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He wakes up in the same bed, under the mildly warming white sheets of Lewis’ bed, sensing familiar and unfamiliar scents mixed together after a full night of physical and full sensorial expressed love - because that’s what can happen between best friends when they’ve been in love for almost their whole lives like the way they've been. Getting to a point that it was impossible for them to repress the so strong feelings shared for so long decanted; they’ve seen each other far too much all of those years to forget how it felt to be in the presence of the other, how much the touch burned hot on the skin of their shoulders and hands as they greet each other every time they met - and it was almost every day.
Dick gets to recall bit by bit the unique night that was the former one as he blinks out of sleepiness and starts recognizing the environment around him as his sleepy eyes wander around, trying to find clues to make out for his initial confusion; strange but at the same time familiar this room, this bed are. He knows this place, he had been here before many, many other times.
However, he had never been in this position before.
The way they are sprawled over the bed; completely naked and somehow intermingled by the legs and the sheets in between -- he couldn’t deny reality, even if he wanted to do so.
He feels a little bit guilty, but just a little bit.
The sound of Nix’s heavier breath and the pen crossing a notebook’s paper with its inked tip warns him that his best friend is awake and writing something beside him, all by himself as a romantic (or any other kind of writer of their time) would imagine and describe a poet, like a loner who writes about all the love he has - for all kinds of things, nature, goddesses, and especially an unique and specific muse - and the values that their pale skin, unreachable pure soul have which makes of her the most lovable creature of the god(s), almost like how Dick would hear other people describing him in relation to Nix, on his back - almost if he could add poetry to infamous gossip.
Dick imagines he is rested against the headboard, like in those movies that a sex scene would be cut from the first making out one to the post-smoke scene; the room’s quiet as the muse sleeps and the poet works with his new poem. It’s early morning before the sun could set on the sky. He can sense it by the cool and shivering wind coming from the window behind his back, where the wall of his side met the one on his back. Besides there is a dark orange light lay down on the sheets.
Nix writes while he smokes in the silence of a late dawn. Dick can’t help finding oddly charming that his imagination wasn’t so much far away from their reality.
He seems inspired for his neat brows drawn together in deep concentration.
Dick realizes he woke up to the strange and strong scent of tobacco, of Lew.
“You used to wake up earlier, didn't you?” Nix comments quite amused.
Dick looks up to the other man’s face, his body still lay horizontal on the mattress. He helps himself with his hand to a sit position, slowly as if he didn’t really want to come about the day.
“Not that earlier. What's that? 4 am?” He looks around, searching for the alarm clock and then he shoots a glance at Nix’s side. “You didn’t sleep.” And he was rhetorical, he could see by the purple bags under his friend’s eyes that he didn’t.
“Nah, I had taken a sudden inspiration,” Nix smirks and Dick glances at his sheets under his elbow, thoughtful, not certain of how to deal with it.
He knows he needs to apologize or at least settle limits.
“We...” He trails off.
“We shouldn’t have, I know.” Nix interrupts, suddenly annoyed. He knows Dick would come at any minute with how things should be between them because they were not just friends, actually they were also co-workers. He just doesn’t want to deal with it right now – never if possible - but he knows Dick needs to deal with anything that shows up under his eyes.
“Yeah,” Dick agrees simply. Nix knows him, of course, he does.
“But it happened.” Nix completes dryly and then he adds in a dry burst. “And I am not gonna apologize for that.” Because he can’t run away from happiness all the time it tried to pass through his barriers, it was just too much to ask from him when Dick was there, with him, naked between the sheets they had just made love just a couple of hours ago for the first time.
Dick doesn’t answer. He seems distant, as if trying to reunite the pieces. Then he asks at some point:
“What are you doing?” Dick leans on Nix’s thigh.
“Just writing,” Nix explains simply, “Something that occurred to me.”
Contradictorily to his words, Dick passes his chin over the other man’s leg and then rests it there. Nix takes a few seconds to notice it and then immediately he opens his mouth to say something, completely surprised at the action.
“I thought we shouldn’t,” Nix comments, sarcastically a little too bitter even for him.
Dick would murmur an agreement in a hum but still, he would not move out from that position.
“Well, we shouldn’t indeed, but… I still like you.” Dick says, raising his eyes to Lewis' face, it seems so far from where he’s. “And you like me too.”
Nix looks at him as if Dick was saying something he was not in the knowledge of but then, he turns his head to his notebook, making a little doodle to distract himself on the edge of the paper.
“So you know all those things?” Nix asks, his voice almost gives away his nervousness. He’s a little anxious about talking about this. It has been a lot easier when they were in each other arms, smelling in each other scents, lips tasting each other’s skin.
Dick just smiles softly, though, and he passes his hand inside Lewis’ leg, but just rubbing the thigh near the knee in an affectionate action. Dick looks up at Lewis and nibbling his lips for a couple of seconds he continues:
“Mhm,” he lets out casually, “To be honest, I can’t pretend that it wasn’t exactly what I waited for all these years, Lew.” He swallows to prepare his throat to more confessions.
“That is, I’ve been…Mhm…I’ve been in love with you since…I don’t know when. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t.”
Lew stays quiet and Dick starts himself to get nervous, so he looks over his shoulder.
Nix is smiling.
“Feels right,” he replies, countorning the doodle on the edge of the paper. His eyes still away from Dick’s. “Love and being loved. I just think you should let the superlatives in my writings about you, I feel like that exaggerated about you. Had always felt.”
“And you are not even my official editor. You just edit my stuff because…”
“Because I love your writing.”
“Really?”
Dick rolled his eyes. How could Nix not know this? He thought himself so obvious, besides, they knew each other too much to not know -- just if Lew ignored the cues because he feared rejection.
“Of course,” Dick finally says “Your writing is refreshing, it reminds me college,” he continues thoughtfully, “but not the pedant part of it, the genuine, simply elegant and clever writing side, filled with meaning to draw out daily life, that literature in which we can find all these nice specific things which literature history mostly ignores out of prudishness and cowardice.”
“I didn't know,” Nix says surprised, “I mean, that you liked it that much.”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it for free, Lew.”
“Ok, that kind makes sense.” A smile spreads across his face affectionately, and then he leans to Dick as he poses the notebook on the nightstand. “You’re truthful to your interests and beliefs…”
“And I care about what moves me,” Dick replies slowly as he goes to his knees and slowly takes Lew by the nape, curling his fingers around his lover’s neck “You move me...”
“Nice!” Nix smirks and bit Dick’s bottom lip tenderly. “I couldn’t and wouldn’t ask for more, to be honest.”
He leans more and more until he makes Dick stop talking with his lips.
There has never been a better reality for any of them. There were some technical issues there, with the whole working together thing, but it seems the problems didn’t outweigh what have they felt for so long.