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"Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you’ve been in before - you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers: You could find your way around in the dark if you had to." – Mhairi McFarlane
The war was over, and neither of them was dead. They had spent long weeks lingering in the mountains of Austria as the sun hung high in the sky, dodging tumbles down mountains and drunken arguments as the last possible pitfalls of the war in Europe. Now the war in the Pacific was over too, and somehow they were both alive, they were still here in the world, and Dick was tucked against Lew’s side in a hotel bar, his cheeks flushed and his hair mussed up. He hadn’t been drinking – of course he hadn’t been drinking – but for once he looked like he had. His smile was helpless as he looked from Harry to Ron to Lip, and that tension that always tautened his body like a piano wire had faded. We’re going home, Lew wanted to say to him, wanted to whisper in his ear, but the word ‘home’ didn’t hold the same security as it once had for either of them.
He felt, had felt for a while now, that the only way that home would be acceptable would be if Dick was there alongside him. He’d asked him to come to Nixon to work, and Dick had said he would think about it, but so far there had been no definitive answer, which made Lew feel itchy and antsy about the whole situation, and as though perhaps he should be embarrassed for having asked. As far as he knew, Dick had just spent his time since then thinking up the kindest way to let him down. Lew wasn’t sure if he’d be able to bear that, but of course he’d have to, just like all of them had borne things that they would once have never believed they’d live through.
In comparison to most other nights, Lew was not particularly drunk. Ron and Harry were bleary-eyed and slurring, Lip was looking at them with fond concern, and Dick was happy for a thousand reasons. Probably one of those reasons was the aforementioned fact that Lew was not particularly drunk, but Lew was aware that there were plenty of others too: that he no longer had to worry about his men, that he’d get to see his family soon, that he’d get to set foot on his beloved American soil again. Dick had plenty of ideas about patriotism that Lew didn’t particularly subscribe to, but he found them quaint and charming. In truth, he found everything about Dick charming. It was something that he’d come to terms with slowly over the last couple of years.
“I’m getting another drink,” Dick said in Lew’s ear, and Lew said, “Whoa, slow down there, soldier, aren’t you getting a little too wild?” Dick rolled his eyes fondly at him before unfolding himself from his seat and ambling over to the bar, where he found himself another bottle of Coca-Cola. Lew watched him, the lean line of his body, his clever hands as he found a bottle opener where anyone else there would have just cracked the cap off on the side of the bar. His mouth as he drank from it, his throat, his copper hair gleaming under the dim lights.
Lew found himself getting up too. “I’m pretty tired,” he told Lip. “Might drag Dick back, you know he’s going to start fading soon. You all right with these two?”
Lip cast an eye over Ron and Harry, before his mouth rose at the corner in a reluctant smile. “I’ll be fine, sir. I'll leave ’em by the roadside if they cause me any trouble.”
“Good man,” Lew told him. They weren’t far from the hotel in which they were staying themselves, had decided to take a special outing to celebrate the real end of the war, but they hadn’t ventured far. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir. See you then.” Lip gave him a smile before raising his beer bottle to his mouth again. Beside him, Ron laid his head on his shoulder and said, “Oh, Carwood,” for absolutely no reason, and Harry laughed bright-eyed at them both. It definitely seemed prudent to leave the three of them to it, and Lew drained the dregs of whisky in his glass before getting to his feet.
He met Dick halfway back to the table. “Thought I might take myself back to the hotel,” he said. “Want to join me?”
“Sure, Nix.” Dick’s eyes always crinkled gently when he smiled, in a way that Lew had once thought was sweet and now imbued him with such tenderness towards Dick that it felt entirely unbearable. He stuck his hands in his pockets and followed Dick out of the bar, out of the hotel and into the night. “I thought you might want to enjoy yourself for a little longer,” Dick said as they walked together in the clean fresh air, slanting his gaze thoughtfully sideways at Lew.
Sometimes Lew wondered about the way the two of them walked together. Sometimes they walked so close that the backs of their hands brushed together. Sometimes they walked so close that Lew could smell him, that particular clean scent that Dick had always had. Even the smell of his sweat after weeks without showering had something wholesome about it. Other men smelled like cow dung when they didn’t wash, but Dick Winters smelled like fresh dirt after a heavy rainfall. Right now their shoulders were so close that they were almost touching. He could hear the faint contented rippling of the lake, and he said, “Here, let’s walk this way,” and gestured towards the trees down by the water’s side.
Dick frowned down the path that he’d pointed towards before following him down it. It was darker there, and the footing was more uneven. “Anyway, I enjoyed myself enough,” Lew said. “I always do when you’re around.”
He could hear Dick’s smile in the dark. “Lew, you flatter me.”
“Well, I don’t mean to. I’m just telling you the truth, that’s all.”
Dick half-laughed but he sounded almost uncomfortable. Then he said, “I have to say, it’s nice not to have to carry you home.”
