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When Dick was a boy, he used to love the snow. A blanket of white would cover Pennsylvania overnight, canceling school and turning the world into a magical land. Dick and Ann would spend hours outside, ignoring the bite of the cold in their childhood invincibility.
Now, Dick wonders what man did to anger God to deserve snow. The way it glistens in the morning sun seems to mock him; the blinding white concealing the death around the woods.
He huffs, a column of air materializing in front of him in the darkness of his foxhole. His body fights him as he moves to his feet, rolling back the tarp and exposing himself to the sharp air. He shivers, involuntary, and wills himself to climb out. It would be so easy to just sink back into the packed dirt and let the world around him fade away, but the men need him.
“You can’t win every fight you pick,” his father had told him. “But win eighty five percent of them, and that losing fifteen will teach you a lot. ” Dick wonders if Bastogne is the eighty five or the fifteen. He pushes it out of his mind, rolling up his sleeve for a moment and glancing at his watch before the cold could get underneath the arm of his coat.
The freshly packed snow crunches under his boots as he makes his way over to their makeshift command post. Nixon is already there, hunched over a map as he sips from a steaming mug.
“Morning,” Nix mumbles, voice scratchy. “Coffee should still be hot.”
Dick makes his way over the thermos. The warmth of the metal seeps through his gloves pleasantly.
“How long have you been up?” Dick asks, standing behind Nix and peering over his shoulder to see the array of papers and maps.
Nix makes a noncommittal sound. “Couldn’t sleep. It’s too damn cold. Should request the front desk for a softer bed and a working heater.”
Dick rolls his eyes. Since they’ve dug into the forest, Nix has been playing a sardonic game where they’re at a luxury hotel with bad service. Dick’s had never stayed in a hotel until his weekend passes in the army, but he finds Nix’s allusions amusing.
He also finds that they increase with his friend’s irritation.
“Just didn’t hear you go to your hole last night,” Dick comments with a shrug, feeling the warmth of the coffee spread through his body.
Nix waves him off. “Trying to figure out a better way to navigate this damn forest. Roe said he was walking an hour in this winter wonderland trying to find Third Battalion.” He inspects his metal cup and his face sours. “Ah, the bastard's gone cold.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Dick asks, blowing out a column of air and watching it dissipate in front of him.
“Probably just light the thermos again,” Nix answers, moving past Dick to putter around the open tent.
Dick hands Nix his still steaming cup, crossing his arms so his thin gloves are tucked under his armpits. “No, about Third Battalion.”
Nix murmurs a word of thanks before downing the hot coffee with a wince. “I wish I could do anything. We’re spread so thin I’m pretty sure a tank could roll through the line and we wouldn’t notice.”
“Did he find it?”
Nix’s nose crinkles. “A tank?”
Dick perches on a stack of crates. “Focus, Lew. Did Roe find Third Battalion?”
The man sighs and throws up his hands. “Pretty sure the good doctor’s down to less then two syringes of morphine at this point.”
Dick studies Lewis Nixon in his shivering glory. Though Dick still takes the time to shave, his friend’s five o’clock shadow has turned into thick stubble against his pale skin. He briefly wonders what it would feel like, but resists the urge to reach out and smooth the skin. The men are starting to wake up, and they won’t have this privacy for much longer.
Instead, Dick clears his throat and adjusts his scarf, aware of his teeth beginning to chatter as the wind picks up.
“Jesus, someone’s really gotta call the staff and tell them to cut it out with the air conditioning,” Nix murmurs, pulling his coat closer to himself. Dick watches him set his cup down and take a deep breath before brushing past him, ungloved hands tucked into thin pockets.
“Nix, where are you going and where are your gloves?” Dick rushes out, falling into step with him.
Nix waves him off without turning around. “Lipton needed them more than me.”
“Lew, where are you going?” Dick repeats again, incredulous this time over the chatter of his jaw.
