Dirigo

Nix had managed to put off fighting with his father for the first week Dick was staying with them. It hadn't been as hard as he'd expected. A strange switch had been flipped in his father's head now that his son had come home from war having served with one of the better known units in the war. Stanhope had always held a kind of pride for his son - even Lew could see that. After all, he'd done well in school, he won his sailing competitions, he'd volunteered to serve and had graduated from OCS as a 2nd Lieutenant. None of that mattered when they would get into their regular battle royales, however. Nix was a let down, on those days, a disappointment, just short of a complete failure.

That undercurrent was absent in this fight. Some hind part of his brain seemed aware of this as he dug both hands into his hair, shutting his eyes as his father shouted. Stanhope was just angry, and for once, Nix couldn't be sure that he was actually at the root of it. The words battering at him all seemed the same, but the frustrated drive wasn't behind them.

"You need to take this seriously!"

Nix tipped his head back, refusing to open his eyes. "I do-"

"I don't think you do, Lewis! I don't think you do! This is your life now, no more playing around with your army buddies-"

"What Army budies!" Nix finally forgot that Dick was sitting out on the front porch sharing what had to be an awkward glass of iced tea with his mother - who was long since adept at pretending she couldn't hear her son and husband curse at each other. "It's just Dick, Stan. Just Dick! He is the only person I've spoken to in the past week! He is the only person I know anymore. Don't you get that? Katharine is gone back to her parents and she took Daniel with her."

"Exactly! And what are you going to do about it? If you had any sense you would bring her back, Lewis, you wouldn't just let her run off with your son."

"She is divorcing me, Stan, what about that do you not understand?" Nix turned, but his father's voice stopped him from actually walking away.

"She can't divorce you if you don't let her! That's not how this works, Lewis, that's not how being a husband works-"

"And what do you know about being a husband!" Lew's voice rose in decible, finally rising above his father's volume, "what do you know about any of this, you damned old fool! You don't know anything!"

He didn't pause to see if his words showed up like a slap across his father's face, to see if they'd landed as he'd intended them. The screen door smacked shut behind him and Dick was already on his feet as Lew thumped down the front stairs. He could hear his friend, polite to the very end, apologize to his mother before Dick's footsteps echoed his on the stairs, then softer behind him on the front walk. Nix didn't slow down, turning a sharp right down the drive. He needed to be off the property, away from the house, his parents, from this nightmare of a life that seemed to be slowly sucking him down into a quagmire.

"Lew-" Nix didn't slow down as he half walked, half ran down the drive, even though he could hear Dick trying to catch up. He hit the road and didn't break stride, crossing it without looking for traffic and pushing into the trees on the otherside. There was a creek about half a mile through the woods where he'd smoked his first cigarettes, drank his first booze, kissed his first girl, basically did everything his father would have hated.

He only slowed his pace once he was certain he wouldn't be seen from the road and Dick was at his shoulder in a minute. They walked in silence, ducking under branches and pushing back brambles, trying to stay on the overgrown path. Their shows crunched softly on old leaves, spot coming mottled through the treetops. His first crashing arrival into the treeline had quieted the birds and there was only the occasional whistle or trill. Instinctively, they walked a foot or so apart although they were perfectly in line. Smaller targets, more ground covered, one round wouldn't take them both out at once. Nix only glanced at Dick once and the redhead was watching the trees, his shoulders back and his jaw set. He wondered if his fingers were itching for a gun. Nix's weren't. They never had. His rifle had been ornamental. He wondered if his father had any real notion of what it had all been like.

The sound of the creek faded in slowly as they neared it, swollen with fall rain, frothy up near the top of the hill where it came over a short fall. Dick and Nix stopped at the same moment on the edge of the slope and immediately Nix could feel Dick's gaze on him.

"You know my dad almost killed a man when he was at Yale?" Nix didn't know why he said it.

"Really." As usual, Dick sounded as though Nix were relating a story he'd heard a thousand times, even if Nix knew him well enough to tell he was surprised.

"Yup. Bashed his head in with a metal bolt. I never really knew why, but I figure that doesn't matter."

Dick nodded once, but didn't say anything. Nix watched him impassively for half a minute, trying to see if the question was there, trying to see if Dick wouldn't balk at this conversation. But Dick never balked at anything.

"Did he ever hit you, Lew?"