“It’s nice to be the proud owner of two legs that are holding me upright,” Lew returned cheerfully, and it was supposed to be a flip joke about the way his legs had buckled beneath him the previous week after too much champagne, but instead it made him think of Bill Guarnere and Joe Toye, and from the heavy moment of silence that came from Dick’s direction he was thinking the same thing. Lew cleared his throat, and allowed himself to hate his own brain for a moment before attempting to move on. But words failed him, as they so seldom did when he was beside Dick, and he felt entirely too sober.
He was in the middle of attempting to form a thought that might be able to make its way into a sentence when Dick stopped in his tracks. “Look at the water,” he said, gesturing to one side. “Let’s go closer.”
Lew would have followed him anywhere. He knew that, had known it for a long time, possibly since the first moment he had ever laid eyes on Dick. It had been as though something had fallen into place: he had seen that reliable face, those steady eyes, and thought, Oh, there you are, as if he had known Dick for a thousand years already and would know him for a thousand more. He followed him through the trees down to the water’s edge. There was no path there, and he felt his boots slip-sliding on fallen pine needles and clods of dirt. When they reached the water, it seemed to be unfathomably still, like a sheet of grey glass, until the faint ripples that almost reached their feet. The moon shone pale silver on the surface of the water, and in the darkness Lew could see the shadows of trees stretching up to the stars.
More than anything, he could feel Dick’s presence next to him, his shadowed face. When Lew turned to look at him, the outline of his nose and his jaw and the lick of his hair looked as though it had been traced in gold. Lew watched as he worried at his bottom lip, looked at the pale gleam of his eyelashes and the slope of his cheekbone and the shell of his ear. Even now his shoulders seemed straighter now he was no longer carrying the burden of having to fight, and considering Dick’s usual ramrod posture, Lew hadn’t known that was possible.
It felt too still between them, between the water and the sky. There was no breeze and Lew started to feel uncomfortable, as though his skin was becoming too small for his body. He said, “Can you believe we’ll be back in the States soon? You think any part of you is going to miss it here? Those morning swims you take.” He shuddered dramatically.
Dick smiled a little and said, “There are lakes in America too, Lewis.”
“Not many in Jersey,” Lew said. “Not like this, anyway.”
“Yeah.” Dick shot him a careful look. “Listen, about that job—”
Lew couldn’t bear to hear the rejection. “Look, it’s fine,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It was a thought, that was all. I figured maybe you’d be on the lookout for something and it would be better for me to have a guy I could trust in that position. You don’t need to—”
“Lew,” Dick said. Over the last thirty seconds, which Lew had spent senselessly babbling, Dick had managed to step closer to him. Lew could feel his body heat, but conversely it made him want to shiver. He didn’t know if he could ever let go of this. He didn’t see how he could possibly bear not seeing Dick every day, but evidently he’d have to learn to stand it. It was just difficult when you grew in the same direction as another man, that was all. Sometimes you ended up twining your roots together and your branches and your leaves too. After these years he’d found himself inextricably wound alongside Dick, and he suspected darkly that Dick had become his better half.
Dick was so close to him that when he let out a short breath Lew felt it on his mouth. It was so intimate that it made his knees weak. “How sober are you?” Dick asked, his voice tighter than usual.
“Almost entirely,” Lew said dolefully, and then Dick leaned forward and kissed him.
It shocked the air out of his lungs, and almost the life out of his body as well. Dick’s lips were firm and certain, which made sense because that was the way he lived his life. It was a surprise, Lew thought, feeling as though his brain had left his body, that Dick knew how to kiss so well. He didn’t know where on earth Dick had found the time to practise that, considering all the time he spent reading through his little manuals and thinking about military manoeuvres. Then again, maybe he’d barely practised at all. He was a natural at everything else, so why not kissing too?
Even though his mind had frozen solid, Lew’s body seemed to have understood how to react. He’d flung an arm around Dick’s neck and dragged him in closer. Their hips were pressed together, and Lew had to tilt his chin up just a fraction to meet Dick’s mouth with his own. He bit Dick’s bottom lip as hard as he dared, and Dick let out an exhalation that sounded as though it was half a groan as he opened his mouth. The kiss deepened and Lew tasted Dick’s mouth, the sweetness of Coca-Cola on his tongue. He had kissed men before, plenty of them, plenty of women too, but he had never felt so tangled into someone else; it was as though his heart had melded into Dick’s so they were beating the same rhythm, as though the same blood was pumping around both of their bodies. He knew instinctively that Dick would be like to drawn in more tightly, that he’d press in closer when Lew pushed one of his legs between his. His other hand was in Dick’s hair, which was surprisingly silky between his fingers. He explored Dick’s mouth and with no small degree of joy felt Dick’s arm around his waist dragging him in closely. The kiss broke by itself and Lew leaned in to kiss him again and again, slower now, faces turning, noses brushing, stealing kisses; he kissed the corner of Dick’s mouth and felt him smile.
