Chapter Text
O1. Red Running Shoes
The dawning light following a sleepless night was too much for Lewis Nixon. Wherever he was—that was still blurry, addled by too-hot sunlight—he decided to sit down and close his eyes. He was drawing closer to the opposite bookend of life and he'd celebrated in self-destructive fashion. Friends of friends had provided the false I.D. He'd provided the willing mouth and blood to saturate. Somewhere along the journey downtown they'd splintered off to go home, to sleep, and he'd soldiered on alone until the black sky was brighter, bright enough to see his own stilted gait. Until his blood thrummed happily, alcohol teetering out, but the price of intoxication not yet paid. In his seventeenth year of misery he went down miserably, stumbling onto the edge of some stranger's yard and trying to keep his eyes open.
He did wonder how far he'd managed to barhop away from home, how small and worthless that manor on the hill would look if he could open his eyes. But—cold dew on the grass, head heavy and sinking, sun burning at his eyelids added up to sleep. Now. That he wouldn't argue.
White and red trimmed running shoes woke him. Couldn't be more than a few hours since sleep had struck him abruptly. Now someone was doing the same, tearing him from the black of dreamless sleep with a firm hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Running shoes on their feet, a few inches from his face. A pair of legs now kneeling next to him, bringing the flimsy hem of shorts into view. Bright green against skin that seemed too pink even in ridiculous morning light. No, red—that faint, cinnamon-red of freckles.
"Hey, are you alright?"
Nixon demonstrated he was still alive with a grunt, then, aided by the stranger's hand, rolled onto his back.
"Bright. Fuck."
He closed his eyes again and weakly covered his face with his hands. Now the price of intoxication was obvious, and the pleasant thrumming felt more like the atoms of his body vibrating apart. Until he might just separate into uncountable pieces. It was a wonder of a hangover. It probably hadn't helped not to sleep—not for a day, at least. Instead—drinking, swearing to impress, binging, running away, just to keep from thinking. The stranger remained quiet for a minute, then that hand was prying his own away from his face.
"'m not hurt," Nixon grumbled. He wanted to cover his face again. "Just drunk... Was. Wish I still was."
The stranger hummed. Didn't seem surprised. He shifted his weight, shoes squeaking on the wet grass, as his hand moved to Nixon's shoulders again. "Think you can sit up?" He was pushing before Nixon could answer, but raggedly they managed it. His head throbbed horrifically to a steady beat—maybe so loudly the stranger could hear it like pounding bass.
"'m just hung over," he clarified, hurting and mildly embarrassed.
"On my lawn," came the rather stoic answer. Nixon waited numbly, eyes still closed against the light, for the angry part of this equation: Hey, asshole, off said fucking lawn.
The hand didn't tense, just moved away. Nixon thought he might actually get hit for stumbling onto somone's property—not that he hadn't weathered worse storms, or even that he cared in his state—but he wearily opened his eyes. Once the sunlight seemed bearable, the first thing he noticed was the burn of bright blue eyes watching him, then a young face, a patient, half-concerned pull to the mouth. Shortly-cut red hair, especially red against the white headphones trailing from his ears. One hung loose, and the bass line of the song and Nixon's skull throbbed in time. "Need a glass of water?"
Nixon closed his eyes again to consider his answer and it felt like heaven. He woke up again, his favorite activity, with that glass of water staring him in the face a few moments later. Still sitting on the lawn, he could tell from the dew soaking through his blue jeans, dripping from his hair. He sat back up under his own power and reached mutely for the water. Misfired and weakly gripped the stranger's knuckles instead.
"Goddamn it," he muttered, reaching again and that time succeeding.
"You sure you're okay?" the strange runner asked. "Do you know where you are?"
Nixon gulped the water down, sweat from the glass squeezing beneath his fingers. When he came up for air, he said, "Just not where I don't want to be." Unfortunately—as generous as the water had been—the cold in his stomach synchronized with his wet clothes and shivering set in. Not pathetic enough just to pass out in his lawn—no, no. Nixon couldn't choke back another complaint of, "Goddamn tired," before looking erratically up, catching sight of blue eyes raking him.