"Sure." Nix shrugged, as though he hadn't just been praying Dick would asked, "but never like that. Smack in the face some times. Caught my mom a good one once or twice, but she served him right back, so-" Another shrug. He felt like a seventeen year old, somehow, trying to impress a girl. The thought made him take a step forward, starting down the steep slope to reach the creek. Dick followed without urging.

"Thing is, I might have liked it better if just gave me a good belt every so often. But that isn't what it comes down to. Never does. He just likes to chase me out of the house, make me so angry I can't talk right, like that proves how much smarter he is or something." The last time Nix had spoken about his father like this, it had been with Katharine. Nix came to a stop with the toes of his shoes just barely in the water and thought of David. He brought a hand up over his eyes and tried to imagine himself ever raising a hand to his son.

"He's bitter."

Nix looked up, taken off guard. "What?"

"He's bitter, Lew. He's jealous. You did better in school, right? And you didn't have to leave because you nearly killed a man."

Nix snorted and shook his head. "No, I left to learn how to kill men."

"You left to fight a war. Did your father serve?"

"No, no, he was too young. Well-" he gave Dick a look that was attempting to be smug and only sort of succeeding. "That and he was too busy trying to club a man to death."

"The point is, you've proved yourself in ways he couldn't seem to manage." Dick sat suddenly, catching himself on a downed tree, and started to pull off his shoes. Nix watched him stupidly. Socks off, Dick rolled the bottom of his pants up and stepped into the running water, biting his bottom lip just barely in reaction to the cold. Nix felt his stomach clench.

"Have I proved myself?"

"Yes." Dick watched the water run over his feet, then looked up and his smile wiped the doubt off Lew's face. "You have."

It was hot in New York. He was waiting for the train, closing his eyes and tipping his head back and Dick was so quiet that every so often Nix drifted off, only to wake a minute later, having forgotten that his best friend was still sitting next to him. They said goodbye to Buck and Harry at the boat. Buck was heading back west, catching buses and trains and probably a cab or two and Nix is glad to see him go. Things have softened between them since the end of the war, but there's nothing that could make either one of them forget the resentment - Nix's drunken accusations of arrogance and Buck's fist across his jaw.

The jealousy lingered, no matter how hard he tried to forget it. Buck made Dick laugh - about as often as Nix made Dick laugh - but Dick never really put together why the two never got along.

The train was late. Nix straightened on the bench, shifting his duffle between his knees, and turned to look at Dick. The clatter and din of the crowd swelled around them, families heading downtown to go shopping, girls in headscarves out on the lunch whistle, the occasional pocket of drab green flashing through splits in the crowd. It wasn't just the uniforms that make the returning soldiers stick out. Nix could see the look in Dick's face, although it was quieter in his expression than it was in the faces of the men he watched. A kind of confused suspicion, with a hint of awe. Bright hazel eyes were tracking the crowd - watching the children run through the forest of legs, fascinated by the sway of a woman's hips or the hem of her skirt, the click of her shoes. Men's hats and briefcases or lunchboxes. It was like having to remember how to read, the shapes on the page alien again even though you know you had learned this all before.

What did people do if they weren't fighting a war?

"Thirsty?" Nix asked suddenly, realizing he'd been staring at the redhead for the better part of ten minutes. Dick hadn't noticed, but he looked over when Nix spoke.

"Sure." He glanced around, brow furrowing just a touch. "We won't miss the train?"

"It's already late. There's a stand just over there. You watch my stuff, I'll buy you a drink."

"Lew-"

"A soda, Dick, Jesus." Nix laughed and stood, pushing his duffle over to lean against Dick's knee. "I'm not going to buy you a beer in the middle of the afternoon. You know I keep my efforts to get you drunk relegated to the evening."

He strode off before Dick could retort, realizing belatedly that his foot had fallen asleep. The train was very late, but Nix was in no rush. He'd tried to convince Dick to take him to Pennsylvania first - no rush, he'd claimed, why go straight to New Jersey when Dick hadn't seen his family in three years. Wasn't there a girl? Etta? Was that it?

Dick hadn't really responsed. It never occured to Nix that maybe Dick was as hesitant to see his home as Nix was to see his. But they were on their way to Nixon New Jersey because Mr. Nixon had jobs for them both at Nixon Nitrates and Lewis Nixon had never felt quite so trapped in his entire life. He'd survived a war only to go home and slowly rot in a town he hated, in a job he knew he would come to hate.

