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thrillingdetectivetales) wrote2019-06-23 01:33 pm
thrillingdetectivetales) wrote2019-06-23 01:33 pm
FIC: Shake Off Your Flesh
SHAKE OFF YOUR FLESH
Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Dick, a born wolf, does his best to comfort newly-bitten Nix as he stares down the barrel of his first transformation.
Author's Note:
Dick watched from the edge of the bed while Lew stalked across the room for the fortieth or fiftieth time in half as many minutes. He reached the far wall, blew out a sharp breath, and then spun on his heel to prowl back the way he’d come, glowering over his shoulder as he passed and trailing the acrid peppercorn reek of frustration in his wake.
“It’s going to be fine, Nix,” Dick assured him, same as he had the last twelve times Lew’s glare had found his eye.
“You can’t know that,” Lew snapped darkly. “Not for sure.”
While Dick had long held watching Lew on a tear among his most favored forms of entertainment, he was rapidly learning that it was a far less enjoyable experience to be the sole recipient of Lew’s ire. For the first—and hopefully only—time in his life, Dick was very nearly stirred to reluctant commiseration with Herbert Sobel.
Lew paused for a moment when he reached the window, leaning heavily on the sill and drumming his fingers against the wood as he peered queasily out into the diminishing daylight where it spilled in fading beams between the quaintly stacked buildings of Alsace and sluiced down the steep-angled rooftops to pool in the cobbled streets. Fear bloomed in a bilious wave beneath his usual bouquet of warm spice and guilt twisted unpleasantly through Dick’s gut. He was being uncharitable—this was gearing up to be a difficult night all around and, of the two of them, Lew was undoubtedly the worse off.
Dick, after all, had been born dual-natured and in the practice of shifting for all three nights of the moon’s thrall since the change first came over him during puberty. He was long used to the building pressure, only peripherally aware of the needle-sharp itch prickling under his skin and the distant, grinding ache in his bones.
Lew, by contrast, had contracted the bite just a few weeks ago in Noville. The heat of battle only barely cooled, small squads of men had begun clearing the buildings while Lew dug around for anything that might prove particularly informative or otherwise useful to his superiors back at battalion. It had been a horrific surprise to them all when one of the German Schreckenswölfe erupted out of a half-destroyed building. That he was shifted while the moon was far from risen and only half-full besides belied either an immense measure of control or an illness or both.
Dick hadn’t been able to strip his skin fast enough to spare Lew or the handful of infantrymen in his vicinity from the few hundred pounds of claws and teeth that came howling down upon them, though he put the other wolf out to pasture with ruthless efficiency a few short moments later. And now here Lew was, having survived the initial trauma and the subsequent fever only to find himself at the mercy of the infection broiling inside him for the very first time with no better example than Dick, half his attention occupied with wrestling his own baser nature, to guide him through.
It was perfectly understandable that he should be nervous, and Dick knew well enough by now to expect that Lew would express those nerves in the grand Nixon tradition, which was to say through a consistent battery of petulant rudeness.
“You’re right,” he conceded with as much grace as he could muster. Lew’s souring attitude over the last few days had pretty thoroughly plumbed the depths of his equanimity, so he suspected he might not have been as successful as he hoped. “I don’t know for sure.”
Lew jabbed a victorious finger in Dick’s direction, jaw tilting mulishly up while his scent rounded out with butter rich vindication.
“What I do know,” Dick continued pointedly before Lew could get a word in edgewise, “is that wolves have been doing this for centuries, and most of us come through all right.”
“Most of you come by it honestly,” Lew argued. “Maybe it’s different for us poor bastards who get torn up in the street.”
It was possible, Dick allowed, though he kept his agreement to himself to avoid fuelling Lew’s recalcitrance any further.
He had never known a bitten wolf before, could never understand what it would be like to shift against his own will. By the time he’d been old enough to answer the moon’s call it had been an occasion much anticipated and joyously celebrated—the trait frequently skipped over individuals, if not entire generations. That Dick had the pleasure of taking regular runs through the hills and forests of the Pennsylvania countryside with both his parents and Ann, besides, was something of a miracle as wolven bloodlines went.
He was at an utter loss as to how he might soothe the fear that had Lew so thoroughly twisted up where he teetered on the cusp of something Dick had always considered a blessing. Not for the first time, he wished that Harry were here to help mitigate Lew’s anxieties rather than laid up in a field hospital recovering from his own foolishness. He felt certain that Harry’s gregarious humor and natural ease with his dual-nature would be a far greater boon in this instance than Dick’s own restrained steadiness.
Lew reached the opposite wall and wheeled around to pace again, fingers fluttering against his thigh in an aborted, instinctual twitch toward the flask he usually kept in his pocket. Technically speaking, the flask was still there; the trouble was that Lew’s pocket along with his trousers and all the rest of his clothes were crumpled in a heap in the corner of the room.
He’d shucked them off without ceremony after Dick hustled him up to his billet half an hour ago, complaining that the rub of the fabric was exacerbating the sting under his skin and bleeding enough heat by now that the frigid climate didn’t seem to bother him a whit. It was as good a reason to disrobe as any, Dick supposed, and it would spare them both the indignity of having to gnaw their way through Lew’s drawers once opposable digits had been removed from the equation.