Stoic, redheaded runner with the green shorts and a lawn and presumably a faucet somewhere beyond there said nothing and took the glass from his hand. Nixon shut his eyes and mumbled, "Is Scout in trouble?"
"Come inside. You're soaked." The runner steadied Nixon momentarily and stood up, gripping his wrist. "Up."
"Said the stranger to the stranger." Nixon felt too sapped of all courtesy to comply. Too tired to accept kindness graciously. Heavy as an anchor. He squinted up at the cloudless sky and the skinny redhead centered in his view. Who, after a slight shake of his head, dropped the glass carefully and hoisted Nixon off the grass by both his wrists. Once Nixon found a toddler's kind of balance, battling weariness in his legs and the white noise of his empty head, those hands steadied him a final time, squeezing his shoulders. The runner cautiously drew them away and then offered his right in introduction.
"We don't have to be strangers. You did take a nap on my lawn in front of my window, after all," he said, glancing toward his open window, where he'd spotted a sleeping lump just before his morning run. "Dick Winters."
Nixon decided to answer only with, "Lewis," shaking his hand absently. "Pleasure to pass out on your property. But now that we're acquainted, let's get the hell inside. Think I stood up too fast—"
Nixon considered himself graceful for stumbling only once across the yard, only once letting nausea sweep up on him. Also lucky that the ugly view of home was too far to see here in the residential fringe—too far to see him.
---
"Your name is just Lewis?"
Nixon studied the bright, vital red of the runner's sweater mirrored in his short ginger hair—counterclockwise whirl from the back—through his hands, clutching at his throbbing forehead. The damned headache was circling around his head, jerky and unpredictable like a crappy Doppler image. His damp hair still dripped on his fingers as he kneaded his temples, but, thanks to a modestly accepted offer of fresh clothes, at least his ass wasn't soaking wet. "Don't need the last name. It bores me."
"Like Madonna?"
Nixon snorted and lifted his head. "I prefer Cher, actually. Or Elvis."
Normally, nursing a record-setting hangover at a stranger's kitchen counter in borrowed jeans and t-shirt while said stranger scrounged up aspirin and nourishment would be awkward or surreal. But Nixon felt comfortably divorced from normality now, so, no problem. As evenly cleaved as the hemispheres of his brain currently felt, their grievances rattling in his skull. Winters—or 'Capt. Kick,' as titled on the back of the sweater—produced a bottle of aspirin, a sports bottle of water, and a banana and pushed them across the counter towards Nixon.
"Talk about gold, frankincense, and myrrh," Nixon said, flashing a skeptical look towards the fruit. Winters just blinked innocently at him.
"What's wrong?"
"Thanks for these," he clarified, pulling the sports bottle closer and uncapping the aspirin, "but I'm not really hungry."
"You won't feel better on an empty stomach," Winters answered. The corner of his mouth tugged, pulling neither up nor down, and he turned around again. Exactly what the gesture meant, Nixon didn't know, but he arched an eyebrow and watched him curiously. Winters opened the refrigerator and scanned the brightly lit shelves for something else. "If you don't like that, I can make something else. I can't promise caviar, though."
Nixon knocked back a few aspirin and smirked with the bottle pressed to his lips. "That's not a problem," he said once he'd chased it with a gulp of water. "And thanks for the help, but I'll be fine. Just the price I pay for a busy night. You've done enough for me."
Before Nixon could execute a smooth escape—exercise his carefully tailored charm and smile and leave without overstepping his welcome—Winters straightened up and pinned him with an expression of concern. It stopped Nixon before he could slip off the stool at the counter and make a clean break. "You're really alright? It's no trouble if you stay a while."