Except there was one thing keeping him from draining the flask tucked away into his pocket. Nix looked back at the bench when he came to a stop at the vendor selling bottles of pop to the passing travellers. Dick had pulled out a book and had bent his head over it, sitting straight as a rail but tucking his chin into his chest like a boy who knew it was better to restrain enthusiasm for something he enjoyed, but couldn't quite keep it all in. Dick was like that for almost everything in his life, Nix thought. The corner of his lips turning up, the arch of an eyebrow, the speed of his steps - they all betrayed Dick Winters' passion for his work, his friends, his men. Nix had seen it time and time again, shocked whenever he noticed that passion being exerted on his behalf - shocked into behaving, shocked into hating himself a little less.

Sun glinted off the side of Dick's perfectly combed hair and Nix was drawn out of his own head by the shout of the vendor.

"Hey, G.I. Joe - you want anything or what? There's a line, buddy."

The glass of the bottles was cold enough to have his hands aching by the time he returned to the bench, pushing one of the sodas into Dick's face in an effort to get him to look up from the book. "So much for the returning heroes. I asked that guy if he'd give a couple of paratroopers some free soda and he laughed in my face."

Dick smiled gently and accepted the bottle, carefully folding down one corner of the page he'd been reading and closing the book. Nix watched his pale hand smooth over the paperback cover. "They don't owe us anything, Nix."

"The hell they don't."

"They don't-" They'd had this conversation before, but Dick was as patient as ever, "maybe respect, at the most, but we were doing our duty as citizens."

"Yeah, and what was he doing?"

"Someone had to stay behind. The home front was just as important-"

"Yeah, yeah. Drink the damn soda." Nix took a chug off his own before digging into his pocket for his flask. "Woulda tasted better if it were free."

He could fill Dick's eyes on him after another few seconds of drinking his now-spiked soda. Nix always found himself caught off guard when Dick looked at him like that, the very idea that Dick even remembered who he was sort of unbelievable to him. It had the effect of making him antsy so he drank half the soda down in one go, coughing at the burn of liquor down his throat. He cleared the sensation away with a few swallows.

"How much of that liquor did you actually get home?"

Nix looked up in surprise, eyesbrows arched practically to his hairline. "I...uh-" nose wrinkled, he took another drink, "well, you know, sort of figured I should stock up, going home to a divorce and all." His laugh sounded thin to his own ears and he winced. "A lot," he admitted finally, twisting the drawstring of his duffle bag around one finger before the childishness of it made him jerk his hand away. "Shipped it all in one go, actually. Spent my father's money. I'm sure he'll be damn pleased with me when we show up."

"He won't enjoy it too?"

"Oh, he'll enjoy it, but that won't make a bit of difference."

Dick nodded as though he understood this perfectly, although Nix knew he didn't, and looked down into the mostly-full bottle he still held. "Nix, he knows I'm coming, right? I mean, I won't be showing up expecting a job from a man who hasn't offered one."

Nixon sighed and leaned back, kicking his feet out and allowing his head to drop, closing his eyes against the glare of the sun. He pulled his sunglasses from his front pocket and slid them up his nose. The throbbing just behind his temples eased a bit and he began to feel the tingle of the whiskey in his fingertips, as though he'd just come in from the cold. "He knows, Dick. I'm not that much of an ass."

"I didn't mean that." Dick immediately sounded apologetic and Nix hated himself for always reacting like Dick's low expectations weren't warrented. "I know things are complicated between you two, and I just wasn't sure-"

"Five o'clock to Plainfield, five o'clock to Plainfield!" Combined, the conductor and the whistle of the incoming train cut Dick off and ended the conversation. Nix slapped a hand on his friend's shoulder and gave him a shake, not wanting Dick to spend another second feeling bad. His smile was half hearted, but that was only because in an hour and a half a car would be picking them up from the train station and taking them up the hill to the Stanhope Nixon residence.

Nix was half pulling away to stand and grab his duffle, when Dick's hand surprised him - warm and firm over his own fingers where they still clutched at the redhead's uniform. He was grateful for the sunglasses that hid the way his eyes went particularly wide, but when Dick met his gaze, Nix wondered if they didn't hide anything at all. Everything he thought he might need was in that look, in the too-brief squeeze of Dick's hand over his.