“How is this not bothering you?” Lew demanded through half-clenched teeth. He squeezed his hands into fists, rolling his shoulders and scowling when the motion did little to relieve the tension ratcheting through his frame. He was wound so tightly that Dick could feel it radiating off of him, the oily char of anxiety hanging heavy and oppressive in the stagnant air.
“Experience?” Dick suggested. “I’ve been doing it since I was twelve.”
Lew scoffed and shook his head, curls just overgrown enough to bounce a little as he spun to take another turn across the floor. Under better circumstances, Dick would find it an immense pleasure to watch his lover slink naked around the room for as long as he liked. As it was, any allure to the picture Lew made was handily negated by the sweat glazing his blanched skin and the pained grimace tightening his jaw. There was a sour, nervous catch under his scent every time he turned that pressed against the roof of Dick’s mouth like spoiled dairy.
As if on cue, Lew swiveled around again, releasing a burst of that awful perfume and scratching at the jagged, clustered scars carving across his right forearm. His fingers were strikingly pale against the hot, shiny pink of new flesh. Dick clicked his tongue and did his best not to sneeze.
“You’ll make it worse if you keep picking at it.”
“In a few minutes I’ll be a dead ringer for Chaney, Jr.,” Lew snorted humorlessly. “How much worse could it get?”
He was referring of course to The Wolfman—which regimental staff had aired for the troops back in October in a stroke of coincidence nearly as funny as it had been ominous—because he knew how fiercely Dick loathed it. They’d already discussed at length the many varied reasons why the film was tastelessly inaccurate at best and a real and pressing danger to legitimate shapeshifters at worst, so Dick refrained from making any further comment, content to let Lew twist at the end of his own baited hook.
“I don’t see why I can’t have a drink,” Lew groused a few minutes later, when Dick had successfully ignored him into consternation. He took a few meandering steps toward the jumbled scatter of his uniform.
“It’ll be easier if you’re sober.”
Lew halted his advance, crossing his arms over his chest and scuffing the ball of his bare foot against the floral rug.
“Harry used to get soused before he dropped four every month,” he accused, calling into evidence their time at Mackall. “It never seemed to bother him any.”
“Because Harry is a paragon of appropriate behavior,” Dick observed. He felt a little bad criticizing Harry while he was off recuperating but it was worth the minor disloyalty for the way Lew ducked his head and bit back a laugh, his natural spice rising for a moment over the jumble of other odors in a bright, heady wave. “Besides, he’s been doing it just as long as I have.”
“Oh, what?” Lew scoffed, smirk a little too sharp to be playful. “Just because I’m new I can’t be allowed a nip to take the edge off?”
“It’s one night, Nix.” Dick took a deep, steadying breath through his nose, glutting himself on the familiar heat of Lew’s scent to ward against the frustration that was getting more difficult to ignore with every labored inch the sun sank below the horizon. “I think you can manage for one night.”
“I don’t see why I should have to,” Lew reasoned. “Way I see it, a fellow deserves to buy himself a little brass before he changes shape for the first time.”
He was hunched in on himself even more than usual, his already questionable posture suffering the added pressure of his ruffled temper. He stayed firmly planted on the threadbare rug, making no move nearer his discarded wardrobe or the prize therein while his scent cleared a little and settled. Squabbling for squabbling’s sake, then, in true Lewis Nixon fashion, or else as an exercise to keep his mind off the inescapable occasion toward which they were steadily catapulting.
Dick could feel the moon tugging at his pulse, raising the fever in his blood degree by agonizing degree. It must be twice as bad at least for Lew, who finally turned his back to his flask a moment later and pinned Dick with a dark, narrow gaze.
“You know, I haven’t been hazed like this since freshman year,” he said thoughtfully, scratching at the two-day scruff on his chin. “Funny that it ought to be a confirmed teetotaller putting me through the paces this time around.”
Dick let the arch of a single judgmental eyebrow do his speaking for him. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to engage in a spirited round of structured debate as to the merits of shifting sober if Lew continued to press the issue. He supposed that if it came down to it he could always just sit on him until the moon peaked, after which opening a bottle would be beyond either of their capabilities or concerns.
“What?” Lew asked waspishly upon seeing Dick’s expression. “It’s ridiculous. You can’t tell me it’s not. I’m a werewolf, for Christ’s sake, not an inductee to the - the - ” He flapped a hand searchingly in Dick’s direction. “The goddamn Pennsylvania sobriety set!”
It was far from his cleverest insult. Dick pressed his mouth into a thin, unimpressed line and waited expectantly. Lew spent a few seconds reeking of irritation and shifting his weight from foot to foot while he glared churlishly out over his folded arms. He stilled a moment later like he meant to hold position, but patience was a game that Dick didn’t often lose and Lew was in no condition to bluff a bad hand.
Sure enough, he cut his gaze away shortly thereafter, scrubbing a hand over his face and heaving a shaky breath that seemed to leave him slightly wilted as he exhaled all his keyed-up bluster out into the room. The awful tension saturating the air snapped with it, the charcoal gristle dissolving down to something still smoky and mired on the raw side of fraught but no longer threatening to suffocate with every breath.
