FIC: Like Goddamn Men (BoB RPF, Lewis/Livingston)
I really hate when you want something but fandom doesn't provide it, so you have to write the stupid thing yourself. It's almost as though fandom isn't a magic wish-granting machine, BUT SURELY THAT IS NOT THE CASE. Anyway, uh, that's an explanation for why I do out-of-date things like the following. P.S. Boys are pretty.
Title: Like Goddamn Men
Fandom: Band of Brothers RPF
Rating: NC-17 for sexytimes
Pairing: Damian Lewis/Ron Livingston
Length: 6400 words
Disclaimer: This is incredibly fictional -- there's barely any canon support for these dudes even talking to each other.
Summary: From the first day at boot camp they call him Nixon, and it's a weird transition, like half of him is this drunk intelligence officer in 1942, making friends with Buck and Liebgott, and the other half is still Ron, feeling kind of silly and making a video diary for HBO.
AN: Thanks to agate for the read through and, uh, the months of DLew obsessing.
**
From the first day at boot camp they call him Nixon, and it's a weird transition, like half of him is this drunk intelligence officer in 1942, making friends with Buck and Liebgott, and the other half is still Ron, feeling kind of silly and making a video diary for HBO. Acting's always a little bit like that, but this boot camp is really hardcore full immersion, and after a couple days it stops feeling so ridiculous and starts feeling normal. Nixon, Nix. Five mile runs every morning, and stripping down an M1, and polishing his army boots, and he almost believes it.
Damian shows up a little late, and when he does everyone watches him out of the corners of their eyes all the time. Winters is so larger than life, and here's this English guy in a blue hoodie who's supposed to be him but isn't saying much, and Ron can't get a read on him at all. They're supposed to be lifelong best friends, and that almost makes it more awkward, that weight of future-history hanging there between them.
The officers all sleep in the same room, run the exercises, go on special missions together, so he sees a lot of Winters and Compton and Speirs. The barracks are just long rooms with cots all down them, so Ron sleeps with Welsh on one side and Speirs on the other, and it's weird, falling asleep facing one or the other of them. Good thing they run them so hard Ron's almost always asleep as soon as he gets into bed, so he doesn't have to worry about falling asleep staring at some random guy he's just met.
The second morning, the officers have to help Captain Dye lead calisthenics, with Winters in charge, and as Captain Dye yells at Malarkey about his form in sit-ups, Damian catches Ron's eye and just barely perceptibly rolls his eyes. Ron tries not to smile and thinks about Winters and Nixon under Sobel, and he suddenly likes Winters very much. Damian very much. It's hard to tell sometimes, which they are, themselves or their characters, with Dye and his sergeants brainwashing them like this, not letting them call each other by their real names. Even though just thinking something like that makes Ron feel like some douchebag actor talking about his craft.
It's just really easy to fall into pretending. He knows it's just actor boot camp, not nearly like the real thing, but they really do look like soldiers, and they're learning how to shoot rifles, and Dye's being such a sonofabitch Ron's starting to feel close to the other guys out of self-defense. Ron read about the intimacy of combat, how Easy Company men could look across a field at night and recognize each other just from tricks of their walks, how they stood.
They're only doing this for a few months, not years and years, so he knows it won't be like that for them. But he thinks about it, how it would feel to know Damian and everybody else inside out, know how they were when they were tired or injured or angry, know all the tones of their voice and the way they stood. To know them better than you'll ever know anybody, your whole life.
**
Every single minute of the day, they have something they have to do. Up at dawn, five mile run, breakfast, calisthenics, running across the camp to do a mission, running back again to do the obstacle course, lunch, polishing their boots, learning to march and hold a rifle, running across the camp again, back and forth. At the end of every day Ron feels like collapsing in a heap somewhere and never moving again. And of course even then they don't get a break, and after two hours he gets woken up to do an hour of watch, his back and feet aching, so tired he can barely think. He and Damian do watch at the same time. They're not allowed to talk while they're out there, but as they patrol back and forth, it's getting familiar, having Damian there. By the third night, he's recognizing Damian's footsteps, knows the grumpy way he looks when he gets woken up, all red stubble and cranky lines around his mouth.
Which is good. In the scripts, at least the ones he's seen so far, almost any time you get Nixon, you get Winters too, always together. It's hard to imagine, a best friend that close, your shadow self. Well, Nix is the shadow, probably. But even so. He's trying to get to know Damian that way, paying attention to his moods, watching him, how he stands, how he talks. Damian must be doing the same thing, because they're always together without Ron having to try very much.
It's funny, the way everybody treats Damian like he's Winters, waiting for him to give them orders, asking his advice for everything, treating him with this edge of awe. Ron's an officer too, but Nixon isn't a demi-god, for which Ron is thankful, so it's not near the same. The first couple of days, Ron can tell that Damian's pretty overwhelmed by it. He thinks maybe Damian likes being around him because Nix is the only one who's really his equal, who doesn't treat him like the CO. Even Compton and Welsh defer to Winters; Ron never really does, sometimes because he's feeling a little ridiculous playing soldier, but mostly just because he's forgotten he's not Nixon, and he's wondering if he could sneak some liquor past Dye somehow.
In line at the mess - Dye insists they call it the mess - for lunch, he and Damian are behind Muck, who Ron hears tell Damian that he must be a really remarkable guy to be chosen to play Winters. Damian politely tells him thanks, but when Muck's looking the other way and Ron catches Damian's eye, Damian makes a hilariously terrified face at him and mutters, "Jesus Christ." Ron grins.
On the way to their table, carrying their trays, Ron says, "So how does it feel to be so revered?"
Damian shakes his head, looking wry. "He's about the fourth person to say something like that to me. And I'm really not that good a person."
"Oh yeah?" Ron says.
Damian shrugs at him, putting his tray down at an empty table. "Not like Winters." Damian's talking in his slightly shaky American accent, which still sounds a little exaggerated, like a fighter-pilot from the 1950s. They want Method, I'll give them Method, he'd said to Ron that first day. He only slips out of it when he's really tired or really aggravated or just woken up. And even then, mostly just when he's talking to Ron.
Ron had put the camera away to have both hands free for his lunch tray, but he starts to pick it up again when they sit down. "Nix, I swear to God," Damian says. "I'm trying to eat here."
"Oh, don't worry," Ron says, setting the camera on the edge of the table so it's filming the rest of the mess hall, fifty guys eating in a cacophony of deep voices. "Nobody wants to see you chewing. It's disgusting."
"Fuck you," Damian says mildly through a mouthful of instant mashed potatoes.
"Exactly," Ron says.
Damian's about the only one who doesn't mug for the camera at least sometimes. Ron can't tell if he's just not a camera whore, or if he's just taking being Winters very, very seriously. Probably the second one, but it's hard to tell, sometimes, how much people are in-character at any given time, calling each other by their character names, wearing 1940s uniforms. They're really starting some weird-ass fictional relationships here at boot camp.
**
They spend one night sleeping out in bombed out buildings, and of course it's raining and cold as hell. Whoever decided to have boot camp in March in England can eat it, as far as Ron's concerned. Ron's in a building with Dye and Stokey, which is not the most fun he's ever had, but at least he doesn't have to patrol.
He sleeps sitting up against one of the walls, under the part of the roof that's still standing, mostly sheltering him from the rain. Sometime in the middle of the night he wakes up, and immediately recognizes Damian's footsteps in the doorway. He doesn't know if that's why he woke up or not, but if it is, that's kind of weird.
"Hey, Dick," Ron whispers. Dye and Stokey are actually asleep, snoring a little bit from their corner of the building, and Damian's silhouetted in the doorway against the moonlight, standing straight up like a soldier, rifle and helmet and all. In the slight silvery light, Ron sees Damian give a chin-up nod hello, then come over and sit next to him, slinging his M1 off his back and holding it on his knees.
"Nix," Damian says, his voice barely audible. He takes his helmet off and puts it on the ground beside him, careful not to clink the metal. He's sitting so close that his hipbone nudges Ron, his side warm against Ron's side, rifle overlapping Ron's body.
"Doing the rounds?" Ron says, still keeping his voice down so they don't wake up Dye. He rubs at one eye, trying to get the sleep out of it.