Nix turns, as if the answer was obvious. “To see if I can tighten up Dog and Fox company and make sure a German tank doesn’t roll through the line unnoticed.”
Dick is left in the threshold of the tent as the snow begins to fall and the fog disrupts the peaceful morning air, concealing Nix’s traveling figure until he’s just a dark speck through the trees.
Dick doesn’t see the intelligence officer until the next morning. Harry says he saw the man retire to his foxhole late last night, so Dick doesn’t worry about another friend lifelessly buried in the night’s fresh snow.
But he still worries.
His hands shake from the air’s bite as he attempts to shave the barely there stubble. Most of these men have foregone making an effort to remain clean shaven, but Dick hates the feeling against his jaw. He wants to clean himself until the sweat and dirt of the forest is scrubbed out from under his skin and the lingering itch has been dispelled.
He can see Doc Roe’s figure emerge from the tree line as he applies the freezing shaving cream to his face, shuddering at the sensation. What a sight he must present, red knuckles gripping the water basin, body tense and face flushed in the cold.
He’s about to greet Roe when a branch snaps to his right and he senses movement. He always used to think his Mama had superpowers when she’d be able to know when he and Ann were hiding an act of mischief. Now, he understands the keen ability to know something was not right when so many lives depended on him.
Warning Roe, Dick crouches down, grabbing his M1 and wincing as the cold metal makes contact with his bare skin. Even though the medic doesn’t carry a firearm, he flanks Dick, staying low as they creep toward a dark splotch against the fog.
The German soldier is wide eyed as Dick rummages through his papers, shaving soap drying on his cheeks. Roe is stoic beside him with pink cheeks and shoulders up to his ears to conserve warmth.
“Doc, bandage.” He throws the dark package to Roe and turns to the men. “Take him back to regiment.”
The rumbling motor of a jeep turns his attention away from the excitement of the morning as General McAuliffe introduces himself and Strayer wearily greets them.
“Give it to me straight,” the division commander says and Dick wants to scream, my men are dying from German bullets and from Belgian weather because you sent us here practically naked with no ammo.
He lets Strayer be the diplomat as he watches Roe, checking the medic over and thinking of Easy out there in their foxholes.
“The line’s spread so thin the enemy wanders into our CP,” Dick adds, thinking of what Nix said that morning. “We just can’t cover the line.”
Beside the General and Colonel Sink, a tarp rustles and Nix’s disheveled head emerges from the ground. Shadows sit under Nix’s eyes as he wildly looks back and forth from Dick and Strayer to McAuliffe and Sink. He looks like a deer in headlights and it’s almost endearing if they weren’t in the middle of a shelled out forest with half their men on death’s door.
“General, I took a walk on our line about zero three hundred last night,” Nix says, climbing out of the hole in his olive drabs, snow beginning to pepper his dark hair. “I couldn’t find the 501st on our right flank. We’ve got considerable gaps on our perimeter.” He gestures toward the line.
When Strayer says he has no men, the General replies militant as ever, “Hold the line Colonel, close the gaps.” He jumps into the jeep. “The fog won’t lift anytime soon, so you can forget about air cover. First battalion just left Foy, Krauts on their tail. Tanks, artillery, no backup. There’s a lot of shit headed this way.”
Dick glances at Nix, puffing breath into his hands with a doe eyed expression. The jeep speeds through the trees and out of sight as Strayer sighs and Nix makes his way back to his hole, hopefully to get his jacket.
“You need a shave,” Nix mutters as Dick passes him.
“Trying,” Dick replies, eyeing the abandoned water basin and razor on the edge of his foxhole.
Nix tilts his head up to the sky and inhales. “Anything we can do to expedite this vacation?”
Dick gives his friend’s hands a withering glance. “Find your gloves, Lew, and come talk to me when you’re properly dressed.”
He’s settled back at the lip of his foxhole, reapplying frigid water and shaving soap to his scruff when he feels Roe’s lingering presence.
“Doc?”