“Jesus,” Lew sighed, as near an apology as he was likely to get. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” He huffed a soft, slightly bitter laugh and flashed a handsome smirk, gesturing to the scars on his arm and correcting ruefully, “Scratch that—I know exactly what’s the matter with me. I just don’t know what to do about it.”
“It’s alright,” Dick said, the corners of his mouth tilting up at the unexpected revival of Lew’s good humor, small and fragile though it may have been. In the spirit of conspiratory goodwill he bowed his head over his knees and admitted to the floor, “I was a real pill my first time, if you can believe it.”
“The incomparable Major Richard Winters?” Lew asked, clapping his hands to his chest in feigned incredulity. “Never.” He shot Dick a subdued grin and then started back along the path he had been steadily wearing through the warped floorboards, chewing at a hangnail as he went.
“It’s true,” Dick said. He watched Lew pace for another few steps before extending a leg out to intercept him, ankle to shin. “C’mere, would you? You’re making me dizzy, circling around like that.”
“I feel like I’m coming out of my skin,” Lew griped, but gamely ambled near enough that Dick could hook an arm around his waist.
You are, Dick nearly said, and then thought better of it and pulled Lew in without comment.
He was warm and soft and slightly clammy. This close he smelled of Chesterfields, standard-issue soap, and the faint astringent tang of Vitalis, though he’d worn his hair loose most of the week in concession to the lunar cycle dragging roughshod across his already famously sensitive temper. Dick leaned in and let his forehead rest against the bared plane of Lew’s stomach, just this side of fever-hot and shifting steadily with the rhythm of his breath.
Lew made a quiet, pleased noise at the contact and draped his arms over Dick’s shoulders.
“It’s just for a little while longer,” Dick assured, pressing the words into Lew’s skin and savoring the rash of gooseflesh that rippled out in the wake of his breath, the burnt sugar curl of desire that came with it. He swept his thumb over the curve of Lew’s hip, nudging him this way and that by degrees until he was settled comfortably into the crook of Dick’s elbow, standing in the splay of his knees.
The only wardrobe allowances Dick had made so far were to peel off his jump boots and socks, which were posted neatly on the floor next to the dresser, and to strip down above the waist to just his undershirt. Suspenders, he had learned during his first few months as an enlisted man, were more trouble on nights like these than they were worth simply for the sake of maintaining decorum.
Lew didn’t seem to mind the disparity in their states of undress, stroking his fingers absently across the seams at Dick’s shoulders and nudging past his collar to brush the chain that held his dog tags while he sighed, low and almost wistful. Dick canted his head back to look up at him, chin resting just above Lew’s navel.
“It really will be fine, Nix,” he promised, risking a grin. “You might even like it.”
Lew snorted and brought one of his hands up to tangle in Dick’s hair.
“Yeah,” he muttered over a small, reluctant smile. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
He was content to stand there for a few short moments, petting tenderly at Dick’s hair while Dick nosed along his abdomen, luxuriating in the scent of him and dropping the occasional kiss like a pin on a map until the heightened sensory input Lew had been warring with all afternoon tipped the pleasure of suffering Dick’s affections over into pain. He stiffened and shifted away, tightening his grip in Dick’s hair just enough to catch his attention though he took care not to yank too much. He liked to talk hard and drink harder, did Lew, but he was almost always soft with his hands.
“Alright,” Lew warned benignly, voice thick and shaking slightly under the teasing lilt. “Better cut that out or we’re about to have a whole different problem on our hands.”
Dick hummed his acknowledgement and leaned back in to seal a lazy kiss over the blade of Lew’s hip, savoring the way he hissed and shivered.
“We can, if you want,” he offered, straightening back up and allowing Lew what space he could without surrendering the arm he had slung around his waist. “We still have time.”
It only took a glance to confirm what Dick could taste on the air—that Lew was half-hard already and could likely be coaxed the rest of the way with minimal fuss. He seemed to live his life in a nearly constant state of low-grade arousal, sweet and thick as caramel, which had been something of an issue for Dick back when he was near enough to smell Lew all the time but hadn’t yet earned permission to touch. He tucked his thumb into the soft hollow just above where Lew’s thigh started to crease and swept it back and forth.
Lew sucked a breath past his teeth and possibility tumbled like a hot coal down Dick’s spine to ignite in his belly. He lifted his gaze just in time to catch the flash of pink where Lew licked at his lips. His mouth was, as always, lush and soft and so red he might have been wearing lipstick. It looked even better wet.
“Well?”
Lew swallowed a few times, throat working until he managed to say hoarsely, “I don’t know.” He let his hand fall from Dick’s hair to cup his cheek, guiding his head back just a little and staring down at him, dark eyes heavy-lidded and blown nearly black. “God knows it’s tempting. I just - I don’t - ” He swallowed again and dropped his gaze to the floor.
Shame rolled off him in a sudden, vinegar-sharp burst, his throat flushing ruddy with it. Dick wrinkled his nose against the smell and turned his face into Lew’s grasp to press an encouraging kiss to the heel of his palm. Lew tensed for a moment and then took a long, slow breath, body quivering with the force of the exhale.
“I don’t want to change,” he admitted in a rush, darting a glance at Dick and then away while he dropped his hand to Dick’s shoulder. “Not at all, if I had a choice about it, but especially not while we’re - you know.”