“Lew,” Dick whispered, and Lew said, “Yeah?”
There was a pause. “I don’t even know what to say,” Dick mumbled, a sort of hysterical laughter in his voice, and Lew found himself beaming, wide and stupid. It seemed as though there was some great light shining down on them, as though everything was suddenly more—
And then he realised that there was a light, golden and twined around his wrist. He felt himself frown sharply, leaning back from Dick’s embrace. The thin line of gold blazed across his skin as though someone had tied a thread of light around his arm. He turned his arm, found that the line of light continued – and then he saw that Dick’s eyes were wide as they followed the golden thread to where it was tied around Dick’s own wrist.
Stupidly, Lew shook his arm. “What the hell,” he muttered, letting go of Dick and taking a step back. The golden thread weaved in the air as if it was made of gossamer. He tried to slide a finger between the thread and his skin, but it seemed as though there was nothing there, or nothing made of any sort of tangible earthly material at least. When he shook it, the thread waved lazily like it was floating through water. It stretched, or extended, as he took a step backwards away from Dick, but it didn’t snap. It went from his right wrist to Dick’s left one. “Dick, what is this?”
“I don’t know,” Dick said. “I mean – I have heard…” Lew had never heard him so disconcerted before, the way he tried to control his breathing. “I have an aunt, Lew, she’s – she likes folklore, she likes traditions, that sort of – but it doesn’t make sense,” he added, almost to himself. He was running gentle fingers over his wrist where the golden light held him tight. It glowed warmly through the gloom, glinted off the surface of the water, danced golden sparks off the surface of Dick’s face.
“What do you mean? You have some witch aunt?” Lew felt tight-chested. “Tell me, Dick.”
Dick managed to shake himself out of his nervousness long enough to give him a stern look. “She isn’t a witch, Nix. She just told me once that some people are tied to each other with golden light – and that those people are twin souls. That’s all.”
“Twin souls?” It sounded preposterous. “Dick, most days I’m pretty sure I don’t even have a soul.”
“Everyone has a soul.” Another stern look. Lew was beginning to consider pushing Dick into the lake, but he was mostly aware that it would probably be an overreaction, and also not a great way to treat a senior officer. Dick looked down at his wrist as though it was something magical, which it actually, maybe, was. “And perhaps when we—”
Dick halted, looking bashful. “When we kissed,” Lew put in, impatiently.
“When we – kissed,” Dick said hoarsely, as though he’d developed a severe and abrupt throat infection, “maybe that woke it up.”
Lew looked down at his right arm, and shook it a couple of times. The gold thread rippled peacefully through the air, stilling as it reached Dick’s arm. Lew reached for it, grabbing Dick’s forearm and scrutinising the golden loop around his wrist. Like his own, the gold wasn’t corporeal, he couldn’t seem to touch it, he couldn’t see where it had joined itself together, whether it could be untied, whether it could be snapped or cut. “Christ, Dick,” he said, heartfelt, dropping Dick’s arm unceremoniously. “I’m so sorry.”
Dick blinked at him. “What?”
“If we hadn’t – you’d never have known.” Where was the hotel from here? He could see lights. He nodded towards them. He felt as though his heart was sinking all the way down to his boots. “Come on, let’s get back.” He almost slipped on pine needles as he turned and felt Dick’s hand on his arm steadying him. He didn’t thank him, just continued, “If I’d known this would happen, I’d never have kissed you back.”
Dick was a step behind him, and a few seconds too, as he said, “What?”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be tied to me of all people, for God’s sake.” Lew couldn’t imagine the sort of person who would want to be permanently tied to his wrist. He was a mess, he knew that. He was unhappy more often than not, he drank in ways that he knew made Dick exhausted and sad, he had a family that he didn’t want to inflict on his worst enemy, let alone Dick, who he had realised years ago was his favourite person on earth. “This twin souls thing – I’m sure it’s a load of crap. Maybe it’s some sort of dual illusion. Maybe we both need a visit to the nuthouse.”
Dick’s footsteps behind him sounded more uncertain than usual, but his voice was steady as he said, “I’m not sure that’s true, Nix.”
“No one expects to kiss someone and then wind up tied to them for the rest of their life,” Lew pointed out. “I certainly didn’t.”
There was another moment of quiet, and then Dick said, “I see what you mean.”
“Exactly.” They were almost at the path back to the hotel now, and Dick didn’t seem to know what else to say. Lew certainly didn’t, which was frankly a new experience for him. They walked back to the hotel in relative silence, the gold thread between their wrists burning bright in the dark. The front doors were wide open, a silver pool of light on the sidewalk like a pipe had burst and water spurted out everywhere. From inside, Lew could hear someone laughing – was that Harry? He shot a worried look at Dick, who shrugged a shoulder.