"Yeah," Damian says, leaning his head back against the wall behind them, his voice coming slow and rough and tired. "All quiet and all that." He's slipped into an English accent now, his normal one, the one Ron almost never hears. He must be tired, to be Damian instead of Winters, and weirdly Ron's gotten so used to him as American that now his English accent sounds a little fake. Only bits of Damian are visible when they catch the moonlight, his forehead, his cheekbones, his profile in silhouette.
"Mmm," Ron says.
Damian slides down the wall a little, slumping, the soldier going out of him bit by bit. "You've got gloves on your feet," he says, noticing.
Ron, trying not to laugh, ends up snorting. "Old infantry trick," he says. "To keep warm. Dye told me."
"You look like an asshole," Damian says, but his voice is smiling.
"You laugh," Ron says. "But hell, my feet feel great."
"Mmm," Damian says. He shifts a little, putting his legs straight out, his thigh pressed along Ron's. He's warm all over. "God, Ron," Damian says, and yawns. "I'm bone-tired." His elbow's blunt, bumping the crease of Ron's hip, and they never call each other by their real names. Ron feels the familiarity in his chest, like he's suddenly naked, stripped of the Nixon suit.
"Yeah," Ron says. "Me too." It's true, his body aches with tiredness, and he can't remember ever having an exhaustion this deep before. They're all feeling it; earlier in the day Perconte fell asleep standing up, holding himself up with his arms wrapped around Web's chest. It's funny how the company's starting to feel the same things, act the same ways, like they're becoming one person.
He feels like he should say Damian's name too, return the favor, this moment when they're being themselves, Damian and Ron instead of Winters and Nixon. "Damian," he says, trying it out, and Damian's head turns a little bit.
"Yeah?" Damian says. In turning, his hip shifts against Ron's, and Ron shivers. It's so fucking cold in these half-buildings, is the thing.
"God, it's cold," Ron says.
"I'm pretending we're at Bastogne," Damian says. He's still speaking in his English accent, his voice more casual, less precise than when he's being Winters.
Ron laughs. Pretending. Playing soldier. They might as well be eight years old.
He thinks about how Easy Company's going to be at Bastogne - he can't help thinking about everything that happens to them in Europe as if it hasn't happened yet, like they're at Toccoa right now and he just happens to know their futures. Who gets blown to hell in a foxhole, who gets promoted and who gets demoted, like that's all coming up.
And since he's cold as hell right now, he can't help thinking about how tempting it'll be to sleep on top of each other in foxholes, puppy piled in a heap to keep warm. It's not even below zero out right now, but Damian next to him feels like a furnace. He wonders if the real Nixon and Winters slept close in foxholes, woke up half frozen together in the mornings.
While he's wondering it, Damian's breathing slows and evens out, and then he's sleeping, head drifting down towards Ron's shoulder. It's no wonder - Ron would be willing to bet that even though it's the middle of the night and Damian didn't have first watch, he hasn't slept yet. Winters wouldn't have slept much either, and Damian's turning into Winters more and more as time goes on, giving orders like he expects the guys to follow them, wearing authority like his own skin. Ron thinks it's funny. He also kind of feels like he has to look out for Damian a little bit, make sure he's not working himself too hard, not getting too carried away with it all.
Damian's head finally lands on Ron's shoulder, the hot skin of his forehead pressed into the crook of Ron's neck, breath humid against Ron's adam's apple. Ron shifts so they fit, leaning his head back and then letting it rest on top of Damian's. Damian's hands are still clasped around his rifle, even asleep, and Ron's thinking it's strange to be a soldier. He wonders what it feels like to actually kill someone with that rifle, and then he remembers that Nixon never did.
Winters, though. Winters killed people. Damian shifts in his sleep a little bit, makes a mumbly noise and burrows a little bit into Ron's neck. Ron closes his eyes and rests his cheek against Damian's mussed red hair, thinks that soldiering wears you out, is all. It's easy to sleep like this, exhausted next to someone as exhausted as you, like you're sharing the same body, feeling the same things, the same ache in your bones. Wonders drowsily if he'd like to take Damian back to New Jersey with him when this is all over, but then remembers he's from Iowa.
When he wakes up again, the sky's starting to turn gray instead of black, and Damian's gone. Ron can hear him somewhere far away, ordering someone around.
**
When Ron gets back from his reconnaissance mission, special just for him as the intelligence officer, most of the other officers are relaxing in the barracks, polishing their goddamn boots, looking warm and cheerful. Welsh and Compton are sitting on Compton's bunk, both telling some story about what they heard Dye did to make the guys from Private Ryan mutiny. Damian's sitting on the floor between his cot and Compton's, listening to them mildly and not really joining in, fiddling with the cap of his pen, still holding the journal he's always writing in. Sometimes Ron can't tell if he's always quiet like this, always listening, or if that's Winters seeping into him.
Ron's cold and miserable and still in his heavy full gear, so instead of walking all the way down to his own bed, he sets the camera down on the floor and sprawls onto Damian's bunk by the door, falling heavily onto the thin mattress.
"Jesus, Nix," Welsh says.
"Eighty extra goddamn pounds," Ron says, his voice muffled in the pillow, his eyes already closed. God, he could fall asleep right this second, even with his metal helmet still on and digging into his forehead.
He feels a pull on the helmet, and opens his eyes blearily to see Damian palming it, taking it off Ron's head one-handed.
"Thanks," Ron mumbles. Damian smiles that way he does where it's the smallest shift in his features, so you have to be paying attention to notice.
"I don't know if you're aware," Buck says. "But you actually missed your bed there."
"Fuck off," Ron says, closing his eyes again for longer than a blink. "Dick doesn't mind, do you, Dick?"
When he opens his eyes again, Damian's shaking his head, idly putting Ron's helmet on his own head. It looks silly, a helmet inside, but Damian doesn't seem to be either joking or serious in wearing it. He's just wearing it.
Ron buries his face farther into the pillow, his arms folded up across his body, getting comfortable.
"I bet that pillow smells all freckly," Buck says, and then he and Welsh are back to telling their story, all atomic sit-ups and Dye making actors crawl under barbed wire draped in raw meat, for realism, even though some of the Private Ryan guys were fucking vegetarians. The pillow does smell a little freckly, like Damian, pale and warm and familiar now. When Ron's eyes blink open again, Damian's picked up the HBO camera and is pointing it around, observing. It looks natural for him to have the camera, so he's not quite part of the action, just keeping an eye on everything, supervising. Because he's Winters. Or like Winters. It's kind of hard to remember exactly who he is, all confused in Ron's sleepy head.
Ron's drowsing, not really awake and not really asleep, catching sentences here and there. When Buck and Harry finish their story everybody laughs, pushing Ron more towards awake, so in the pause after the story, he blinks his eyes open slowly to see Damian looking at him again, the camera set down. Ron smiles a little bit.
"Nix," Damian says. "You got a cigarette?" They aren't allowed alcohol in boot camp, so everyone's compensating by smoking too much.
"In my pocket," Ron says. He's too sleepy to move for a second, though he does actually intend to reach down and get them for Damian. But before he can, Damian's just reaching for Ron's hip, hand solid against Ron's side as it slides into his pocket, fishing out the pack of cigarettes.
"Thanks," Damian says, getting one cigarette out and sticking it into his mouth. He puts the pack back in Ron's pocket, again the same pressure, the same invasion of personal space. Ron's too sleepy for it to feel strange, though. It just feels normal, like they've always been doing this, like they don't have boundaries anymore. Sleeping in one big room, patrolling, running, they're all one thing. Zim-zam goddamn, airborne infantry.
Damian leans back against the wall again, cigarette hanging from his lip, and Ron closes his eyes, listens for the spark of the lighter, waits for the smell of smoke. He falls asleep on Damian's bed, breathing it in.
**
Everybody's excited for Jump Week. Three days apparently qualifies as a week for Dye, which Ron thinks is kind of funny, but they're all pretty psyched. They're finally going to learn how to be real paratroopers, the best of the best, jumping out of planes behind enemy lines. Spirits are high, everybody mock punching each other and laughing, if only because they're finally indoors and spending a lot of time standing in lines to practice falling.