“Engaging in a joint operation?” Dick supplied after a few seconds of awkward, stilted silence, and was rewarded when Lew rolled his eyes and pursed his lips against a laugh. “Integrating to achieve mutually complementary effects?”
“Christ, you’re awful,” Lew groaned, but at least now he was smiling, scent suffused with a warmth not unlike cinnamon. He shoved Dick carefully back onto the bed and continued, “You need to quit reading the handbooks. Budge up, Major. I want to lie down.”
He didn’t give Dick much of a chance to move before he flopped onto his back on the narrow mattress, sprawling bare-assed on top of the quilt with his eyes closed, cheek pillowed against Dick’s thigh and face turned in toward Dick’s hip. He heaved a hearty, full-bodied sigh that rolled in a hot gust through the flimsy barrier of cotton and olive drab over Dick’s lap and grinned slyly to himself when Dick shivered.
“Better?” Dick asked once Lew had settled. He reached down to splay his fingers out across Lew’s chest, thumb in the neighborhood of his sternum and pinkie nearly dipping into his navel. Lew made a soft noise of confirmation from where he had his nose practically buried in Dick’s pocket.
He breathed in deep once, twice, and then let his head tip lazily back, baring the long, pale column of his throat with its scattering of dark hair trailing down from his jaw, symptom of a few days’ lackluster attention to personal grooming. A warm knot coiled and tightened behind Dick’s ribs at the display of submission, so sweet with want that it almost hurt.
Dick knuckled at his chest with his free hand, as though the tender ache was something he could alleviate from the outside, and reminded himself that Lew didn’t understand what he was offering when he did things like this. There was instinct behind it, certainly, and likely more-so now that Lew was under the moon’s thrall with him, but Dick would be foolish to read anything into it beyond strictly human comfort.
As if roused by this inner turmoil, Lew cracked his eyes open just enough to peer drowsily up at Dick and announced in a dreamy murmur, “You smell good.”
“I had a shower this morning,” Dick said by way of explanation, palm dragging gently down the soft plane of Lew’s belly.
“Lucky me,” Lew replied, turning his head so that the side of his smirk was tucked up against Dick’s thigh. He shut his eyes again and arched into Dick’s touch like an affectionate cat, sighing as he stretched, “Think it’s just you, though. Never did much care for Ivory soap.”
Dick let his hand wander far enough that his fingers brushed the thatch of dark hair between Lew’s legs, desire leaping in bright licks up his spine at the low, contented rumble it drew out of him. Lew was still just south of worked up, cock flushed pink and half full against his thigh. Dick licked his lips and dared to shift down a little further, emboldened by the perfume of sweet summer earth drifting up off Lew’s skin and the heat of the fever simmering in them both.
“You sure you don’t want me to take care of that?”
Lew took a breath through his nose and pushed up onto his elbows just high enough to peer down the length of his body. At the sight of Dick’s hand a spare half-inch from his cock, he licked his lips and let his thighs fall further apart with little fanfare and gratifying immediacy, a reaction made better still when a quick, soft sweep of Dick’s thumb made him twitch and swell. He stared for a long, frozen moment, teeth pressed sharp into his lower lip, and then reached down to grasp Dick’s hand in his own, guiding it back up with an apologetic squeeze.
“After,” he assured, resettling himself in a rush of certainty that tingled like peppermint against Dick’s tongue. Lew raised their hands up to his face, twined together thumb-to-thumb, and brushed a kiss across Dick’s knuckles. His breath was warm and wet between Dick’s fingers when he added, low and coy, “Gives me something to look forward to.”
“Alright,” Dick said, trying not to sound too put out. He made to pull his hand away but Lew held fast, brow furrowed and expression vaguely perplexed. “What?”
“Could you - ” Lew started, leaning back so that his head was cushioned once again on Dick’s thigh while he guided Dick’s hand a little awkwardly in the direction of his neck.
Dick’s eyebrows leapt toward his hairline, heart drumming hard against his ribs when he realized what Lew was asking after. He carefully cupped his palm over Lew’s throat where it arced sweetly toward him, thumb tucked snug against the blade of his jaw and fingers spread just wide enough to brush his collarbone.
“Like this?” he asked, his whole body fizzing with surprise and pleasure.
“Yeah,” Lew breathed elatedly, seeming almost to melt down into the bedspread as his eyes dropped shut, drifting on a wave of satisfaction so rich it nearly made Dick’s mouth water. “Just like that.”
Dick traced the pad of his thumb along the hinge of Lew’s jaw, stomach twisting hotly when Lew turned his face into the contact. He made a soft, contented sound and Dick felt it vibrate under his hand.
“Comfortable?”
“Very,” Lew murmured easily. He let his fingers skim featherlight down Dick’s forearm until they came to rest just above the bend of his elbow, trailing delicate, absent patterns over his skin. “S’nice, right?”
“It is,” Dick confirmed, voice low and tender.
“The other part’ll be nice, too,” Lew promised, tone so soft it had buffed all the edges off his consonants. “After.”
“After,” Dick agreed, closing his eyes and tracking the moon where it sang in Lew’s pulse.
Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Dick, a born wolf, does his best to comfort newly-bitten Nix as he stares down the barrel of his first transformation.
