tone. Dick finds he prefers it much more to the pinched worry that was there a moment before.

“Sure did,” his friend says, rocking back a little on his heels. His hand is tucked deep into the pocket of his trousers, clearly holding something. He’s looking at Dick like he’s waiting for him to play along and ask, and something wholly exasperated and deeply fond swells in Dick’s chest at the sight. He relents with a sigh.

“What is it?” he prompts, unable to resist the pull of in the open amusement Lew is looking at him with.

“I’d say take a guess, but I don’t think I want to know what you’d come up with. Just know that whatever you’re thinking, I’m a far more thoughtful gift giver than that,” Lew says, eyes narrowing at him in an affectation of accusation. Dick opens his mouth to counter this, but Lew is already ploughing forward, “In any case, I was a little pressed for time, and what I wanted to give you won’t come in time before we’re off tramping around the French countryside, so you’ll have to get by with this.” With that, he pulls whatever he’s holding out of his pocket and tosses it underhand at Dick’s chest.

He catches before he realizes what it is. It’s a little larger than his palm, perfectly round in the cradle of his fingers. The skin of the rind is only a little battered, probably from being in Nix’s pocket for so long, but it’s firm enough to tell him that it's perfectly ripe and ready for eating.

Dick blinks down at the orange in his hands in complete surprise.

He looks up at Nix, bewildered. “Where on earth did you find this?”

“Now if I told you that, I’d really have to kill you,” his friend says, looking far too pleased with himself. When Dick raises his eyebrows, he shrugs. “Snagged it from a crate in some storage room behind the mess while I was looking for a place to hide a case of my drink of choice.” He fishes his flask out of his chest pocket, shakes it a little. The sunset bouncing off the metal makes Dick squint.

“You and that Vat 69,” he huffs. “How’d that work out for you?”

“Oh, fine,” Nix says, scratching idly underneath his chin. “I just gave up on all that nonsense and put it in your footlocker instead.”

That really does get him laughing. He doesn’t miss the way Lew’s shoulders finally ease at the sound, and that small thing inside his chest gives another ferocious leap, victorious.

They start the slow walk back down the airstrip, shoulders knocking occasionally when Lew’s steps wander close. His gaze is meandering all over the airfield, but Dick catches his eyes cutting over to the orange in his hands often enough that it betrays his nonchalance. Dick decides to go easy on him, and starts to peel the rind.

At the first press of his thumb, the smell of citrus hits his nose like a party popper. Helplessly, it makes him smile.

“So what did the Nixons do for family outings in the summer, if not camping?” he asks, and Lew’s head pops up from where he’d been eying Dick’s fingers pushing beneath the rind with a start. Their shoulders bump again, and Dick has to bite back a grin.

“Well,” Lew clears his throat, expression schooling into the affectation of the suave Yale man he always puts on when he discusses his family. “My old man’s always been fond of golf, so I spent most summers hauling around his irons for him. Didn’t mind it so much once I realized I could hide a bottle of pale ale in the caddy bag.”

“How old were you?” Dick asks, only just barely concealing how perturbed the thought of a young Nix staggering around the golf course after his father makes him feel. Lew’s already waving the thought away.

“Old enough,” he says, a luminous amusement glowing in his eyes at Dick’s frown. “Once I got tall enough to hit a pile drive myself there wasn’t much time for that, anyway.”

“And how were you by then?”

“Well by then I didn’t have to sneak it anymore.” And here Lew’s face breaks out into a crooked, wolfish grin. “They’d just hand me a glass on my way in.”

“For crying out loud,” Dick scoffs, and Lew bursts out laughing, a real, genuine sound that has him almost doubling over. Dick rolls his eyes skyward, praying for patience, but he already feels himself being won over just at the sight of the unconcealed joy on his friend’s face.

“You’re ridiculous,” he still scolds, though, shaking his head, just to be clear on where he stands on the matter. He finishes peeling the orange with a little more force than is directly necessary.

“Ah, I’m just pulling your leg, Dick,” Nix promises. He leans over and claps Dick on the shoulder with a firm squeeze of his hand before he moves away, the warmth of his palm lingering. There’s a slight pause before he admits, quieter, “we did a lot of apple picking, if you must know.”