Inside it seemed unfathomably bright. Ron was trying to coax a couple of D-company men into playing cards, Lip was trying to pull him away, Harry was leaning against a counter and swaying as though it was holding him up. “Everything all right?” Dick said to Lip, who sighed and said something about how he’d been trying to get Ron to go upstairs to bed for ten minutes now. To Lew’s utter and eternal relief, nobody seemed to notice the golden thread stretching from his wrist to Dick’s. As Dick started to persuade Ron to go upstairs Lew said casually, “Just heading off to bed,” and began to take the stairs two at a time. When he chanced a glance over his shoulder, the strand of light between him and Dick had stretched out and out and out, and Dick was looking at him with a set expression that looked almost sad.
*
Waking up without too much of a hangover always felt wonderful, and he had no idea why he didn’t do it more often. Light from outside danced across the ceiling in that unfathomably bright way that Austria seemed to have, the way that reminded him of the first snowfall at home. He shifted in bed and began reluctantly to unfurl the events of the previous night: his mouth against Dick’s, that feeling of being entirely wrapped up in him, the thrill and the joy of something he hadn’t realised he’d been waiting patiently for. And then the golden thread around his wrist… he lifted his right arm to look at it, fascinated by the way it gleamed. It looked as though it was something alive. It danced through the air to his room door, where it slipped underneath it to the corridor outside. The sight of it meant that he suddenly missed Dick, wanted to be by his side right away, and then he realised that feeling wasn’t at all new to him. Every time they weren’t in each other’s sight he felt a little emptier. When Dick was there again, he felt a sense of relief, as though things had shifted back into place. Twin souls. He shook his arm and watched the golden thread flicker through the dust motes on the air.
He washed and dressed before following the golden thread down the corridor outside and down the grand staircase that led to the hotel lobby. He made a detour to find some breakfast, sticking a piece of toast in his mouth and wrapping another two slices in a heavy linen napkin for Dick. Then he followed the thread outside and down through the trees towards the lake. There was something he liked very much about being able to find Dick without having to think much about it. He sat down on the pier, legs dangling over the edge and not quite touching the water, and ate his toast as he watched Dick swim. The golden thread disappeared under the surface of the water but its light still shone through like sunken treasure from a wreck. Dick was a breaststroke man, but right now he was doing the crawl, arms cutting neatly through the water. Lew could see the muscles of his back working and found himself transfixed by Dick’s pale gleaming skin, the precision of his movements, the way he turned his head to breathe.
But he wasn’t there to spend the whole day observing Dick as he swam, as much as he felt he might want to. Instead he called his name across the surface of the water a couple of times, but Dick didn’t seem to hear. Instinctively, he focused on the golden thread around his wrist, captured it with his mind and pulled at it, thinking hard, Hey, Dick. Across the lake, Dick’s movements stilled, and when Lew looked back at him, he was treading water with a frown on his face.
“I just heard your voice in my head,” Dick explained a few minutes later, when they were sitting together on a log in the sun. Dick had a towel around his shoulders and he was making fast work of the toast Lew had brought him. His legs were stretched out ahead of him, and Lew could tell that if they stayed out for much longer he’d end up catching the sun and complaining about it for the rest of the day. “Or maybe it was more of a feeling. Either way, I knew you were here. How’d you know to do it?”
“I don’t know,” Lew said, scuffing his boot heels in the dirt. The whole thing still felt unreal. “I just thought it, I guess.” Although in truth, it had always been easy to find Dick, or to get his attention. There was something about his presence that seemed to loom larger than anyone else’s, something that had meant that Lew always knew how to find him, how to cut through a room of people straight to him. If he’d wanted to share a silent joke with Dick during an endless lecture during training, he hadn’t even had to try to catch his eye; Dick had always managed to turn his head towards Lew at the same time so they could shoot wry smiles at each other before Lew had to cover up a laugh with a cough.
Dick nodded slightly and looked down at the ground. “Well. That’s useful, I guess.” He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “So maybe it isn’t a load of crap.”
“Huh?”
“What you said last night.” Dick looked up. As ever, his pale gaze was unacceptably knowing. “About the whole twin souls thing being a load of crap, and how if it was up to you, we would never have kissed and, uh…” He shook his arm, watched the golden light twist around his wrist. “And this would never have happened.”
“Look, I was a little – I was a little overwhelmed last night,” Lew said. He still felt overwhelmed. He had a magical gold thing on one wrist that appeared to permanently tie him to his best friend with whom he’d shared a homosexual experience. He thought that being a little overwhelmed was a reasonable response. “But you have to admit, Dick – it’s all pretty weird. And if you’re going to be tied to someone, I can’t believe I’d be your first choice.” He wasn’t sure he’d ever stop feeling chronically guilty about it.
Dick let out a thoughtful breath, and then he said, “It could be worse. It could be a hell of a lot worse.”