Ron's dutifully videotaping everything, getting group shots, trying to find guys being interesting. Damian's off by himself on one side of the group, pacing a little bit, waiting to get started and looking sort of pale.
Ron wanders up to him with the camera. "Well, Captain Winters," he says. "You ready for jump week?"
Damian just looks at him, ignoring the camera, and doesn't say anything. He kind of looks terrible.
Ron stops recording and moves the camera away from his face. "Hey man, you all right?"
Damian wipes his right hand on his paratrooper trousers, and nods. "Yeah," he says, and smiles weakly. "Fine."
"Damian," Ron says. He's seriously a little worried now.
Damian blinks for a second at Ron calling him by his real name. But then he shrugs, and wipes his left hand on his clothes. "Uh, I'm afraid of heights."
Oh, is that all? Ron laughs. "Captain Richard Winters? Afraid of heights?"
"Shut up," Damian says. Ron sees him swallowing. He really looks terrified.
"You just need something to relax you," Ron says. Damian clearly needs to stop thinking about it, get distracted. "You want a hand job?" Ron jokes, trying to startle Damian into laughing.
It works. Surprised, Damian snorts, his face relaxing, getting some color back.
"A nice BJ?" Ron says, grinning.
Damian shakes his head, smiling. "Promises, promises," he says. But he looks a lot better, and he comes back with Ron to join Speirs and Web in the back of the crowd, where they're talking about who would win in a fist fight, Dye or Compton.
**
They line up in the fake belly of the plane without their gear on to practice equipment check. Paratroopers had too much on to check their own equipment, so they had to check the guy in front of them, patting down their gear to see if everything was in place. Without their actual equipment on, this basically means getting handsy with the guy in front of you, and everybody takes advantage of the opportunity of making that guy as uncomfortable as possible. And as usual, Ron's the one behind Damian, who's starting to look stressed out again, just standing in the doorway of the fake plane. Well, time for Nixon to the rescue with some gay ass-grabbing.
"Equipment check!" the sergeant yells, and Ron feels up Damian with as much gusto as he can, Compton doing the same thing to Ron. Then they're counting down, Ron yelling, "TWO OKAY."
After they've all jumped the five feet out of the plane and onto the mat, rolling out of the way, Damian rolls his eyes at Ron as Ron gets to his feet.
"Thanks for the groping, buddy," Damian says.
"I'm always here for what Captain Winters needs," Ron says, smirking.
Damian shakes his head again. "Promises, promises."
**
The last day of boot camp and they've all made it through, wings pinned on their uniforms, nobody dropping out or getting too injured or mutinying. They're all feeling stupidly proud of themselves, relieved, and really, really excited to have their booze restriction lifted.
It's funny to see a whole bar full of fake paratroopers, now back in jeans and t-shirts like they're regular people again, all singing and laughing and touching excessively.
"This guy," Buck's saying, with his arm around Luz's shoulder. He points at Luz with the hand holding his beer. "This guy, ladies and gentlemen."
"Ladies?" Ron says, amused. There are almost no women in the bar, chased out by paratroopers being obnoxious everywhere.
"You're a wiseass, Mr. Nixon," Buck says, pointing at him. His cheeks are rosy with booze, and his beer is slopping over the rim of his glass.
Ron grins, and starts talking to Roe about his medic training, how he had to learn to shoot guys up with morphine.
Damian gets drunker than anybody, which Ron wasn't expecting. But Damian's British, not a guy from Pennsylvania who got called a Quaker, so there's no reason he wouldn't. And he's a lot more gregarious when he's drunk than when he's carrying around a rifle, going around the bar talking loudly and swaying and hugging everybody. Whenever Ron sees him across the room, he's mugging some new guy with a full-body assault of affection. It's pretty funny.
Ron's talking to Lipton when he's the one who gets assaulted, Damian's arms snaking around him from behind and picking him up, even though Damian's barely taller than him. "Ope," Ron says, surprised. "Hey there, buddy." Lip grins at them.
"Nix," Damian says, right in Ron's ear, but then he's putting Ron down again. "You," Damian says, coming around to where Ron can see him. "You're my guy."
"Back atcha," Ron says, trying not to laugh.
"Lip," Damian says, and then he's hugging Lipton, arms slinging across Lip's shoulders as Damian drunkenly half-falls into him.
"Airborne all the way," Lipton says, grinning at Ron over Damian's shoulder.
"Airborne all the way," Damian repeats as he pulls back, and then he wanders off to find new people to call his guys. Lipton and Ron look at each other, laughing.
**
It's hard to shake off the habit of being Nixon, so Ron feels like he has to stay and make sure Damian gets back to the hotel okay, as insanely drunk as he is. And Damian doesn't want to leave at a decent hour. "I'm having a good time!" Damian says every time Ron suggests it, and then he usually buys Ron a shot, so finally Ron's really drunk and it's just the two of them and Luz left at the bar, closing the place down. Ron's feeling pretty woozy, though Damian is still outdoing him in the drunk department so he looks like the sober one.
"Okay," Luz says, draining the last of his beer and wiping his mouth. "I'm out of here, guys. See you on the set."
"See you," Ron says, shaking Luz's hand. Damian hugs him, of course. Luz looks amused.
As Luz walks away, Ron says, "Okay, time to go." He starts to settle up both their tabs, leaning against the bar to hold himself steady.
"You're a good friend, Nix," Damian says. He crooks his arm around Ron's neck, warm and friendly, and kisses Ron on the cheek.
Ron laughs. "Okay," he says. Ron really is pretty drunk, a pleasant dizzy buzz, and Damian's breath is boozy against his face. He signs the credit card receipt, Damian still hanging all over him, and pushes himself off towards the door, reeling a little bit as he walks. Damian keeps his arm around Ron's neck, buddy-buddy, so their hips bump together as they sway towards the door.
It's a drizzly April evening in England, of course, damp and chilly. Ron finally manages to shrug Damian's arm off, so they can walk down to the corner to hail a cab a little more easily.
"I am drunk off my ass," Damian says as they stumble along, like it's just occurred to him. He shoves his hands into his pockets, but this seems to unbalance him for a second and he almost falls. This strikes Ron as very funny, and when he starts to giggle, Damian does too, and they lurch down the street, chortling like a couple of idiots.
The first cab that passes them is taken, and then the second one, and then there's a stretch without any cabs at all. The drizzle's starting to pick up a little bit, and when Ron runs his hand through his hair it's damp, starting to slick down to his forehead. He scrubs his hand back and forth through it, which must make it stick straight up because Damian looks at him and starts laughing again.
"That's lovely," Damian says.
"Thank you," Ron says. He peers down the street again, but he can't tell if any of the headlights heading towards them are cabs or not.
Damian slings his arm back over Ron's shoulders, pulling him close. "I'm glad you're playing Nixon," he says, with the intense sincerity of being very, very drunk.
"Yeah, me too," Ron says. Under the streetlights and suddenly this close, Ron's noticing that Damian has a lot of freckles, his eyelashes very pale.
Damian kisses him on the cheek again, his other hand pressed against Ron's chest, warm against the chilly air.
"Very European," Ron starts to say, and then Damian kisses him on the mouth, just a quick dry press of lips. Affectionate, not particularly sexy or anything.
"Heeeey," Ron says, starting to laugh. "I like you too."
"Good," Damian says. His body's long and wiry against Ron's, and Ron's feeling a lot of affection for him - for Winters, who doesn't drink, and for Damian, who really really does. In a burst of fondness, Ron puts his arm around Damian's back, so they're both holding onto each other, rain light on their shoulders under the streetlights.
They finally manage to flag down a cab and Ron puts Damian into it, sliding into the backseat after him. Damian sits towards the middle, so he and Ron are still pressed side to side, thigh to thigh. It's sort of charming, what an affectionate drunk he is. As Ron slams the door shut behind him, Damian's hand comes down and rests on Ron's leg, but so casually it's like he doesn't even notice it's not his own leg, like his body and Ron's are interchangeable.
Ron gives the name of their hotel to the cab driver and leans his head back against the seat as they pull away from the curb, slumping low and closing his eyes. Him slumping down the seat moves Damian's hand further up his thigh, almost uncomfortably high, but Ron's too drunk and sleepy to be bothered. Being out at the bar had made him briefly forget he was on his tenth day of intense militaristic sleep deprivation, but the dark of the cab combined with the alcohol is really bringing it back.