Roe’s voice is low and melodic from the deep South, unlike some of the nasally East Coast accents most of the Easy men have. Dick has seen that voice calm panicking soldiers too many times, and sometimes he wonders what Roe would sound like singing a lullaby or murmuring a hymn.
“How are you fixed?” Dick asks when Roe asks him for his aid kit’s bandage.
Roe shrugs, his dark eyes widening ever so slightly. “No plasma, couple of bandages, practically no morphine.”
The good doctor’s down to less then two syringes of morphine at this point , Nix’s voice echoes in his head as Dick hands Roe his bandage.
“I tried my way up to Third Battalion for supplies, but I lost my way,” the medic says, tucking away the bandage and rubbing his hands together.
Dick holds back a frustrated sigh. “If you can’t get over to third, Doc Ryan will fix you up with what he can spare.”
Roe nods and Dick can see the cold permanently lodged into the man’s cheeks. Though he’s four years Dick’s junior, he’s always been much more mature then the other men. Quieter, more contemplative, but nevertheless, Easy. The men look to him as they do their officers, something Dick isn’t sure Roe is aware of, but he knows the medic deserves the respect from all the Easy lives he’s saved.
“Thanks Captain,” Roe responds, heading deeper into the treeline, boots crunching against the packed snow. “Just want to be prepared.”
“Yeah, get everything you can, Eugene.” Dick thinks of McAuliffe and his warning. “You’re gonna need it.”
He hates how foreboding it sounds–how they both know more men have to die before they are pulled off the line, before the war is over. Who is next? Will it be wise cracking George Luz? Will it be sarcastic Skip Muck? Or will it be Dick himself; bullet, mortar shell, or German bayonet? The possibilities are endless, but the result will be an impersonal letter to his mother, the vacancy of 2nd Battalion XO and the absence of a warm body by Lewis Nixon’s side.
If Dick were to perish in battle, would Lew mourn? Would he drink himself into oblivion? Would he throw himself into the fray, determined to join Dick in the ground? Or, worse, would he forget Dick was ever there, just another past CO of Easy Company six feet under.
Dick knows that the latter would be the best for the men, to have someone strong there to pull them together, but he secretly hopes Nix would mourn him.
“Always around for the excitement, huh?” Nix appears behind him, watching Dick’s trembling hands as he slowly shaves away the auburn stubble.
“Yup,” Dick replies slowly. “But still back here while the boys get blown to hell while Dike-”
Nix shakes his head with a huff. “Yeah, I know.”
Dick pauses. “I’m better off here, Nix.” He turns, searching the man’s face for validation.
“Yeah,” Nix says, voice rising. “You are.” He sits at the edge of Dick’s foxhole with a grunt. He always knows what Dick needs to hear, but Dick is also grateful for his consistent honesty. “Doesn’t mean the boys don’t miss you.”
Dick glances at Nix, finding that he’s adorned his coat, but still no gloves. “Gloves, Nix.”
“Roe can barely get supplies to do his job, don’t worry about my gloves, Captain Winters,” Nix says, folding his hands under his arms. “Don’t need them. Boys need our luxuries more, but I’ll call down to the maid to bring new ones up.”
Dick gives him a pointed look before reaching for his towel to pat his jaw dry. “Ask the maid to get Roe some morphine while you’re at it. And hot chow for Joe to hand out, and new boots for the boys.”
“Will do.” Nix salutes sloppily, boots slipping against the ground as he turns back into the fog.
Dick can hear the echoes of singing carrying through the trees as he roots around in his foxhole for his blanket. It reminds him of the OCS barracks and then Tocca when he used to fall asleep to the mens’ snoring and sleep talking.
As the echoes fall away like distant memories of Georgia and home, Dick feels the cold seep into his bones, and not even the sweet letters from DeEtta can warm him. He needs something real, something he can feel underneath his cracked skin.