“Gee, thanks,” Lew said, and Dick laughed and said, “I still can’t believe you haven’t figured out yet that you’re my favourite person, Lew.”
He felt hot all over at that, as though he’d been dipped in a vat of boiling water, and couldn’t think of anything to say except “Well,” before clearing his throat four times as Dick looked at him patiently. Then Dick continued: “I know it’s very strange. But I also think that us sitting here, alive and well, at the end of a war that killed thousands and thousands of people is very strange. I think that the amount that the world has changed is very strange. Everything seems strange at the moment, Lew. Everything is new territory. It doesn’t scare me that we are, as well.”
Lew blinked very hard at the ground, and then he said, “Major Winters, if we weren’t out in broad daylight, there’s a good chance I’d kiss you again.”
“That’s something else to remember,” Dick said gently. “Last night. I was the one who kissed you first. So if you’re upset about anything, if you feel like you’re tying me down – which you’re not, by the way, I’m pretty sure this string would stretch across half the world if we decided we wanted to go off exploring without each other – then remember: I wanted this. I wanted you.”
Sometimes Dick said kind things just to make Lew feel better. He didn’t do it with many other people, and he certainly didn’t do it all the time, but there had been occasions on which Dick had fumbled a few words together so that Lew felt less heavy and more able to go on with his day. On those occasions he was halting, and unused to saying things that weren’t the entire truth. Today, he was looking firmly in Lew’s eyes as though he’d never meant anything as sincerely in his life before, and his gaze was so intense that Lew wanted to look away, like the sun was blinding him. Instead he found himself half-smiling, and said, “Fine. I’ll remember that.”
“Good,” Dick said, before getting to his feet and extending a hand to Lew so he could pull himself up too. “I need to shower. Let’s get back to the hotel.”
Lew felt lighter as they walked back to the hotel. The gold thread stretched between them, gleaming contentedly, and the air was warm and scented with pine. “I always think it smells like Christmas down here,” he said.
“Me too.” Dick smiled at him. “Reminds me of my dad dragging some tree through our front door. We’d make popcorn balls and paper chains.”
“My mom didn’t let me touch the tree. Said I’d mess it up.”
“Did Kathy tell you the same thing?” Dick shot him a half-mischievous smile.
“Funny you should say that,” Lew said dryly, and Dick laughed, the sound muffled by the trees.
Finally they came out onto the road, and crossed towards the hotel. Dick was barefoot, but he carefully wiped the dust off the soles of his feet onto the doormat anyway as they came in. Lew followed him up the spiral staircase, was about to drop him off at his room when Dick said, “What are you doing this morning?”
“Very little.” Lew’s most concrete plan involved going back to sleep, which if he was honest was not abnormal for him.
“Come on in, then.” Dick held his door open, and Lew felt a great jolt in his stomach as he went inside. Dick didn’t quite look at him as he dragged a wooden chair over to the door and wedged it underneath the handle. “Two minutes,” he said, and gestured at the room. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Making himself comfortable was one of the few things that Lew excelled at. He sprawled on Dick’s bed, boots hanging off its side so he didn't muddy the sheets, while Dick went into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned the shower on. The thread hung from Lew’s wrist and snaked under the door, and he focused hard on it, tried to figure out if he could read Dick’s thoughts or anything like that, but he came up with nothing. He felt only an acute sense of Dick’s presence behind the closed door, a knowledge of him that he was fairly certain he wouldn’t have with anyone else. But it didn’t seem like a new knowledge; it was something that hadn’t arisen suddenly, it had been there the whole time since the first day they’d met, slowly building and building into something that had ended in the best kiss of his life down by that lake.
Lew stared at the closed bathroom door. He was pretty certain that behind it Dick was humming something old-fashioned and barely recognisable, and like everything else Dick did, it went straight to his heart, was made into something beautiful and poignant and terribly loveable simply because it was Dick. He leaned down and began to unlace his boots before kicking them off. He peeled his socks off too, and pulled his shirt off over his head and kicked off his pants. His underwear was next, puddled into a heap on the floor with the rest of his clothes. He didn’t know what his body looked like these days, had never stopped to think about it. He drank too much, he knew that, and he wasn’t as broad or as muscular as some of the guys. But he had an inkling that it didn’t particularly matter what he looked like, and that Dick would like him no matter what.