Author's Note:
First and foremost, my sincerest gratitude to both C’s, who assured me this wasn’t garbage despite knowing nothing about the fandom, and the delightful
Any remaining errors are totally my own. There are probably quite a few of them, but I wanted to move on to the next fill so I'm posting now anyway. Forgive me.
This was written as a fill for thehc_bingo prompt “first transformation.”
Title is from the song of the same name by The Huntress and Holder of Hands. If you'd rather, you can also read this story on AO3.
Dick watched from the edge of the bed while Lew stalked across the room for the fortieth or fiftieth time in half as many minutes. He reached the far wall, blew out a sharp breath, and then spun on his heel to prowl back the way he’d come, glowering over his shoulder as he passed and trailing the acrid peppercorn reek of frustration in his wake.
“It’s going to be fine, Nix,” Dick assured him, same as he had the last twelve times Lew’s glare had found his eye.
“You can’t know that,” Lew snapped darkly. “Not for sure.”
While Dick had long held watching Lew on a tear among his most favored forms of entertainment, he was rapidly learning that it was a far less enjoyable experience to be the sole recipient of Lew’s ire. For the first—and hopefully only—time in his life, Dick was very nearly stirred to reluctant commiseration with Herbert Sobel.
Lew paused for a moment when he reached the window, leaning heavily on the sill and drumming his fingers against the wood as he peered queasily out into the diminishing daylight where it spilled in fading beams between the quaintly stacked buildings of Alsace and sluiced down the steep-angled rooftops to pool in the cobbled streets. Fear bloomed in a bilious wave beneath his usual bouquet of warm spice and guilt twisted unpleasantly through Dick’s gut. He was being uncharitable—this was gearing up to be a difficult night all around and, of the two of them, Lew was undoubtedly the worse off.
Dick, after all, had been born dual-natured and in the practice of shifting for all three nights of the moon’s thrall since the change first came over him during puberty. He was long used to the building pressure, only peripherally aware of the needle-sharp itch prickling under his skin and the distant, grinding ache in his bones.
Lew, by contrast, had contracted the bite just a few weeks ago in Noville. The heat of battle only barely cooled, small squads of men had begun clearing the buildings while Lew dug around for anything that might prove particularly informative or otherwise useful to his superiors back at battalion. It had been a horrific surprise to them all when one of the German Schreckenswölfe erupted out of a half-destroyed building. That he was shifted while the moon was far from risen and only half-full besides belied either an immense measure of control or an illness or both.
Dick hadn’t been able to strip his skin fast enough to spare Lew or the handful of infantrymen in his vicinity from the few hundred pounds of claws and teeth that came howling down upon them, though he put the other wolf out to pasture with ruthless efficiency a few short moments later. And now here Lew was, having survived the initial trauma and the subsequent fever only to find himself at the mercy of the infection broiling inside him for the very first time with no better example than Dick, half his attention occupied with wrestling his own baser nature, to guide him through.
It was perfectly understandable that he should be nervous, and Dick knew well enough by now to expect that Lew would express those nerves in the grand Nixon tradition, which was to say through a consistent battery of petulant rudeness.
“You’re right,” he conceded with as much grace as he could muster. Lew’s souring attitude over the last few days had pretty thoroughly plumbed the depths of his equanimity, so he suspected he might not have been as successful as he hoped. “I don’t know for sure.”
Lew jabbed a victorious finger in Dick’s direction, jaw tilting mulishly up while his scent rounded out with butter rich vindication.
“What I do know,” Dick continued pointedly before Lew could get a word in edgewise, “is that wolves have been doing this for centuries, and most of us come through all right.”
“Most of you come by it honestly,” Lew argued. “Maybe it’s different for us poor bastards who get torn up in the street.”
It was possible, Dick allowed, though he kept his agreement to himself to avoid fuelling Lew’s recalcitrance any further.
He had never known a bitten wolf before, could never understand what it would be like to shift against his own will. By the time he’d been old enough to answer the moon’s call it had been an occasion much anticipated and joyously celebrated—the trait frequently skipped over individuals, if not entire generations. That Dick had the pleasure of taking regular runs through the hills and forests of the Pennsylvania countryside with both his parents and Ann, besides, was something of a miracle as wolven bloodlines went.
He was at an utter loss as to how he might soothe the fear that had Lew so thoroughly twisted up where he teetered on the cusp of something Dick had always considered a blessing. Not for the first time, he wished that Harry were here to help mitigate Lew’s anxieties rather than laid up in a field hospital recovering from his own foolishness. He felt certain that Harry’s gregarious humor and natural ease with his dual-nature would be a far greater boon in this instance than Dick’s own restrained steadiness.
Lew reached the opposite wall and wheeled around to pace again, fingers fluttering against his thigh in an aborted, instinctual twitch toward the flask he usually kept in his pocket. Technically speaking, the flask was still there; the trouble was that Lew’s pocket along with his trousers and all the rest of his clothes were crumpled in a heap in the corner of the room.
He’d shucked them off without ceremony after Dick hustled him up to his billet half an hour ago, complaining that the rub of the fabric was exacerbating the sting under his skin and bleeding enough heat by now that the frigid climate didn’t seem to bother him a whit. It was as good a reason to disrobe as any, Dick supposed, and it would spare them both the indignity of having to gnaw their way through Lew’s drawers once opposable digits had been removed from the equation.