He runs a hand down his face, his thin gloves barely keeping the frostbite away, and he briefly wonders if Sink is this cold back at regiment. Dick could be at regiment. He knows this. There’s a room with two bunks belonging to a Captain Richard Winters and Captain Lewis Nixon that are collecting dust by the day. Colonel Sink is probably sipping whiskey right now and wondering why the 2nd Battalion XO and Intelligence S2 are choosing to shiver in dirty foxholes.
It wasn’t even a choice for Dick. The men need him, and he’s pretty sure he’d fall apart knowing that Easy Company was being shelled to hell in the Bois Jacques while he sat safe miles away.
Lew didn’t have to stay. Dick knows that Lew knows that, but the man had just dug in next to Dick like it wasn’t even a question. Lew had never really been Easy Company, not since Toccoa, but he felt whole responsibility for the men, even though it was nearly unperceivable.
It takes all his strength to pull himself out of the foxhole and into the inky darkness of the forest. Dick thinks he may never be able to look at any woods again and not think of Bastogne.
His M1 is a comforting weight against his back as he rolls the tarp back over the hole and makes his way to Lew’s carefully dug foxhole.
“Like a suite at the Ritz,” the man had drawled, shovel in hand and pleased as ever when the corners of Dick’s lips had jumped.
He crouches down, peeling back the frozen tarp. “Nix?” he whispers into the darkness, finding emptiness. Dick sighs.
Walking along the line is eerie at night. It feels like a scene in a snow globe, except there are no carolers or snowmen–just shivering men and too much snow and blood. The men tip their heads to Dick as they settle in for the night, covering their foxholes in an attempt to trap the heat below.
“Captain,” stutters out Joe Toye as he passes a cigarette to George Luz. They’re huddled closely in their hole, no blanket, no scarves, just the army issued coats they came with. “You’re close to the front.”
Dick looks out into the trees and then back down at the quivering soldiers. “Looking for Captain Nixon, have you seen him?”
Luz glances at Toye. “He was taking a stroll earlier. Didn’t see him come back this way.”
“Thanks Luz, Staff Sergeant,” he replies with a nod, watching the column of smoke disappear from Luz’s mouth. Like Nix, the technician is overdue for a shave, but the five o’clock shadow suits him.
Dick hears Buck Compton barking orders somewhere, silencing the singing and the air stills once again. He passes trees that he swears he passed minutes before, but it’s hard to tell in this cursed forest.
Doc Roe is slinking between the foxholes, his baritone voice distantly carrying through the air. He’s no wisecracking Luz or inspirational Lipton, but no one can accuse him of not caring about the men. He knows each soldier's name, face, hometown and condition. The man can even read Dick’s stoic features and can tell what he’s feeling with those soulful eyes.
“Doc,” he hears himself murmur, gaining a shallow nod from the man.
“Looking for something, Sir?” Roe asks, hand going to his packs.
Dick shakes his head. “Just Captain Nixon.”
Roe’s face twists. “Man is going to catch his death walking the line every night while it’s snowing.”
Dick huffs in agreement. “Seen him, Eugene?”
Roe shakes his head. “No, Sir, but Sergeant Lipton or First Lieutenant Compton might have.” He purses his lips. “Any trouble, Sir?”
Dick claps the medic on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about, Gene. Get some sleep.”
Roe salutes before wandering off and Dick wonders if Spina will be left alone to sleep in the cold tonight.
Affection blooms in Dick’s chest when he sees the men come to attention as he weaves through the foxholes. At ease , he orders them before they crack him lopsided smiles that look more like grimaces. He hasn’t come across Dike yet, but Dick knows better than to expect the Easy Company Commander to be anywhere near Easy Company. Damn his fancy college education and damn the 2nd Battalion XO for being useless to his beloved company. What Dick would do to be under fire again if it meant having a hand on the wheel of Easy.
“Sergeant Lipton,” Dick calls. Lip’s back is to him, hands under his armpits and hunched slightly as if that could generate heat. With his spine straight and hawk sharp gaze is Ronald Speirs. The commander of Dog Company was often seen crossing the line to mingle with Easy, or a certain Staff Sergeant.