Nixon could not understand how a perfect stranger could be so hospitable to the alcohol-downed lump he'd found sprawled on his front lawn. Invite lump in, offer food, cooking. He hoped his shock wouldn't shine through. But as he did not move from his spot, it started to grow dangerously comfortable. "You hardly know me."
"Sure, but I know you could probably use a decent breakfast," the runner countered. "And maybe a ride home."
Nixon felt allergic to unmerited generosity, a condition especially aggravated by morning light. His headache swelled in proportion and he drove the heel of his palm against his brow to keep it quiet. "Won't your parents have something to say about a new boozed-up friend crashing their house? You seem like the parent's pride-and-joy type. It's not exactly what a good son does."
Winters pulled a carton of eggs from the fridge. "They're not home," he said, marking that fact with a tilt of the head and arched eyebrow. "I haven't eaten yet either, so you may as well stay. How do you like your eggs?"
In the absence of a better argument—and any energy to make it—Nixon let him have his way. "Scrambled."
Only when the butter had gotten hot and Nixon blearily watched it skate around the pan did he think to check the time. He began to turn to glance behind him where the heirloom grandfather clock would sit against the far parlor hall. Remembering where he was (and, more importantly, where he wasn't), he settled for the digital microwave readout just above that shock of bright hair as the runner split an egg on the rim of a bowl. A horrific-looking number beginning with seven.
"Holy shit," he muttered. He couldn't believe he was still conscious after two hours sleep. He couldn't believe he'd woken up in the first place.
Winters calmly shifted to look at him; Nixon dodged answering with a dismissive shake of his head. "Sorry, never mind."
As automatic as a twitch, Nixon sought to smother his nerves by grabbing the water bottle and swinging it up to his mouth. That same, curious flicker of motion zipped through Winters' mouth, lighting a look of muted recognition in his eyes. Was Nixon not staring through the mental stain of a night-long bender he might have seen it clearer, might have deemed immediate flight the better course of action than watching a stranger beat eggs for his benefit.
"If you don't mind me asking, what's the occasion?" Winters asked, turning to pour the beaten egg into the pan.
Bleary, aching, just a heavy eyelid away from unconsciousness, Nixon couldn't think of anything clever to skirt around the truth. "Honestly, there's no occasion. Blitzed for the hell of it. Trying to drink myself off the face of the fucking Earth." He scoffed tiredly. "Didn't know I could get a free meal out of it, though."
He could hear Winters snort quietly. "For the record, I'm not encouraging you."
"And I'm not complaining."
---
Nixon had no fucking idea where he'd go when he left, but one more undeserved act of altruistic generosity might make him lose his breakfast. And then Winters would insist on something else, god knows – a blanket, a bowl of soup, an entire day of bedside nursing. Nixon wouldn't accept any more generosity.
And especially not a ride home.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure, eager beaver."
Winters seemed to consider all possibilities at once and intelligently came to the inevitable answer: Nix was purely stubborn. He sighed in resignation. The only sign of discontent lay in his pursed mouth, the anxious stance he took in the open doorway. Facing into morning light, his hair burned as red as his sweatshirt.
"Do you have a cell?" the runner asked abruptly. He clarified, after Nixon scrunched his nose in confusion, "In case you need help."
Nixon blinked dully and shook his head. "Nope. And don't worry, I won't be asking for it."
"Alright," Winters conceded, still staring him carefully in the eye. "If you'll be alright by yourself."
"Yeah. I will," Nix answered tiredly, hoping he didn't sound rude, overly eager to high-tail it out of there. "Thanks."
And on his aching legs, weary joints, and heavy feet Nixon turned and shoved his hands into the pockets of jeans he didn't own. They were a little long in the leg, but thankfully dry. The sun was horribly bright, flashing off the parked cars lining the street, and at his back still hung an annoying little cloud of concern, thick on his skin like humidity. He heard the runner shut the door but didn't look back. Nixon turned randomly to the west and let his weary feet decide where he'd collapse next.