“How is this not bothering you?” Lew demanded through half-clenched teeth. He squeezed his hands into fists, rolling his shoulders and scowling when the motion did little to relieve the tension ratcheting through his frame. He was wound so tightly that Dick could feel it radiating off of him, the oily char of anxiety hanging heavy and oppressive in the stagnant air.
“Experience?” Dick suggested. “I’ve been doing it since I was twelve.”
Lew scoffed and shook his head, curls just overgrown enough to bounce a little as he spun to take another turn across the floor. Under better circumstances, Dick would find it an immense pleasure to watch his lover slink naked around the room for as long as he liked. As it was, any allure to the picture Lew made was handily negated by the sweat glazing his blanched skin and the pained grimace tightening his jaw. There was a sour, nervous catch under his scent every time he turned that pressed against the roof of Dick’s mouth like spoiled dairy.
As if on cue, Lew swiveled around again, releasing a burst of that awful perfume and scratching at the jagged, clustered scars carving across his right forearm. His fingers were strikingly pale against the hot, shiny pink of new flesh. Dick clicked his tongue and did his best not to sneeze.
“You’ll make it worse if you keep picking at it.”
“In a few minutes I’ll be a dead ringer for Chaney, Jr.,” Lew snorted humorlessly. “How much worse could it get?”
He was referring of course to The Wolfman—which regimental staff had aired for the troops back in October in a stroke of coincidence nearly as funny as it had been ominous—because he knew how fiercely Dick loathed it. They’d already discussed at length the many varied reasons why the film was tastelessly inaccurate at best and a real and pressing danger to legitimate shapeshifters at worst, so Dick refrained from making any further comment, content to let Lew twist at the end of his own baited hook.
“I don’t see why I can’t have a drink,” Lew groused a few minutes later, when Dick had successfully ignored him into consternation. He took a few meandering steps toward the jumbled scatter of his uniform.
“It’ll be easier if you’re sober.”
Lew halted his advance, crossing his arms over his chest and scuffing the ball of his bare foot against the floral rug.
“Harry used to get soused before he dropped four every month,” he accused, calling into evidence their time at Mackall. “It never seemed to bother him any.”
“Because Harry is a paragon of appropriate behavior,” Dick observed. He felt a little bad criticizing Harry while he was off recuperating but it was worth the minor disloyalty for the way Lew ducked his head and bit back a laugh, his natural spice rising for a moment over the jumble of other odors in a bright, heady wave. “Besides, he’s been doing it just as long as I have.”
“Oh, what?” Lew scoffed, smirk a little too sharp to be playful. “Just because I’m new I can’t be allowed a nip to take the edge off?”
“It’s one night, Nix.” Dick took a deep, steadying breath through his nose, glutting himself on the familiar heat of Lew’s scent to ward against the frustration that was getting more difficult to ignore with every labored inch the sun sank below the horizon. “I think you can manage for one night.”
“I don’t see why I should have to,” Lew reasoned. “Way I see it, a fellow deserves to buy himself a little brass before he changes shape for the first time.”
He was hunched in on himself even more than usual, his already questionable posture suffering the added pressure of his ruffled temper. He stayed firmly planted on the threadbare rug, making no move nearer his discarded wardrobe or the prize therein while his scent cleared a little and settled. Squabbling for squabbling’s sake, then, in true Lewis Nixon fashion, or else as an exercise to keep his mind off the inescapable occasion toward which they were steadily catapulting.
Dick could feel the moon tugging at his pulse, raising the fever in his blood degree by agonizing degree. It must be twice as bad at least for Lew, who finally turned his back to his flask a moment later and pinned Dick with a dark, narrow gaze.
“You know, I haven’t been hazed like this since freshman year,” he said thoughtfully, scratching at the two-day scruff on his chin. “Funny that it ought to be a confirmed teetotaller putting me through the paces this time around.”
Dick let the arch of a single judgmental eyebrow do his speaking for him. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to engage in a spirited round of structured debate as to the merits of shifting sober if Lew continued to press the issue. He supposed that if it came down to it he could always just sit on him until the moon peaked, after which opening a bottle would be beyond either of their capabilities or concerns.
“What?” Lew asked waspishly upon seeing Dick’s expression. “It’s ridiculous. You can’t tell me it’s not. I’m a werewolf, for Christ’s sake, not an inductee to the - the - ” He flapped a hand searchingly in Dick’s direction. “The goddamn Pennsylvania sobriety set!”
It was far from his cleverest insult. Dick pressed his mouth into a thin, unimpressed line and waited expectantly. Lew spent a few seconds reeking of irritation and shifting his weight from foot to foot while he glared churlishly out over his folded arms. He stilled a moment later like he meant to hold position, but patience was a game that Dick didn’t often lose and Lew was in no condition to bluff a bad hand.
Sure enough, he cut his gaze away shortly thereafter, scrubbing a hand over his face and heaving a shaky breath that seemed to leave him slightly wilted as he exhaled all his keyed-up bluster out into the room. The awful tension saturating the air snapped with it, the charcoal gristle dissolving down to something still smoky and mired on the raw side of fraught but no longer threatening to suffocate with every breath.