Lipton turns and shifts his shouldered M1. “Sir.”
Dick nods to Speirs. “Lieutenant.”
“Captain,” Speirs replies, tight lipped. His eyes shift ever so slightly toward Lip. “Good night Sergeant Lipton.”
Lip smiles in that gentle way that puts the men at ease. “Good night, Ronald.”
Ronald . That’s new. Dick catalogs that away for later. “A word, Sergeant?” Dick asks, watching Speirs disappear into the fog.
Lipton turns toward him, rubbing his gloved hands together. Nix’s gloves . “Yes, Captain?”
Dick runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “Have you seen Captain Nixon?”
The question takes Lip by surprise as his mouth opens and then closes. He nods. “He was mapping out the distance between our companies at eleven hundred.” Lip shrugs. “I told him it was going to be a cold night and he should retire.”
Dick practically knows what Nix’s response is. “And?”
Lip huffs in amusement. “Well, Sir, he said he was going to find room service for a three course dinner.”
“Thank you Sergeant,” Dick says with a sigh. “And take your own advice.”
Lip nods before turning away and Dick has only one more place to look before assuming the S2 was dead in a ditch.
The walk to command leaves Dick with his thoughts, his M1 and the cold seeping into his boots. A flare shoots up into the sky like a fourth of July firework, and he briefly wonders if he’ll ever be able to watch fireworks and not be reminded of mortar shells.
The command post tent looks deserted, and Dick is about to turn back before he hears a clatter and instinctively cocks his M1. Creeping forward into the darkness, Dick spots a familiar hunched over figure and he sags, shouldering his weapon.
“Jesus Christ, Nix, I almost shot you,” he says, exhaling and stepping over the threshold. The relief to see him is short lasting when he sees Nix trip and topple over a crate. It’s empty, but it kicks up snow onto the knees of his pants which will seep into his skin later tonight.
“Are you drunk?” Dick says, more exasperated than he means to sound.
Nix is frowning at his pants. “Dick,” he says as if just noticing Dick’s presence. “It’s late. You should be in your hole.”
Dick sighs, hands resting on his hips. “I could say the same for you.”
Nix waves him off with a grin that Dick would have found charming if the man wasn’t obviously not in his right mind. “Sleep is for the weak, my friend.” He gestures to something in the distance and his hand catches on the column holding up the tent, sending him stumbling forward
Dick lunges to catch him, holding up both their bodies so they don’t fall in the snow. “Are you alright?” he asks, as if Nix would tell the truth.
Nix leans on Dick, his hands lighting curling around Dick’s ribs. It’s too intimate, but it’s dark and the men won’t be looking for them. He shivers against Dick’s body, but his forehead is slick in sweat.
Dick pulls Nix upright and fumbles to remove a glove and place the back of his hand to the S2’s forehead. “You’re burning up, Lew,” he says, forcing himself to be gentle.
“Cause you make me hot,” comes the reply and Dick feels his ears go red.
He clears his throat before firmly saying, “No, Lew, you have a fever.”
There’s not much they can do out here to treat the men. They all have various degrees of coughs, running noses and sore throats, and some of the more unlucky ones have caught Pneumonia and had to be sent back to town (If Doc Roe convinces them). Even in Bastogne, the nurses have little to treat illnesses, and a man with his intestines hanging out was deemed more important than a high grade fever.
Dick curses.
“Woah, church boy. I didn’t know you had it in you,” Nix slurs, the consonants coming out like thick honey.
“We got to get you to Doc Roe,” Dick murmurs, wrapping an arm around Nix’s torso to make sure he doesn’t end up face in the snow. It takes some convincing, but Dick ends up nearly dragging Nix to his foxhole and sending a Private to go find Doc Roe. Nix mindlessly tells Dick stories or hums songs as his teeth chatter but his body radiates unnatural heat.