"Nix," Damian says.
"Yeah?" Ron says, managing to blink his eyes open and turn his head just slightly. He's warm and bleary and happy, and streetlights are flickering over them as the cab moves.
"You see Sobel tonight?"
Ron laughs. He had seen Sobel, off in the corner drinking by himself. The same way that Muck and Malarkey and Penkala are best friends because their characters were, the same way Damian and Ron are sharing this cab because they're Winters and Nixon, nobody likes David Schwimmer.
"Poor Ross," Ron says, and Damian laughs.
"Glad I'm not in his shoes," Damian says, and his accent is getting more and more muddled as the night goes on, some sort of horrible bastardization of English and American.
"Yeah," Ron says, letting his eyes drift closed again.
Damian's hand is warm on Ron's thigh, and his thumb starts to move a little bit, stroking back and forth.
All the contact tonight, well. Ron should probably laugh and shove Damian's hand off his leg, but all his limbs feel pleasantly weighty with booze, and he can't quite lift them. And his body's starting to wake up a little bit, focused on Damian's hand, thrumming as Damian's thumb moves. Damian's hand moves a little farther up his leg. He's still not sure if Damian's even noticed what he's doing, but arousal's starting to really build, low and dark in Ron's stomach, which is probably not a great idea. Ah, fuck, some guy's hand on his leg, it's like being a drama major all over again.
"Hey Damian," he says.
"Yeah?" Damian says. His thumb keeps moving.
"How's your girlfriend?" Ron says.
Damian laughs. "Fine," he says, and he must be pretty aware of what he's doing, because then he brushes his hand over Ron's hardening cock, just grazing him. Ron groans, shifting in his seat. Damian grins and touches him again, more firmly this time. "Told you I wasn't a good person," he smirks, his voice all low.
Ron can't help laughing, but just then Damian presses his palm against Ron's fly and so the laugh comes out a little strangled. "God," Ron says, his voice rough, trying desperately not to push up into Damian's fingers. It's true, Winters wouldn't do this. Ron thinks, anyway. Oh God, stop thinking about veterans.
When the cab pulls up at the hotel, Ron can't concentrate enough to get out what they owe, so Damian ends up paying, digging in his pockets and then pushing Ron out the door. The cab driver looks unimpressed.
Ron's so hard he's walking a little funny, and is glad it's late enough that no one's really around in the lobby but the guy manning the desk, who doesn't even look up from the mystery novel he's reading. Damian's got his hand on the small of Ron's back, shepherding him along.
Ron reaches out to push him off, but since he's drunk he misjudges and ends up just sort of ruffling Damian's red hair as they walk up to the elevators. "Quit it," Ron says. "I'm not your wife." Damian's hair is softer than he would've expected, and still damp from the rain. Ron keeps his fingers threaded through it for a second, palming Damian's skull.
"You sure Nixon isn't?" Damian says, punching the elevator button, and Ron shoves at his head affectionately.
"Shut up," Ron says.
Damian goes to push him back, laughing, and Ron half dodges away, too drunk to be quick, and by the time the elevator doors open, they fall in scuffling like ten-year-old boys. Damian slaps at the button for the seventh floor as Ron pokes at him, and somehow manages to grab Ron's wrist with his free hand and hold it. As the elevator doors slide shut, Damian's grabbing for Ron's other wrist, keeping him off balance and pushing him until Ron hits the back wall of the elevator and Damian's pinned him with his whole body, holding Ron's wrists up beside his head. They're both breathing hard, staring at each other, and Ron can feel that Damian's as hard as he is, dicks trapped between their bodies. Ron thinks about Winters, always in command, giving orders, and oh, Christ. Damian's eyes are wide and dark, and then as Ron presses his hips forward against him, they flutter shut.
"Ron," Damian says, voice shaky, and hearing Damian say his name, not Nix's, does something deep in Ron's stomach.
"Yeah," Ron says, very quietly, and Damian leans in and kisses him, mouth wet and rough, still holding Ron's wrists. His tongue slides into Ron's mouth just as the elevator dings for their floor, doors opening. It's got to be four in the morning.
"Uh, hold that thought," Damian says as he pulls back, for a second still so close his breath is warm on Ron's face. But then he's turning and somehow Ron manages to follow him stumbling out of the elevator, the blood pumping through his veins feeling like some kind of pure mixture of sex and alcohol, churning haphazardly through his body.
As Damian tries to work the key of his room, Ron pushes up behind him, his chest to Damian's back, chin hooked over Damian's shoulder. He puts a hand on Damian's hip, the triangled bone sharp against his palm.
"Jesus," Damian mutters, his breathing coming fast, and it takes him what seems like forever to get the keycard to open the door.
"For Christ's sake," Ron says, after the fourth time Damian slides the key in and out and the little light stays red. "I bet Winters could work the fucking door."
"You're not helping, Ronald," Damian says, and this time he can't even seem to get the card in the slot. "Goddamn fucking wanker bollocks," Damian mutters, fumbling with it, but by some miracle this time when he gets the card in the light goes green.
Ron all but pushes him through the door, the hotel room inside pitch black, just a single sliver of light coming from where the curtains gap. Damian starts fumbling for the light switch, but can't seem to find it.
"Where's the fucking light?" Damian says, groping along the wall, and then he misses and gropes Ron's face instead.
"That's not a light switch," Ron says, straight-faced. "That is my nose."
Damian starts laughing, palming Ron's cheek and then moving his hand down to Ron's neck, pulling him in so their bodies are pressed together again. "Huh," Damian says. "You might be right." And then he kisses Ron again, licking along Ron's lower lip, both their mouths opening.
Ron turns them, hands on Damian's hips, pushing him up against the little strip of wall that separates the bathroom from the rest of the hotel room. "Ow," Damian mutters into Ron's mouth as he hits the wall, and he fumbles with his hand for whatever his back hit. When he finds it, it turns out to be the switch for the bathroom light, dull homey yellow glaring out through the bathroom doorway, making both of them blink.
"Ah," Damian says. "Fiat lu --" But Ron's kissing him again before he can finish the Latin, only pulling back to fumble Damian's shirt over his head. The bare skin of Damian's chest is hot, his muscles taut like a soldier's, and when Damian pulls Ron's shirt off, they're pressed skin to skin, kissing desperately in the dim light cast by the bathroom.
Damian has one arm slung around Ron's shoulders, but the other starts moving down Ron's body, fumbling for his fly. Ron gasps a little bit as Damian's fingers press against his cock through the fabric, finding his zipper and undoing it with dexterous fingers.
"Jesus," Ron says as Damian's hand slides into his boxers, his jeans slipping down his hips. He's still so drunk he's dizzy, and between that and Damian's hand wrapping around him, he stumbles a step backwards, almost losing his balance.
Damian laughs against his mouth, then pushes Ron a couple more steps backwards until the back of his legs hit the bed and his knees buckle, body falling to sit on the edge.
"Better," Damian says, that authoritative Winters tone back in his voice. Ron can just see him, the reddish hairs on his chest haloing where they catch the dim light, the strain at the front of his jeans. He drops to his knees in front of Ron and crooks a finger into the waistband of Ron's boxers to pull them off. Ron lifts his hips to help out, Damian's fingernails grazing his sides.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Ron mutters as Damian's mouth closes over him. He palms the back of Damian's head, trying desperately to hold still, and Damian really knows what he's doing, weirdly. Ron remembers he went to drama school too.
Damian pulls off for a second, sitting back on his heels and jerking Ron off with one hand while he touches himself through his jeans with the other. "Fuck, Nix," he says, his mouth wet and a little swollen, his voice pure Winters. Jesus God, in the dim light Ron can practically imagine an M1 silhouette over his shoulder.
Ron winces, thinking of the real Nixon and Winters. "Please don't call me that right now."
Damian smirks at him. "Sorry, Ron," he says, and leans forward to stretch his mouth over Ron's cock again. His hands flex on Ron's thighs, and Ron presses his palms along Damian's shoulders, stroking along the muscle, trying to hold it together. He can hear himself making little choked noises, and thinks they're not their characters, they're not, they're not.