He pushed the bathroom door open. Dick was rinsing the last of the suds out of his hair, his eyes closed and his face raised to the heavens. Lew had seen him naked plenty of times before, but he had never taken the time to stop and look at the long lean lines of his body, had purposely steered away from taking in the hard muscle of his thighs, the ridges of his hipbones, the dusky pink of his nipples, and now the brightness of the new gold thread around his wrist. And then there was his cock, which Lew had always been faintly aware was in proportion to the rest of his body: large, but in a gracious way. Dick didn’t carry himself like the sort of man who was aware he had a big cock, whose naked body would twist people like Lew up inside from the urge to touch him, to run his palms over Dick’s sides, over the lines of his ribs beneath his skin, the tautness of his biceps; he wanted to hold Dick’s face in his hands and to kiss him hard and to press his own naked body against his—
And so he did. Dick opened his eyes and said as though his voice was caught in his throat, “Nix,” and Lew said, “Hi,” and stepped into the shower. Dick’s eyes were wide, his gaze travelled down Lew’s body right down to his feet, and then he looked back into his eyes again. He was smiling as though he couldn’t believe his luck, and Lew felt for a moment as though he was living somebody else’s life. How had he become the sort of lucky, lucky guy who was looked at like that by Dick Winters? He didn’t deserve it. There wasn't a single person in the world who did.
But there was the thin golden thread that joined their wrists together. He took Dick’s left hand in his right one and tangled their fingers together. The threads came together too, shrinking until it was as though their hands were tied together, and just for a moment he felt a dizzying sense of knowing Dick more deeply than he’d ever known another human being, more deeply than he’d even known himself, and from the way Dick was looking at him, eyes full of wonder, he felt it too. Their mouths met, water pounding down on their heads, Lew’s hair slicking down onto his forehead. He pressed the line of his body up against Dick’s and felt as though they were two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle sliding together. There was the heat of the water and the heat of Dick’s body, the slide of his bare skin. Their cocks pressed together and Dick huffed out a breath against Lew’s mouth.
The wall, the cold tiles against his back. He felt as though sparks were crackling everywhere their skin was pressed together, which was everywhere possible. One of Dick’s hands was on his hip holding him steady, the other was on the side of his face; somewhere Lew had thrown his arms around Dick’s neck like a heroine on the cover of a romance novel. He could feel the short hair at the top of Dick’s neck on the side of his arm and his slick smooth skin underneath his hands, and he felt desperate for more and more and still more of him, every inch of skin mapped out with his hands, everything kissed and touched and thoroughly noticed. “You got a perfectly good bed out there, Dick,” he gasped, and Dick rolled his eyes and said, “You were the one who followed me in here.”
That was true. Lew ignored it and tugged Dick by the hand out of the shower, out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, the pair of them dripping on the floor with every step. “We’ll get the sheets wet,” Dick said, and laughed when Lew gave him a look that demonstrated how profoundly he did not care about the dryness or lack thereof of Dick’s bed. “I like that you make me laugh,” Dick said as Lew pushed him down onto the bed, and Lew told him, “I like that you laugh at all my jokes, even when they aren’t funny.”
“Especially when they aren’t funny,” Dick said, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Then I just feel sorry for you, so I have to laugh to make you feel better.”
“Asshole,” Lew complained, climbing onto Dick, one knee either side of his thighs, and Dick laughed again. This time it was breathless, and Lew could feel his gaze on his body, hungry with want. Dick’s chest was gleaming with water droplets, his hair was dark with it, his cheeks were flushed, his mouth was slightly open and his lips were bruised red. Lew wanted to take him apart. His eyes were darker than usual, his pupils dilated, and Lew sat back on his haunches across Dick’s thighs, trailed a finger down Dick’s chest, flicked a nipple lightly with his fingernail. Dick jolted like he’d been shot and Lew did it again, harder, mostly experimentally, before smoothing his fingertip over it like an apology. “God,” Dick said, shifting his hips in a restless way that Lew had only seen when he was attempting to stop Dick racing across an open field to Foy. Dick lifted his hands, palms on Lew’s chest before sliding up and behind his shoulders. His cock was hard against his belly but frankly Lew was too occupied with the rest of Dick’s body to touch it, which was odd because he’d never been good at waiting for the best part. Maybe this whole thing was the best part, the way Dick shivered when Lew ran his fingers over his chest and how he twitched a little when Lew touched a softer part of his stomach. “Ticklish,” he admitted, and Lew was astonished that even now after all this time there were new parts of Dick he didn’t know about yet.
Dick drew him down to kiss him, messier now, more dirty, tongues sliding against each other’s, cocks pressed together between their bodies. Dick’s breath caught and Lew found himself grinding his hips down automatically in a small steady circle, felt Dick’s hand on his back holding him in place as he exhaled, “Oh, yeah,” as Lew kissed the side of his face, his jaw, his neck. The pressure felt unbearably sweet and he felt caught by the absurdity of it, the sudden realisation that he was kissing Dick Winters, his best friend, and then he was caught by how absolutely unabsurd it felt, as though they’d been walking down this path for a long time and had finally reached its inevitable and beautiful end. Why had he spent so long using his mouth for things other than kissing Dick’s? All that unnecessary talking, and for what? Why had there had been other bodies under his when Dick’s was the only one he needed?