He’s wrestled Nix under Dick’s spare blanket when Roe pokes his head under the tarp.
“Heard you found Captain Nixon,” he says, dropping into the hole.
Dick gestures toward Nix. “He has a fever but not too bad of a cough.”
“I’m fine,” Nix tries, but Roe gives the man a sharp look which quiets him.
Roe shuffles around the foxhole, pressing his hand to Nix’s forehead, listening to his soft wheezing and then frowning. “Could be Pneumonia, too early to tell yet.” Roe’s eyes shift to Dick. “He could go into town, back to regiment before it gets worse, but,” Roe sighs and tilts his head. “I know how he is. Probably looks worse than it is. He’s just gotta sweat it out.”
“Anything you could give him?” Dick asks, feeling angry at Roe for not having an immediate fix and then angry at a General who decided to send his men into the snow without proper coats, medicine and food.
Roe hangs his head as he opens his packs. “Don’t got any penicillin out here, but I have these.” He holds out a ragged pair of gloves. “Noticed Sergeant Lipton’s hands are warm and Captain Nixon’s was not, so found these.”
Admiration blooms in Dick’s chest for the medic as he turns the gloves over in his hands and tries not to think about the dead man not missing them. “Thank you, Gene,” he says with as much genuine appreciation as he can muster. Sitting, he can’t help but feel the exhaustion begin to wash over him.
“Keep him warm. You got an extra blanket?” When Dick nods, Roe seems satisfied. “Keep him hydrated and keep him off the whiskey.”
Dick almost laughs. “I was planning to.”
Roe begins to stand, helmet going back on his head and steeling himself for the snow. “I’ll be back to check on him, but let me know when the fever breaks.”
“Yeah, get some sleep Doc.” Dick watches Roe nod, the twenty one year old (Jesus Christ, only barely old enough to drink) looking far older than he should. Dick thinks about the fresh faced boys from his hometown, the ones declared 4F or necessary to work in the factories, and how they might have been born the same time as the medic, but they will never be as old as Eugene Roe.
Dick bundles Nix up as best he can, wrapping him in both his blankets and securing Dick’s scarf around his neck. Sometime while Dick was talking to Roe, Nix’s eyes had promptly fluttered shut, unable to withstand the weight of the world. He looks so young in his sleep, and Dick wishes he could put him on a plane back home and make sure he never sees war again.
They both signed up for this, and Dick would rather die in this damn forest then let any more Easy men die, but he knows Nix would walk to the ends of the Earth to see them through this. Dick knows he’s respected by the men–he’s led them through flying bullets and exploding shells, but it’s Nix who worries over every intelligence detail and won’t rest until he knows they won’t be sent into hell blindly.
Dick keeps alert, his knees pressed against Nix’s and shoulders melded together as the man drifts in and out of consciousness, babbling nonsense in his feverish state.
“Drink.” Dick had to nearly force water down Nix’s throat as he squirmed and shivered beside him.
“That’s not whiskey,” Nix had muttered, his face scrunching.
Dick raises the canteen again to his lips. “No it’s not.”
“I’m sorry.” Nix says after Dick was satisfied with the long gulp of water he swallowed.
Dick furrows his brow. “For what?”
“Disappointing you. I know how you feel about my drinking.”
Dick’s chest tightens. “All that matters is that you get better,” he replies softly, wiping the sweat from Nix’s brow with the scratchy blanket. “And don’t be sorry, Lew.”
Dick knows that Nix is a creature of survival. He spent his entire life learning how to read everyone else’s emotions to know how to act. He is surrounded by high society’s suffocating wealth and expectations to be something he’s not, to become a human monopoly and make the family proud.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m proud of you, but know that I am.” Dick’s father had said when he graduated college with the shiny economics degree. “It matters that God is proud of you.”
Dick hasn’t prayed in months, not since he saw a bullet ping off of Nix’s helmet and felt cold panic unlike anything he’s ever experienced. God, If you take anyone, don’t take him. Please God don’t let it be him. I will be at your mercy for the rest of my days, but don’t take him .