Damian's tongue swirls around the head of his dick, and he can hardly stand it. "Damian," he says, and closes his eyes.
**
END
Title: Like Goddamn Men
Fandom: Band of Brothers RPF
Rating: NC-17 for sexytimes
Pairing: Damian Lewis/Ron Livingston
Length: 6400 words
Disclaimer: This is incredibly fictional -- there's barely any canon support for these dudes even talking to each other.
Summary: From the first day at boot camp they call him Nixon, and it's a weird transition, like half of him is this drunk intelligence officer in 1942, making friends with Buck and Liebgott, and the other half is still Ron, feeling kind of silly and making a video diary for HBO.
AN: Thanks to agate for the read through and, uh, the months of DLew obsessing.
**
From the first day at boot camp they call him Nixon, and it's a weird transition, like half of him is this drunk intelligence officer in 1942, making friends with Buck and Liebgott, and the other half is still Ron, feeling kind of silly and making a video diary for HBO. Acting's always a little bit like that, but this boot camp is really hardcore full immersion, and after a couple days it stops feeling so ridiculous and starts feeling normal. Nixon, Nix. Five mile runs every morning, and stripping down an M1, and polishing his army boots, and he almost believes it.
Damian shows up a little late, and when he does everyone watches him out of the corners of their eyes all the time. Winters is so larger than life, and here's this English guy in a blue hoodie who's supposed to be him but isn't saying much, and Ron can't get a read on him at all. They're supposed to be lifelong best friends, and that almost makes it more awkward, that weight of future-history hanging there between them.
The officers all sleep in the same room, run the exercises, go on special missions together, so he sees a lot of Winters and Compton and Speirs. The barracks are just long rooms with cots all down them, so Ron sleeps with Welsh on one side and Speirs on the other, and it's weird, falling asleep facing one or the other of them. Good thing they run them so hard Ron's almost always asleep as soon as he gets into bed, so he doesn't have to worry about falling asleep staring at some random guy he's just met.
The second morning, the officers have to help Captain Dye lead calisthenics, with Winters in charge, and as Captain Dye yells at Malarkey about his form in sit-ups, Damian catches Ron's eye and just barely perceptibly rolls his eyes. Ron tries not to smile and thinks about Winters and Nixon under Sobel, and he suddenly likes Winters very much. Damian very much. It's hard to tell sometimes, which they are, themselves or their characters, with Dye and his sergeants brainwashing them like this, not letting them call each other by their real names. Even though just thinking something like that makes Ron feel like some douchebag actor talking about his craft.
It's just really easy to fall into pretending. He knows it's just actor boot camp, not nearly like the real thing, but they really do look like soldiers, and they're learning how to shoot rifles, and Dye's being such a sonofabitch Ron's starting to feel close to the other guys out of self-defense. Ron read about the intimacy of combat, how Easy Company men could look across a field at night and recognize each other just from tricks of their walks, how they stood.
They're only doing this for a few months, not years and years, so he knows it won't be like that for them. But he thinks about it, how it would feel to know Damian and everybody else inside out, know how they were when they were tired or injured or angry, know all the tones of their voice and the way they stood. To know them better than you'll ever know anybody, your whole life.
**
Every single minute of the day, they have something they have to do. Up at dawn, five mile run, breakfast, calisthenics, running across the camp to do a mission, running back again to do the obstacle course, lunch, polishing their boots, learning to march and hold a rifle, running across the camp again, back and forth. At the end of every day Ron feels like collapsing in a heap somewhere and never moving again. And of course even then they don't get a break, and after two hours he gets woken up to do an hour of watch, his back and feet aching, so tired he can barely think. He and Damian do watch at the same time. They're not allowed to talk while they're out there, but as they patrol back and forth, it's getting familiar, having Damian there. By the third night, he's recognizing Damian's footsteps, knows the grumpy way he looks when he gets woken up, all red stubble and cranky lines around his mouth.
Which is good. In the scripts, at least the ones he's seen so far, almost any time you get Nixon, you get Winters too, always together. It's hard to imagine, a best friend that close, your shadow self. Well, Nix is the shadow, probably. But even so. He's trying to get to know Damian that way, paying attention to his moods, watching him, how he stands, how he talks. Damian must be doing the same thing, because they're always together without Ron having to try very much.
It's funny, the way everybody treats Damian like he's Winters, waiting for him to give them orders, asking his advice for everything, treating him with this edge of awe. Ron's an officer too, but Nixon isn't a demi-god, for which Ron is thankful, so it's not near the same. The first couple of days, Ron can tell that Damian's pretty overwhelmed by it. He thinks maybe Damian likes being around him because Nix is the only one who's really his equal, who doesn't treat him like the CO. Even Compton and Welsh defer to Winters; Ron never really does, sometimes because he's feeling a little ridiculous playing soldier, but mostly just because he's forgotten he's not Nixon, and he's wondering if he could sneak some liquor past Dye somehow.
In line at the mess - Dye insists they call it the mess - for lunch, he and Damian are behind Muck, who Ron hears tell Damian that he must be a really remarkable guy to be chosen to play Winters. Damian politely tells him thanks, but when Muck's looking the other way and Ron catches Damian's eye, Damian makes a hilariously terrified face at him and mutters, "Jesus Christ." Ron grins.
On the way to their table, carrying their trays, Ron says, "So how does it feel to be so revered?"
Damian shakes his head, looking wry. "He's about the fourth person to say something like that to me. And I'm really not that good a person."
"Oh yeah?" Ron says.
Damian shrugs at him, putting his tray down at an empty table. "Not like Winters." Damian's talking in his slightly shaky American accent, which still sounds a little exaggerated, like a fighter-pilot from the 1950s. They want Method, I'll give them Method, he'd said to Ron that first day. He only slips out of it when he's really tired or really aggravated or just woken up. And even then, mostly just when he's talking to Ron.
Ron had put the camera away to have both hands free for his lunch tray, but he starts to pick it up again when they sit down. "Nix, I swear to God," Damian says. "I'm trying to eat here."
"Oh, don't worry," Ron says, setting the camera on the edge of the table so it's filming the rest of the mess hall, fifty guys eating in a cacophony of deep voices. "Nobody wants to see you chewing. It's disgusting."
"Fuck you," Damian says mildly through a mouthful of instant mashed potatoes.
"Exactly," Ron says.
Damian's about the only one who doesn't mug for the camera at least sometimes. Ron can't tell if he's just not a camera whore, or if he's just taking being Winters very, very seriously. Probably the second one, but it's hard to tell, sometimes, how much people are in-character at any given time, calling each other by their character names, wearing 1940s uniforms. They're really starting some weird-ass fictional relationships here at boot camp.
**
They spend one night sleeping out in bombed out buildings, and of course it's raining and cold as hell. Whoever decided to have boot camp in March in England can eat it, as far as Ron's concerned. Ron's in a building with Dye and Stokey, which is not the most fun he's ever had, but at least he doesn't have to patrol.
He sleeps sitting up against one of the walls, under the part of the roof that's still standing, mostly sheltering him from the rain. Sometime in the middle of the night he wakes up, and immediately recognizes Damian's footsteps in the doorway. He doesn't know if that's why he woke up or not, but if it is, that's kind of weird.
"Hey, Dick," Ron whispers. Dye and Stokey are actually asleep, snoring a little bit from their corner of the building, and Damian's silhouetted in the doorway against the moonlight, standing straight up like a soldier, rifle and helmet and all. In the slight silvery light, Ron sees Damian give a chin-up nod hello, then come over and sit next to him, slinging his M1 off his back and holding it on his knees.
"Nix," Damian says, his voice barely audible. He takes his helmet off and puts it on the ground beside him, careful not to clink the metal. He's sitting so close that his hipbone nudges Ron, his side warm against Ron's side, rifle overlapping Ron's body.
"Doing the rounds?" Ron says, still keeping his voice down so they don't wake up Dye. He rubs at one eye, trying to get the sleep out of it.