The gold thread billowed between them as Lew straightened up again. Dick made the sort of irritable kittenish noise that Lew had not ever expected to hear from him, but released a deep happy breath when Lew took hold of his cock, wrapping a hand around the base, moving it slowly, achingly so. “Have you been with other guys?” Lew asked him, and Dick raised a surprised eyebrow. “I—” he said, and flushed right down to his chest, before admitting, “Yeah,” and Lew said, “Good, so you know what you’re doing.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Dick muttered.
Lew found himself snorting with unexpected laughter before asking, “You ever fucked anyone?” He pressed the fingertips of his other hand to Dick’s collarbone, leaving white crescents behind.
“Yeah,” Dick said, and gripped Lew’s hips like he was demonstrating how it was done.
“Good,” Lew told him, “because I want you inside me.”
Dick made a strangled noise at the back of his throat before saying “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Lew said. He’d wanted this, he realised, for longer than today. It had been something that had been at the back of his head since the first time they’d met, the sort of thought that he’d pushed resolutely out of his head every time he’d met a man he found attractive. He wanted everything with Dick – he wanted to hold him over that desk of his with all his infernal paperwork and pound into him until all the papers were ruined and Dick decided that getting fucked for a second time was vastly preferable to redoing it all right away. He wanted to get down on his knees for him, to wrap his lips around his cock and taste him, the sweet-salt taste of his precome and the silk of his skin, he wanted to press his face against Dick’s asshole, to push his tongue inside him, to kiss him messily there until he was gasping and desperate and begging for more. He wanted Dick to get on his knees for him too, wanted to bury his fingers in that copper-coloured hair and fuck into his mouth, wanted to hear him hoarse the next day and to know exactly why that was. But right now he wanted to sink down onto his cock, wanted to feel him inside him, to be full entirely; he wanted to walk around all day with Dick’s come still inside him, sticky and messy and a reminder every time he took a step.
He tugged gently at the hair on Dick’s chest. “Hey. You got anything?”
Dick had a tub of Vaseline in his nightstand. “What have you been using that for, Winters?” Lew asked him, and sighed and actually believed him when Dick mumbled something about having chapped lips. He coated his fingers, arched his back and reached behind himself, pushing his fingertips inside his hole. It had been a while, he didn’t mind admitting that, he hadn’t done this since his last break in London, but his body remembered what to do – it always did. He had always found that familiar ache and stretch to be incredibly welcome, a precursor to something that was going to feel even better, that was going to satiate him entirely, that was going to fuck every inconvenient feeling and thought he’d ever had right out of his head.
Below him Dick was watching him with wide wonderstruck eyes. “You look so good,” he whispered, and Lew grinned down at him. He had always enjoyed appreciative gazes on him, and from Dick they were even more welcome than ever. “Can I…?” Dick asked, and Lew said, “By all means.” He arched forward and their faces were so close that he could see every detail of Dick’s, the stray eyelash caught by his nose, the golden stubble he’d missed by his cheekbone, the infinity of his eyes and that familiar steady gaze. Lew felt something helpless and desperate inside his chest, like his heart was breaking and clutching onto something at the same time. Dick’s slick fingers slid inside him, and their mouths were so close he could feel Dick’s breath on his lips, the tips of their noses brushed together, there was the spike of Dick’s eyelashes against his cheek when he turned his face to the side and found himself gasping as Dick moved his fingers.
“Tell me if it’s good,” Dick urged him, and Lew said, “It is, Christ, believe me, it is,” and he felt the stretch of Dick’s smile against the side of his face. He wanted more of him, more always, another finger, another two fingers, his cock, but he also wanted this sweet slowness too, the way that Dick seemed bent on undoing him entirely. “I want to see your face,” Dick said, and Lew turned to him, hissed in a gasp as Dick pressed another fingertip against the tight ring of his entrance and then inside him. He didn’t know if he’d ever felt so vulnerable before, but he liked it, the slow unfurling of himself, and Dick’s mouth on his, more tender now and deliberate.
It wasn’t long until he was ready; it never was, he was always ready to relax at a moment’s notice, whether it was taking a nap in a foxhole or getting fucked by his favourite redhead. He helped Dick out, ran Vaseline-coated fingers up and down the length of his cock a few more times than he needed to, throwing a teasing smile in the direction of Dick’s I don’t need your bullshit right now, Lewis Nixon expression. He knew that face so well and yet he’d never quite deciphered the tenderness in it until today.
He braced himself on Dick’s chest as he sank down onto his cock, slow, slow, slow, not for his own benefit but for Dick’s so that he could relish the sight of it, Lew with his cock hard against his stomach, with sweat gleaming on his brow, with his shoulders thrown back and his teeth on his bottom lip as he shifted his hips and adjusted to the feeling of Dick inside him. He felt as deliciously full as he had hoped and he rolled his head from side to side before giving his own cock a couple of vague strokes. “Are you okay?” Dick said breathlessly, and Lew gave him an Of course I’m okay look. Dick grinned at him, fierce and happy, and Lew felt a surge of sudden joy that they were doing this together, that the love he held for Dick no longer had any limits.