The good Lord had answered his prayer in that moment when Nix looked up at Dick with a bewildered expression. Dick doesn’t know how many more favors he can call in, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,” he begins and feels the contradiction of it all when the young SS soldier's face flashes behind his eyes. “Where there is hatred let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon.” His hand slips into Nix’s, entangling their fingers so he can feel the man’s faint pulse. “Where there is error, truth. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope.” He closes his eyes and thinks of each man huddled in their foxholes. “Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy.” The words roll off his tongue as if it were second nature, and suddenly he’s kneeling in a pew and begging that the new baby doesn’t kill his Mama.
He slips into an unsteady sleep, gripping Nix’s hand like a lifeline and head resting in the crook of Nix’s neck so he can’t listen to his shallow breathing.
"Hey, Dick. Dick, Dick, Hey.”
Dick snaps awake, hand immediately going to the M1 resting beside him. In the dark, Nix’s eyes are wide and unfocused as he trembles underneath the papery blankets.
“Hey Lew,” Dick responds, voice barely a whisper as he wills his vocal chords to produce sound. He brushes a thumb over Nix’s forehead, the heat still rolling off of him as the cold invades his body.
Nix shudders before turning to Dick. “It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Dick pushes back a sweaty strand of hair away from the man’s face with a tenderness of his Mama when she nursed an abandoned baby bird back to health.
“That the heir to the Nixon fortune is going to die in a Belgium forest from a measly fever.” Nix’s lips quirk downward. “Blanche is going to be so angry.”
Dick scowls, unscrewing his canteen with shaky hands. “You’re not dying, Lew.”
Nix doesn’t seem to hear him, but obliges when Dick puts the canteen to his lips. “What time is it?” he says after swallowing, voice still hoarse from misuse.
“About zero six hundred.” Dick pauses. “And you’re staying here.”
Nix shakes his head and attempts to rise, pulling at the blankets. “War waits for no man, Dick. Got work to do. Maps need reading.”
Dick pulls him down with a hand to the shoulder. There’s barely any weight behind it, but Nix crumples like a broken doll. “God help me Lewis Nixon, you are not going out there and that’s an order. You can barely feed yourself, let alone hike through the snow.”
Nix grumbles, but he settles back into the dirt with a shiver. “Who died and made you my mother?”
Dick sets to tightening the man’s scarf and making sure his gloves are secure. “You’re too stubborn to go into town and get proper care, so I have to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
Nix snorts. “Like running alone into a battalion of SS?”
Dick presses his lips together to keep from smiling. “Or walking the line for hours in below freezing weather for hours.”
Nix dismisses him with a weak gesture. “You know we’re the same rank. I don’t have to take orders from you.”
Dick pauses, so many responses on the tip of his tongue, but he knows in Nix’s feverish state it’s useless to argue. “Take it up with hotel management,” he decides with a sardonic tone that rivals George Luz.
Nix balks. “Captain Richard Winters, was that a joke?”
“If you tell anyone, they won’t believe you and I’ll deny it,” Dick says seriously, but pleased to see Nix more present.
“You’re evil.”
“I know you don’t believe that.”
Nix smiles that rare genuine smile that still makes Dick weak at the knees. He’s cataloged Nix’s every expression, and from the suggestive smirks and pessimistic grins, an actual smile was few and far between. It reminds Dick of the wonder on Ann’s face when she was young and saw presents under the tree and the glass of milk gone on Christmas morning.
“No, I don’t.” His voice is soft. “You’re good, Dick. You’re really good.”
Those words are what thaws the tension and ice out of Dick as he feels a rush of endearment. He reaches under the blankets, arm curling around Lew’s waist and brushing his lips to the top of Lew’s head.
“Go to sleep, Lew. I’ll be here when you wake up,” he says as Lew’s head falls into Dick’s neck.
“I know.”