"Yeah," Damian says, leaning his head back against the wall behind them, his voice coming slow and rough and tired. "All quiet and all that." He's slipped into an English accent now, his normal one, the one Ron almost never hears. He must be tired, to be Damian instead of Winters, and weirdly Ron's gotten so used to him as American that now his English accent sounds a little fake. Only bits of Damian are visible when they catch the moonlight, his forehead, his cheekbones, his profile in silhouette.
"Mmm," Ron says.
Damian slides down the wall a little, slumping, the soldier going out of him bit by bit. "You've got gloves on your feet," he says, noticing.
Ron, trying not to laugh, ends up snorting. "Old infantry trick," he says. "To keep warm. Dye told me."
"You look like an asshole," Damian says, but his voice is smiling.
"You laugh," Ron says. "But hell, my feet feel great."
"Mmm," Damian says. He shifts a little, putting his legs straight out, his thigh pressed along Ron's. He's warm all over. "God, Ron," Damian says, and yawns. "I'm bone-tired." His elbow's blunt, bumping the crease of Ron's hip, and they never call each other by their real names. Ron feels the familiarity in his chest, like he's suddenly naked, stripped of the Nixon suit.
"Yeah," Ron says. "Me too." It's true, his body aches with tiredness, and he can't remember ever having an exhaustion this deep before. They're all feeling it; earlier in the day Perconte fell asleep standing up, holding himself up with his arms wrapped around Web's chest. It's funny how the company's starting to feel the same things, act the same ways, like they're becoming one person.
He feels like he should say Damian's name too, return the favor, this moment when they're being themselves, Damian and Ron instead of Winters and Nixon. "Damian," he says, trying it out, and Damian's head turns a little bit.
"Yeah?" Damian says. In turning, his hip shifts against Ron's, and Ron shivers. It's so fucking cold in these half-buildings, is the thing.
"God, it's cold," Ron says.
"I'm pretending we're at Bastogne," Damian says. He's still speaking in his English accent, his voice more casual, less precise than when he's being Winters.
Ron laughs. Pretending. Playing soldier. They might as well be eight years old.
He thinks about how Easy Company's going to be at Bastogne - he can't help thinking about everything that happens to them in Europe as if it hasn't happened yet, like they're at Toccoa right now and he just happens to know their futures. Who gets blown to hell in a foxhole, who gets promoted and who gets demoted, like that's all coming up.
And since he's cold as hell right now, he can't help thinking about how tempting it'll be to sleep on top of each other in foxholes, puppy piled in a heap to keep warm. It's not even below zero out right now, but Damian next to him feels like a furnace. He wonders if the real Nixon and Winters slept close in foxholes, woke up half frozen together in the mornings.
While he's wondering it, Damian's breathing slows and evens out, and then he's sleeping, head drifting down towards Ron's shoulder. It's no wonder - Ron would be willing to bet that even though it's the middle of the night and Damian didn't have first watch, he hasn't slept yet. Winters wouldn't have slept much either, and Damian's turning into Winters more and more as time goes on, giving orders like he expects the guys to follow them, wearing authority like his own skin. Ron thinks it's funny. He also kind of feels like he has to look out for Damian a little bit, make sure he's not working himself too hard, not getting too carried away with it all.
Damian's head finally lands on Ron's shoulder, the hot skin of his forehead pressed into the crook of Ron's neck, breath humid against Ron's adam's apple. Ron shifts so they fit, leaning his head back and then letting it rest on top of Damian's. Damian's hands are still clasped around his rifle, even asleep, and Ron's thinking it's strange to be a soldier. He wonders what it feels like to actually kill someone with that rifle, and then he remembers that Nixon never did.
Winters, though. Winters killed people. Damian shifts in his sleep a little bit, makes a mumbly noise and burrows a little bit into Ron's neck. Ron closes his eyes and rests his cheek against Damian's mussed red hair, thinks that soldiering wears you out, is all. It's easy to sleep like this, exhausted next to someone as exhausted as you, like you're sharing the same body, feeling the same things, the same ache in your bones. Wonders drowsily if he'd like to take Damian back to New Jersey with him when this is all over, but then remembers he's from Iowa.
When he wakes up again, the sky's starting to turn gray instead of black, and Damian's gone. Ron can hear him somewhere far away, ordering someone around.
**
When Ron gets back from his reconnaissance mission, special just for him as the intelligence officer, most of the other officers are relaxing in the barracks, polishing their goddamn boots, looking warm and cheerful. Welsh and Compton are sitting on Compton's bunk, both telling some story about what they heard Dye did to make the guys from Private Ryan mutiny. Damian's sitting on the floor between his cot and Compton's, listening to them mildly and not really joining in, fiddling with the cap of his pen, still holding the journal he's always writing in. Sometimes Ron can't tell if he's always quiet like this, always listening, or if that's Winters seeping into him.
Ron's cold and miserable and still in his heavy full gear, so instead of walking all the way down to his own bed, he sets the camera down on the floor and sprawls onto Damian's bunk by the door, falling heavily onto the thin mattress.
"Jesus, Nix," Welsh says.
"Eighty extra goddamn pounds," Ron says, his voice muffled in the pillow, his eyes already closed. God, he could fall asleep right this second, even with his metal helmet still on and digging into his forehead.
He feels a pull on the helmet, and opens his eyes blearily to see Damian palming it, taking it off Ron's head one-handed.
"Thanks," Ron mumbles. Damian smiles that way he does where it's the smallest shift in his features, so you have to be paying attention to notice.
"I don't know if you're aware," Buck says. "But you actually missed your bed there."
"Fuck off," Ron says, closing his eyes again for longer than a blink. "Dick doesn't mind, do you, Dick?"
When he opens his eyes again, Damian's shaking his head, idly putting Ron's helmet on his own head. It looks silly, a helmet inside, but Damian doesn't seem to be either joking or serious in wearing it. He's just wearing it.
Ron buries his face farther into the pillow, his arms folded up across his body, getting comfortable.
"I bet that pillow smells all freckly," Buck says, and then he and Welsh are back to telling their story, all atomic sit-ups and Dye making actors crawl under barbed wire draped in raw meat, for realism, even though some of the Private Ryan guys were fucking vegetarians. The pillow does smell a little freckly, like Damian, pale and warm and familiar now. When Ron's eyes blink open again, Damian's picked up the HBO camera and is pointing it around, observing. It looks natural for him to have the camera, so he's not quite part of the action, just keeping an eye on everything, supervising. Because he's Winters. Or like Winters. It's kind of hard to remember exactly who he is, all confused in Ron's sleepy head.
Ron's drowsing, not really awake and not really asleep, catching sentences here and there. When Buck and Harry finish their story everybody laughs, pushing Ron more towards awake, so in the pause after the story, he blinks his eyes open slowly to see Damian looking at him again, the camera set down. Ron smiles a little bit.
"Nix," Damian says. "You got a cigarette?" They aren't allowed alcohol in boot camp, so everyone's compensating by smoking too much.
"In my pocket," Ron says. He's too sleepy to move for a second, though he does actually intend to reach down and get them for Damian. But before he can, Damian's just reaching for Ron's hip, hand solid against Ron's side as it slides into his pocket, fishing out the pack of cigarettes.
"Thanks," Damian says, getting one cigarette out and sticking it into his mouth. He puts the pack back in Ron's pocket, again the same pressure, the same invasion of personal space. Ron's too sleepy for it to feel strange, though. It just feels normal, like they've always been doing this, like they don't have boundaries anymore. Sleeping in one big room, patrolling, running, they're all one thing. Zim-zam goddamn, airborne infantry.
Damian leans back against the wall again, cigarette hanging from his lip, and Ron closes his eyes, listens for the spark of the lighter, waits for the smell of smoke. He falls asleep on Damian's bed, breathing it in.
**
Everybody's excited for Jump Week. Three days apparently qualifies as a week for Dye, which Ron thinks is kind of funny, but they're all pretty psyched. They're finally going to learn how to be real paratroopers, the best of the best, jumping out of planes behind enemy lines. Spirits are high, everybody mock punching each other and laughing, if only because they're finally indoors and spending a lot of time standing in lines to practice falling.
Ron's dutifully videotaping everything, getting group shots, trying to find guys being interesting. Damian's off by himself on one side of the group, pacing a little bit, waiting to get started and looking sort of pale.