They moved together, one of Dick’s hands on his hip guiding him, holding him in place exactly where Dick wanted him to be, and just this once Lew would let him, just this once – and maybe in the future again too, because it had never been this good before, had never been so intense. He felt as though warm waves were breaking over his body, like every inch of his skin was alive in a way he had never known could be possible. Dick touched his face, his shoulder, his chest, and finally his cock, and Lew found himself groaning out louder than he’d expected.
He wasn’t going to last long, he’d known that right from the start. But he wanted everything, he wanted more, he wanted deeper, he wanted—he shifted and said, “Dick,” and somehow Dick seemed to know exactly what he wanted and they moved together so Lew was on his back. “Fuck me hard,” Lew requested, and Dick leaned down to kiss him hard and then did exactly what he’d asked. Lew stretched a hand up, wrapped it around one of the spokes of the wooden headboard to keep himself in place, felt as though his eyes were about to roll back up into his head every time Dick fucked into him. Dick looked so good, no mortal human had ever looked so good before, gleaming with a mixture of sweat and water, a golden halo around him from the pale light streaming from between the gap in the curtains; there was his mouth against Lew’s, their lips open and the kiss messy like Dick was fucking his mouth with his tongue. There was nothing left in the world except the two of them, Dick inside him and on top of him and around him, nothing but the two of them together. Dick was managing to hit that spot inside him every time and Lew wrapped his hand around his cock, jerked himself off in time with Dick’s thrusts. “Lew, I’m not gonna,” Dick gasped out, and Lew said, “It’s okay, me—” and they kissed again, mouths sliding together as though they’d been made for each other.
Again, and again harder, and Lew found himself coming hard over his hand, his stomach, Dick’s stomach, stroking himself through it, helpless and breathless, and then Dick was shaking on top of him and Lew felt warmth inside him as Dick came too, the pair of them pulsing at the same time. The golden thread shone bright like the sun, their wrists twined together where Dick was holding Lew’s hand down above his head. Lew felt Dick at that moment, the essence of him, the complicated locked doors of his head where he had put things aside that he could not deal with just yet, the warm sweet open fields of his childhood and sunlight and apple trees, the easy warmth of him, the instinctive way he took care of people, the affection for others that he held deep inside his heart and his head – and then inside Dick Lew found himself, Dick’s feelings like a flower in full bloom. He saw himself through Dick’s eyes, saw himself as fascinating, complicated, delightful, difficult, adored, and Lew thought with elated disbelief: He does love me.
The world stopped spinning around them slowly. Dick was breathing heavily and his eyes were wide and astonished. “Lew,” he said, “you feel that way?” which meant that he'd had some insight into Lew's head too, and Lew said, “Christ, Dick, of course I do.”
Dick was looking at him the same way he’d looked at him all those months ago when he’d taken a bullet to the helmet. “Lewis,” he breathed, the light of the golden thread that held them together dancing off the planes of his face. Everything Lew had ever needed to know was in the way he said that word. Dick pulled out of him, apologised softly as he was doing so, and they lay beside each other. Lew didn’t particularly want to think about why the sheets were damp, and decided to assume it was shower water.
After a moment Dick rolled over to face him. He took hold of Lew’s right hand with his left hand and held them up above the rumpled sheets, admiring the gold that was strung between them. “This was always here, I think,” he said. “It’s just that now we can see it.”
Lew nodded, and Dick let their hands drop before shifting closer, pressing his face against the line of Lew’s neck. He ran his fingers through Dick’s hair, loving the feeling of his profile there, the blunt line of his nose, his mouth, the prickle of his eyelashes. “About New Jersey,” Dick said against Lew’s neck. “The answer is yes. I’ll move there with you.”
“Well, you’re kind of obligated to move there now,” Lew said, “now that we know we’re twin souls and all.”
Dick laughed, a little breathlessly, and said, “I’d decided before any of this happened. Maybe we were fated to meet – I don’t know. I don’t pretend to understand that kind of thing, Lew. Maybe some great hand wrote our names down in some book before we were born. But I’m not obligated to be with you. I wanted to kiss you last night. I wanted to make love to you today. I choose you, Lew, above anyone else. I always have.”
“I love you,” Lew found himself muttering out, the words unfamiliar on his tongue but feeling right nonetheless. “I don’t know if I deserve you, Dick, but if you want to be with me, I promise I’ll spend every day trying—”
Dick made a shocked noise in his throat. “Lew, you’re the bravest man I know, and the best. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Lew could feel real sincerity coming from him, and it seemed easier to fall silent and to enjoy the warmth of Dick’s body against his. Perhaps, if he tried hard enough, one day he’d learn to see himself through Dick’s eyes instead of his own. In any case, the world seemed abruptly less complicated. The war was over, neither of them was dead, and finally he was home.