At that Dick looks up. “Really?”

“Mhm,” Lew nods. “Little orchard in upstate New York, right around where my aunt lives. Place had all sorts of stuff growing. Strawberries, blueberries, that sort of thing. You pick the apples in the fall, mind. But boy,” he trails off with a shake of his head, eyes seeing something very far away. The expression on his face is peaceful, though. Content, in a way that Dick hasn’t seen on him in a long time. “You don’t ever forget the smell of an orchard like that in the summer.”

Dick imagines a young boy with dark hair falling into his face, the wind gently pushing it out of his way for him like a mother’s touch. He stands in the middle of rows and rows of flowering apple trees, pinkish white petals fluttering in the breeze, that same look of peace etched onto his features. The thought makes him smile.

Idly, he peels the orange open, takes a piece and pops it into his mouth. The citrus bursts on his tongue, sweet and cool in comparison to the army grub they’ve been living off for the last two years. Dick thinks it might be even better than ice cream.

He eats another slice, and the way the fruit pops open in his mouth makes him huff a laugh. He runs his nail across his bottom lip to catch the juice, sucking it off the pad of his thumb. Lew watches him do it, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Sounds nice,” Dick says, honestly, and offers out a piece of the orange to his friend.

Lew only stares at him for a moment. Really stares, eyes flicking all over Dicks face. He takes it, and their fingers brush. Dick watches him swallow.

“Yeah,” he says, turning the orange over slowly in his fingers before he looks away. Lew stares across the airfield at the large, hulking shapes of the planes, shimmering in the heat. “Yes, it does.”

There’s a beat where neither of them says anything. Something about watching Lew stare at those planes makes Dick’s chest ache, a hollow feeling that only grows with every second. For the first time in what feels like forever, Dick feels the need to fill the quiet.

“Better than golfing,” he jokes at the same time Lew blurts out, “I’ll take you there.”

The force of it brings them both up short on the tarmac. Dick pauses, watching Lew’s face as he takes in what he just said. His friend’s eyes are wide, like the words up and jumped out of his mouth without his say so. Dick’s pulse jolts. He feels it in the soles of his feet, like he’s missed a step at the bottom of the stairs.

“Sure you will,” he replies, easily, because it’s always easy to agree with Nix. But the promise echoes in that hollow space in his chest, growing wider and wider still.

"I will," Lew says, doubling down, despite the uncertainty that’s closing in on them from all sides. As paratroopers, they’re supposed to be used to being surrounded, but the thought still makes Dick feel vaguely like he might be sick.

They stare at each other, two dusty silhouettes backdropped by the russet orange blazing across the airfield. The sun paints shadows on the side of Lew's face. Dick can see it when the muscle jumps in his jaw.

For as long as they've known each other, Dick Winters has never needed a reason to follow after Lewis Nixon.

It makes sense, then, that he would never need a reason not to stand beside him, either.

"Chicago first, and now New York, huh?" he muses, breaking the quiet. He passes Lew another piece of the orange, a peace offering. "That’s quite the itinerary, Nix."

Lew huffs a breath like it hurts his lungs to do it. His eyes shine wetly in the sunset, but the crooked smile that pulls across his face is real.

“Yeah,” he says. Half-laughing, he takes the piece and pops it into his mouth. He knocks their shoulders together, the movement rough enough to make Dick sway. “Just you wait, Richard Winters. We’ll make a socialite of you yet.”

In retaliation, Dick tosses the orange rind at Lew’s face.

A few days later, after the jump and the gunfire and the horror of watching real men bleed out and die in front of him, Dick will be standing in a field near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont at sunrise. He will wipe the sweat off his brow and catch a hint of citrus on his sleeve. He’ll pause for a beat, then two, and hesitantly bring his sleeve up to his nose again. Eyes sliding shut, he’ll inhale deep, holding it in his lungs. Behind the orange, Dick will just make out the brush of Lew’s fingers against his own, and he'll breathe out slow.

Past the days old adrenaline thumping at his pulse, warmth blooms.

#happy pride! i give you ww2 gays sharing an orange <3 #title is from Orange Blood by Mt. Joy :)#band of brothers #winnix #richard winters #dick winters #lewis nixon #bob fic #bob #my fic

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