“Jesus,” Lew sighed, as near an apology as he was likely to get. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” He huffed a soft, slightly bitter laugh and flashed a handsome smirk, gesturing to the scars on his arm and correcting ruefully, “Scratch that—I know exactly what’s the matter with me. I just don’t know what to do about it.”
“It’s alright,” Dick said, the corners of his mouth tilting up at the unexpected revival of Lew’s good humor, small and fragile though it may have been. In the spirit of conspiratory goodwill he bowed his head over his knees and admitted to the floor, “I was a real pill my first time, if you can believe it.”
“The incomparable Major Richard Winters?” Lew asked, clapping his hands to his chest in feigned incredulity. “Never.” He shot Dick a subdued grin and then started back along the path he had been steadily wearing through the warped floorboards, chewing at a hangnail as he went.
“It’s true,” Dick said. He watched Lew pace for another few steps before extending a leg out to intercept him, ankle to shin. “C’mere, would you? You’re making me dizzy, circling around like that.”
“I feel like I’m coming out of my skin,” Lew griped, but gamely ambled near enough that Dick could hook an arm around his waist.
You are, Dick nearly said, and then thought better of it and pulled Lew in without comment.
He was warm and soft and slightly clammy. This close he smelled of Chesterfields, standard-issue soap, and the faint astringent tang of Vitalis, though he’d worn his hair loose most of the week in concession to the lunar cycle dragging roughshod across his already famously sensitive temper. Dick leaned in and let his forehead rest against the bared plane of Lew’s stomach, just this side of fever-hot and shifting steadily with the rhythm of his breath.
Lew made a quiet, pleased noise at the contact and draped his arms over Dick’s shoulders.
“It’s just for a little while longer,” Dick assured, pressing the words into Lew’s skin and savoring the rash of gooseflesh that rippled out in the wake of his breath, the burnt sugar curl of desire that came with it. He swept his thumb over the curve of Lew’s hip, nudging him this way and that by degrees until he was settled comfortably into the crook of Dick’s elbow, standing in the splay of his knees.
The only wardrobe allowances Dick had made so far were to peel off his jump boots and socks, which were posted neatly on the floor next to the dresser, and to strip down above the waist to just his undershirt. Suspenders, he had learned during his first few months as an enlisted man, were more trouble on nights like these than they were worth simply for the sake of maintaining decorum.
Lew didn’t seem to mind the disparity in their states of undress, stroking his fingers absently across the seams at Dick’s shoulders and nudging past his collar to brush the chain that held his dog tags while he sighed, low and almost wistful. Dick canted his head back to look up at him, chin resting just above Lew’s navel.
“It really will be fine, Nix,” he promised, risking a grin. “You might even like it.”
Lew snorted and brought one of his hands up to tangle in Dick’s hair.
“Yeah,” he muttered over a small, reluctant smile. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
He was content to stand there for a few short moments, petting tenderly at Dick’s hair while Dick nosed along his abdomen, luxuriating in the scent of him and dropping the occasional kiss like a pin on a map until the heightened sensory input Lew had been warring with all afternoon tipped the pleasure of suffering Dick’s affections over into pain. He stiffened and shifted away, tightening his grip in Dick’s hair just enough to catch his attention though he took care not to yank too much. He liked to talk hard and drink harder, did Lew, but he was almost always soft with his hands.
“Alright,” Lew warned benignly, voice thick and shaking slightly under the teasing lilt. “Better cut that out or we’re about to have a whole different problem on our hands.”
Dick hummed his acknowledgement and leaned back in to seal a lazy kiss over the blade of Lew’s hip, savoring the way he hissed and shivered.
“We can, if you want,” he offered, straightening back up and allowing Lew what space he could without surrendering the arm he had slung around his waist. “We still have time.”
It only took a glance to confirm what Dick could taste on the air—that Lew was half-hard already and could likely be coaxed the rest of the way with minimal fuss. He seemed to live his life in a nearly constant state of low-grade arousal, sweet and thick as caramel, which had been something of an issue for Dick back when he was near enough to smell Lew all the time but hadn’t yet earned permission to touch. He tucked his thumb into the soft hollow just above where Lew’s thigh started to crease and swept it back and forth.
Lew sucked a breath past his teeth and possibility tumbled like a hot coal down Dick’s spine to ignite in his belly. He lifted his gaze just in time to catch the flash of pink where Lew licked at his lips. His mouth was, as always, lush and soft and so red he might have been wearing lipstick. It looked even better wet.
“Well?”
Lew swallowed a few times, throat working until he managed to say hoarsely, “I don’t know.” He let his hand fall from Dick’s hair to cup his cheek, guiding his head back just a little and staring down at him, dark eyes heavy-lidded and blown nearly black. “God knows it’s tempting. I just - I don’t - ” He swallowed again and dropped his gaze to the floor.
Shame rolled off him in a sudden, vinegar-sharp burst, his throat flushing ruddy with it. Dick wrinkled his nose against the smell and turned his face into Lew’s grasp to press an encouraging kiss to the heel of his palm. Lew tensed for a moment and then took a long, slow breath, body quivering with the force of the exhale.