Ron wanders up to him with the camera. "Well, Captain Winters," he says. "You ready for jump week?"
Damian just looks at him, ignoring the camera, and doesn't say anything. He kind of looks terrible.
Ron stops recording and moves the camera away from his face. "Hey man, you all right?"
Damian wipes his right hand on his paratrooper trousers, and nods. "Yeah," he says, and smiles weakly. "Fine."
"Damian," Ron says. He's seriously a little worried now.
Damian blinks for a second at Ron calling him by his real name. But then he shrugs, and wipes his left hand on his clothes. "Uh, I'm afraid of heights."
Oh, is that all? Ron laughs. "Captain Richard Winters? Afraid of heights?"
"Shut up," Damian says. Ron sees him swallowing. He really looks terrified.
"You just need something to relax you," Ron says. Damian clearly needs to stop thinking about it, get distracted. "You want a hand job?" Ron jokes, trying to startle Damian into laughing.
It works. Surprised, Damian snorts, his face relaxing, getting some color back.
"A nice BJ?" Ron says, grinning.
Damian shakes his head, smiling. "Promises, promises," he says. But he looks a lot better, and he comes back with Ron to join Speirs and Web in the back of the crowd, where they're talking about who would win in a fist fight, Dye or Compton.
**
They line up in the fake belly of the plane without their gear on to practice equipment check. Paratroopers had too much on to check their own equipment, so they had to check the guy in front of them, patting down their gear to see if everything was in place. Without their actual equipment on, this basically means getting handsy with the guy in front of you, and everybody takes advantage of the opportunity of making that guy as uncomfortable as possible. And as usual, Ron's the one behind Damian, who's starting to look stressed out again, just standing in the doorway of the fake plane. Well, time for Nixon to the rescue with some gay ass-grabbing.
"Equipment check!" the sergeant yells, and Ron feels up Damian with as much gusto as he can, Compton doing the same thing to Ron. Then they're counting down, Ron yelling, "TWO OKAY."
After they've all jumped the five feet out of the plane and onto the mat, rolling out of the way, Damian rolls his eyes at Ron as Ron gets to his feet.
"Thanks for the groping, buddy," Damian says.
"I'm always here for what Captain Winters needs," Ron says, smirking.
Damian shakes his head again. "Promises, promises."
**
The last day of boot camp and they've all made it through, wings pinned on their uniforms, nobody dropping out or getting too injured or mutinying. They're all feeling stupidly proud of themselves, relieved, and really, really excited to have their booze restriction lifted.
It's funny to see a whole bar full of fake paratroopers, now back in jeans and t-shirts like they're regular people again, all singing and laughing and touching excessively.
"This guy," Buck's saying, with his arm around Luz's shoulder. He points at Luz with the hand holding his beer. "This guy, ladies and gentlemen."
"Ladies?" Ron says, amused. There are almost no women in the bar, chased out by paratroopers being obnoxious everywhere.
"You're a wiseass, Mr. Nixon," Buck says, pointing at him. His cheeks are rosy with booze, and his beer is slopping over the rim of his glass.
Ron grins, and starts talking to Roe about his medic training, how he had to learn to shoot guys up with morphine.
Damian gets drunker than anybody, which Ron wasn't expecting. But Damian's British, not a guy from Pennsylvania who got called a Quaker, so there's no reason he wouldn't. And he's a lot more gregarious when he's drunk than when he's carrying around a rifle, going around the bar talking loudly and swaying and hugging everybody. Whenever Ron sees him across the room, he's mugging some new guy with a full-body assault of affection. It's pretty funny.
Ron's talking to Lipton when he's the one who gets assaulted, Damian's arms snaking around him from behind and picking him up, even though Damian's barely taller than him. "Ope," Ron says, surprised. "Hey there, buddy." Lip grins at them.
"Nix," Damian says, right in Ron's ear, but then he's putting Ron down again. "You," Damian says, coming around to where Ron can see him. "You're my guy."
"Back atcha," Ron says, trying not to laugh.
"Lip," Damian says, and then he's hugging Lipton, arms slinging across Lip's shoulders as Damian drunkenly half-falls into him.
"Airborne all the way," Lipton says, grinning at Ron over Damian's shoulder.
"Airborne all the way," Damian repeats as he pulls back, and then he wanders off to find new people to call his guys. Lipton and Ron look at each other, laughing.
**
It's hard to shake off the habit of being Nixon, so Ron feels like he has to stay and make sure Damian gets back to the hotel okay, as insanely drunk as he is. And Damian doesn't want to leave at a decent hour. "I'm having a good time!" Damian says every time Ron suggests it, and then he usually buys Ron a shot, so finally Ron's really drunk and it's just the two of them and Luz left at the bar, closing the place down. Ron's feeling pretty woozy, though Damian is still outdoing him in the drunk department so he looks like the sober one.
"Okay," Luz says, draining the last of his beer and wiping his mouth. "I'm out of here, guys. See you on the set."
"See you," Ron says, shaking Luz's hand. Damian hugs him, of course. Luz looks amused.
As Luz walks away, Ron says, "Okay, time to go." He starts to settle up both their tabs, leaning against the bar to hold himself steady.
"You're a good friend, Nix," Damian says. He crooks his arm around Ron's neck, warm and friendly, and kisses Ron on the cheek.
Ron laughs. "Okay," he says. Ron really is pretty drunk, a pleasant dizzy buzz, and Damian's breath is boozy against his face. He signs the credit card receipt, Damian still hanging all over him, and pushes himself off towards the door, reeling a little bit as he walks. Damian keeps his arm around Ron's neck, buddy-buddy, so their hips bump together as they sway towards the door.
It's a drizzly April evening in England, of course, damp and chilly. Ron finally manages to shrug Damian's arm off, so they can walk down to the corner to hail a cab a little more easily.
"I am drunk off my ass," Damian says as they stumble along, like it's just occurred to him. He shoves his hands into his pockets, but this seems to unbalance him for a second and he almost falls. This strikes Ron as very funny, and when he starts to giggle, Damian does too, and they lurch down the street, chortling like a couple of idiots.
The first cab that passes them is taken, and then the second one, and then there's a stretch without any cabs at all. The drizzle's starting to pick up a little bit, and when Ron runs his hand through his hair it's damp, starting to slick down to his forehead. He scrubs his hand back and forth through it, which must make it stick straight up because Damian looks at him and starts laughing again.
"That's lovely," Damian says.
"Thank you," Ron says. He peers down the street again, but he can't tell if any of the headlights heading towards them are cabs or not.
Damian slings his arm back over Ron's shoulders, pulling him close. "I'm glad you're playing Nixon," he says, with the intense sincerity of being very, very drunk.
"Yeah, me too," Ron says. Under the streetlights and suddenly this close, Ron's noticing that Damian has a lot of freckles, his eyelashes very pale.
Damian kisses him on the cheek again, his other hand pressed against Ron's chest, warm against the chilly air.
"Very European," Ron starts to say, and then Damian kisses him on the mouth, just a quick dry press of lips. Affectionate, not particularly sexy or anything.
"Heeeey," Ron says, starting to laugh. "I like you too."
"Good," Damian says. His body's long and wiry against Ron's, and Ron's feeling a lot of affection for him - for Winters, who doesn't drink, and for Damian, who really really does. In a burst of fondness, Ron puts his arm around Damian's back, so they're both holding onto each other, rain light on their shoulders under the streetlights.
They finally manage to flag down a cab and Ron puts Damian into it, sliding into the backseat after him. Damian sits towards the middle, so he and Ron are still pressed side to side, thigh to thigh. It's sort of charming, what an affectionate drunk he is. As Ron slams the door shut behind him, Damian's hand comes down and rests on Ron's leg, but so casually it's like he doesn't even notice it's not his own leg, like his body and Ron's are interchangeable.
Ron gives the name of their hotel to the cab driver and leans his head back against the seat as they pull away from the curb, slumping low and closing his eyes. Him slumping down the seat moves Damian's hand further up his thigh, almost uncomfortably high, but Ron's too drunk and sleepy to be bothered. Being out at the bar had made him briefly forget he was on his tenth day of intense militaristic sleep deprivation, but the dark of the cab combined with the alcohol is really bringing it back.
"Nix," Damian says.