“I don’t want to change,” he admitted in a rush, darting a glance at Dick and then away while he dropped his hand to Dick’s shoulder. “Not at all, if I had a choice about it, but especially not while we’re - you know.”
“Engaging in a joint operation?” Dick supplied after a few seconds of awkward, stilted silence, and was rewarded when Lew rolled his eyes and pursed his lips against a laugh. “Integrating to achieve mutually complementary effects?”
“Christ, you’re awful,” Lew groaned, but at least now he was smiling, scent suffused with a warmth not unlike cinnamon. He shoved Dick carefully back onto the bed and continued, “You need to quit reading the handbooks. Budge up, Major. I want to lie down.”
He didn’t give Dick much of a chance to move before he flopped onto his back on the narrow mattress, sprawling bare-assed on top of the quilt with his eyes closed, cheek pillowed against Dick’s thigh and face turned in toward Dick’s hip. He heaved a hearty, full-bodied sigh that rolled in a hot gust through the flimsy barrier of cotton and olive drab over Dick’s lap and grinned slyly to himself when Dick shivered.
“Better?” Dick asked once Lew had settled. He reached down to splay his fingers out across Lew’s chest, thumb in the neighborhood of his sternum and pinkie nearly dipping into his navel. Lew made a soft noise of confirmation from where he had his nose practically buried in Dick’s pocket.
He breathed in deep once, twice, and then let his head tip lazily back, baring the long, pale column of his throat with its scattering of dark hair trailing down from his jaw, symptom of a few days’ lackluster attention to personal grooming. A warm knot coiled and tightened behind Dick’s ribs at the display of submission, so sweet with want that it almost hurt.
Dick knuckled at his chest with his free hand, as though the tender ache was something he could alleviate from the outside, and reminded himself that Lew didn’t understand what he was offering when he did things like this. There was instinct behind it, certainly, and likely more-so now that Lew was under the moon’s thrall with him, but Dick would be foolish to read anything into it beyond strictly human comfort.
As if roused by this inner turmoil, Lew cracked his eyes open just enough to peer drowsily up at Dick and announced in a dreamy murmur, “You smell good.”
“I had a shower this morning,” Dick said by way of explanation, palm dragging gently down the soft plane of Lew’s belly.
“Lucky me,” Lew replied, turning his head so that the side of his smirk was tucked up against Dick’s thigh. He shut his eyes again and arched into Dick’s touch like an affectionate cat, sighing as he stretched, “Think it’s just you, though. Never did much care for Ivory soap.”
Dick let his hand wander far enough that his fingers brushed the thatch of dark hair between Lew’s legs, desire leaping in bright licks up his spine at the low, contented rumble it drew out of him. Lew was still just south of worked up, cock flushed pink and half full against his thigh. Dick licked his lips and dared to shift down a little further, emboldened by the perfume of sweet summer earth drifting up off Lew’s skin and the heat of the fever simmering in them both.
“You sure you don’t want me to take care of that?”
Lew took a breath through his nose and pushed up onto his elbows just high enough to peer down the length of his body. At the sight of Dick’s hand a spare half-inch from his cock, he licked his lips and let his thighs fall further apart with little fanfare and gratifying immediacy, a reaction made better still when a quick, soft sweep of Dick’s thumb made him twitch and swell. He stared for a long, frozen moment, teeth pressed sharp into his lower lip, and then reached down to grasp Dick’s hand in his own, guiding it back up with an apologetic squeeze.
“After,” he assured, resettling himself in a rush of certainty that tingled like peppermint against Dick’s tongue. Lew raised their hands up to his face, twined together thumb-to-thumb, and brushed a kiss across Dick’s knuckles. His breath was warm and wet between Dick’s fingers when he added, low and coy, “Gives me something to look forward to.”
“Alright,” Dick said, trying not to sound too put out. He made to pull his hand away but Lew held fast, brow furrowed and expression vaguely perplexed. “What?”
“Could you - ” Lew started, leaning back so that his head was cushioned once again on Dick’s thigh while he guided Dick’s hand a little awkwardly in the direction of his neck.
Dick’s eyebrows leapt toward his hairline, heart drumming hard against his ribs when he realized what Lew was asking after. He carefully cupped his palm over Lew’s throat where it arced sweetly toward him, thumb tucked snug against the blade of his jaw and fingers spread just wide enough to brush his collarbone.
“Like this?” he asked, his whole body fizzing with surprise and pleasure.
“Yeah,” Lew breathed elatedly, seeming almost to melt down into the bedspread as his eyes dropped shut, drifting on a wave of satisfaction so rich it nearly made Dick’s mouth water. “Just like that.”
Dick traced the pad of his thumb along the hinge of Lew’s jaw, stomach twisting hotly when Lew turned his face into the contact. He made a soft, contented sound and Dick felt it vibrate under his hand.
“Comfortable?”
“Very,” Lew murmured easily. He let his fingers skim featherlight down Dick’s forearm until they came to rest just above the bend of his elbow, trailing delicate, absent patterns over his skin. “S’nice, right?”
“It is,” Dick confirmed, voice low and tender.
“The other part’ll be nice, too,” Lew promised, tone so soft it had buffed all the edges off his consonants. “After.”
“After,” Dick agreed, closing his eyes and tracking the moon where it sang in Lew’s pulse.