"Yeah?" Ron says, managing to blink his eyes open and turn his head just slightly. He's warm and bleary and happy, and streetlights are flickering over them as the cab moves.
"You see Sobel tonight?"
Ron laughs. He had seen Sobel, off in the corner drinking by himself. The same way that Muck and Malarkey and Penkala are best friends because their characters were, the same way Damian and Ron are sharing this cab because they're Winters and Nixon, nobody likes David Schwimmer.
"Poor Ross," Ron says, and Damian laughs.
"Glad I'm not in his shoes," Damian says, and his accent is getting more and more muddled as the night goes on, some sort of horrible bastardization of English and American.
"Yeah," Ron says, letting his eyes drift closed again.
Damian's hand is warm on Ron's thigh, and his thumb starts to move a little bit, stroking back and forth.
All the contact tonight, well. Ron should probably laugh and shove Damian's hand off his leg, but all his limbs feel pleasantly weighty with booze, and he can't quite lift them. And his body's starting to wake up a little bit, focused on Damian's hand, thrumming as Damian's thumb moves. Damian's hand moves a little farther up his leg. He's still not sure if Damian's even noticed what he's doing, but arousal's starting to really build, low and dark in Ron's stomach, which is probably not a great idea. Ah, fuck, some guy's hand on his leg, it's like being a drama major all over again.
"Hey Damian," he says.
"Yeah?" Damian says. His thumb keeps moving.
"How's your girlfriend?" Ron says.
Damian laughs. "Fine," he says, and he must be pretty aware of what he's doing, because then he brushes his hand over Ron's hardening cock, just grazing him. Ron groans, shifting in his seat. Damian grins and touches him again, more firmly this time. "Told you I wasn't a good person," he smirks, his voice all low.
Ron can't help laughing, but just then Damian presses his palm against Ron's fly and so the laugh comes out a little strangled. "God," Ron says, his voice rough, trying desperately not to push up into Damian's fingers. It's true, Winters wouldn't do this. Ron thinks, anyway. Oh God, stop thinking about veterans.
When the cab pulls up at the hotel, Ron can't concentrate enough to get out what they owe, so Damian ends up paying, digging in his pockets and then pushing Ron out the door. The cab driver looks unimpressed.
Ron's so hard he's walking a little funny, and is glad it's late enough that no one's really around in the lobby but the guy manning the desk, who doesn't even look up from the mystery novel he's reading. Damian's got his hand on the small of Ron's back, shepherding him along.
Ron reaches out to push him off, but since he's drunk he misjudges and ends up just sort of ruffling Damian's red hair as they walk up to the elevators. "Quit it," Ron says. "I'm not your wife." Damian's hair is softer than he would've expected, and still damp from the rain. Ron keeps his fingers threaded through it for a second, palming Damian's skull.
"You sure Nixon isn't?" Damian says, punching the elevator button, and Ron shoves at his head affectionately.
"Shut up," Ron says.
Damian goes to push him back, laughing, and Ron half dodges away, too drunk to be quick, and by the time the elevator doors open, they fall in scuffling like ten-year-old boys. Damian slaps at the button for the seventh floor as Ron pokes at him, and somehow manages to grab Ron's wrist with his free hand and hold it. As the elevator doors slide shut, Damian's grabbing for Ron's other wrist, keeping him off balance and pushing him until Ron hits the back wall of the elevator and Damian's pinned him with his whole body, holding Ron's wrists up beside his head. They're both breathing hard, staring at each other, and Ron can feel that Damian's as hard as he is, dicks trapped between their bodies. Ron thinks about Winters, always in command, giving orders, and oh, Christ. Damian's eyes are wide and dark, and then as Ron presses his hips forward against him, they flutter shut.
"Ron," Damian says, voice shaky, and hearing Damian say his name, not Nix's, does something deep in Ron's stomach.
"Yeah," Ron says, very quietly, and Damian leans in and kisses him, mouth wet and rough, still holding Ron's wrists. His tongue slides into Ron's mouth just as the elevator dings for their floor, doors opening. It's got to be four in the morning.
"Uh, hold that thought," Damian says as he pulls back, for a second still so close his breath is warm on Ron's face. But then he's turning and somehow Ron manages to follow him stumbling out of the elevator, the blood pumping through his veins feeling like some kind of pure mixture of sex and alcohol, churning haphazardly through his body.
As Damian tries to work the key of his room, Ron pushes up behind him, his chest to Damian's back, chin hooked over Damian's shoulder. He puts a hand on Damian's hip, the triangled bone sharp against his palm.
"Jesus," Damian mutters, his breathing coming fast, and it takes him what seems like forever to get the keycard to open the door.
"For Christ's sake," Ron says, after the fourth time Damian slides the key in and out and the little light stays red. "I bet Winters could work the fucking door."
"You're not helping, Ronald," Damian says, and this time he can't even seem to get the card in the slot. "Goddamn fucking wanker bollocks," Damian mutters, fumbling with it, but by some miracle this time when he gets the card in the light goes green.
Ron all but pushes him through the door, the hotel room inside pitch black, just a single sliver of light coming from where the curtains gap. Damian starts fumbling for the light switch, but can't seem to find it.
"Where's the fucking light?" Damian says, groping along the wall, and then he misses and gropes Ron's face instead.
"That's not a light switch," Ron says, straight-faced. "That is my nose."
Damian starts laughing, palming Ron's cheek and then moving his hand down to Ron's neck, pulling him in so their bodies are pressed together again. "Huh," Damian says. "You might be right." And then he kisses Ron again, licking along Ron's lower lip, both their mouths opening.
Ron turns them, hands on Damian's hips, pushing him up against the little strip of wall that separates the bathroom from the rest of the hotel room. "Ow," Damian mutters into Ron's mouth as he hits the wall, and he fumbles with his hand for whatever his back hit. When he finds it, it turns out to be the switch for the bathroom light, dull homey yellow glaring out through the bathroom doorway, making both of them blink.
"Ah," Damian says. "Fiat lu --" But Ron's kissing him again before he can finish the Latin, only pulling back to fumble Damian's shirt over his head. The bare skin of Damian's chest is hot, his muscles taut like a soldier's, and when Damian pulls Ron's shirt off, they're pressed skin to skin, kissing desperately in the dim light cast by the bathroom.
Damian has one arm slung around Ron's shoulders, but the other starts moving down Ron's body, fumbling for his fly. Ron gasps a little bit as Damian's fingers press against his cock through the fabric, finding his zipper and undoing it with dexterous fingers.
"Jesus," Ron says as Damian's hand slides into his boxers, his jeans slipping down his hips. He's still so drunk he's dizzy, and between that and Damian's hand wrapping around him, he stumbles a step backwards, almost losing his balance.
Damian laughs against his mouth, then pushes Ron a couple more steps backwards until the back of his legs hit the bed and his knees buckle, body falling to sit on the edge.
"Better," Damian says, that authoritative Winters tone back in his voice. Ron can just see him, the reddish hairs on his chest haloing where they catch the dim light, the strain at the front of his jeans. He drops to his knees in front of Ron and crooks a finger into the waistband of Ron's boxers to pull them off. Ron lifts his hips to help out, Damian's fingernails grazing his sides.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Ron mutters as Damian's mouth closes over him. He palms the back of Damian's head, trying desperately to hold still, and Damian really knows what he's doing, weirdly. Ron remembers he went to drama school too.
Damian pulls off for a second, sitting back on his heels and jerking Ron off with one hand while he touches himself through his jeans with the other. "Fuck, Nix," he says, his mouth wet and a little swollen, his voice pure Winters. Jesus God, in the dim light Ron can practically imagine an M1 silhouette over his shoulder.
Ron winces, thinking of the real Nixon and Winters. "Please don't call me that right now."
Damian smirks at him. "Sorry, Ron," he says, and leans forward to stretch his mouth over Ron's cock again. His hands flex on Ron's thighs, and Ron presses his palms along Damian's shoulders, stroking along the muscle, trying to hold it together. He can hear himself making little choked noises, and thinks they're not their characters, they're not, they're not.
Damian's tongue swirls around the head of his dick, and he can hardly stand it. "Damian," he says, and closes his eyes.
**
END