He wasn't going back alone.

( powder )

His hands feel like theirs look. Roe has one foot forward, one foot back, caught mid stride, and it's like he's come up against a wall. Something blew off the rear end of the motorcycle, but powder has covered the messier parts of the destruction - dusted over the tops of eyelids and helmets. It covers the busted bike as prettily as it covers the soldier's busted leg.

The only sound is his own breath. He wonders if he leans in close enough, will he see the faint breath of one of the men on the ground? Is there any chance they might be alive?

He's not sure it would matter. He's a medic, but they're German. Or...they were German.

Roe huffs moisture out into the air. The bodies are as rigid as the steel of the gun and he curls his fingers where they're hidden in the thin pockets of his jacket. They've been stiff for months, never all the way warm, never defrosted, always just one bad night away from looking just like the Germans sprawled on the ground, dusted gently with snow, unnecessary camoflauge. One man holds his leg - just at the knee, as though pawing at a cramp in his sleep, frozen in place. It looks almost as though it still pains him and although Roe doesn't move, he contemplates reaching out to brush frost from the man's upper lip. It's the last remnant of this soldier's life - his breath frozen onto his skin, clinging to him as though hoping to find a way back in. The thought stops him.

His chest explodes with warmth, a sudden burst of fear. Roe turns even as he glances back, gaze drawn to the anguished arch of one man's back, the slump of another's shoulders. This is a graveyard and it isn't death he fears, but ghosts. His boots crunch in the snow as he flees, dread sitting dense and heavy in the very lowest hollow of his gut. The whole forest has become a graveyard and he can't stop himself from looking back again and again, back to the bodies of the forgotten, frozen soldiers, terrified they might follow, looking for help from the company medic.

He went for the mask a lot faster than he normally did. Hard fingers, rough thick cloth. He didn't even give her time to adjust to the cold on her face before his fist connected with her jaw again, but she took the momentum back, back, bending far until her hands touched tar paper and her foot whipped up like the arm of a trebuchet, snapping his jaw shut for him. He groaned and rubbed at the bone as he stumbled back and when she was upright again she could see the trickle of bright - violent bright - viscous, dribbling down his chin red. Jason was grinning at her. His teeth were pink. He spat out to the side and she was already moving forward again, hair loose in her face.

"Made me bite my tongue, littlest," was all he got out before he had to duck again. Swish, swish. Left right. Spinning to the right so her boot met his chest and she was gaining ground.

"Gonna slur my words." And he did, but he also had a knife, flash bright - even the knife moved with less anger than he did, the hot tension in arm and wrist, the way he stabbed forward, keeping her dancing back until she had to turn, grab his sleeve, twist it back while the heel of her palm met his elbow.

( Jason yelled and dropped the knife, but his good hand latched onto her cape. )

Nix had spent a long while doing an inventory, it would have made him hard any other day but today it made him curious, made him restless. The focus and the obvious, pupil dilating desire were usually aimed at him not at a cellar full of booze. Lew had always had a close personal relationship with alcohol, but until he'd walked into that cellar Dick had never doubted that his own place in the man's life was ranked higher.

( Now he realized he had a rival, and one he didn't know. )

Title: I'll Get You There
Author: dirigo and worlddescending
Character/Pairing: John Connor/Marcus Wright. Includes most characters from TV and movie verse as well as some OCs as well.
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Warnings: Seeing as this is the Terminator 'verse, there is death, bad language and general unpleasantness. And m/m slash. In this part, warning for character death.
Summary: Welcome to the jungle / We take it day by day / If you want it you're gonna bleed / But it's the price you pay
Disclaimer: These characters belong to James Cameron, Josh Friedman and people who are not us. We are also poor. Please don't sue.
Author Notes: This started out as a discussion of PORN. Then came the plot. 30K words later, and we're both awed by the epic. We cherry-picked what we wanted from all over the place here, bringing in movie and TV verse as well as hearts_andminds 'verse.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

He would sit. And while he sat, he would let Sirius talk at him. He’d been packed for three days already, clothes neatly folded, books piled on top. McGonagall had given him a Grackle feather quill as a discreet present after they finished their O.W.Ls. You work hard, Remus, she’d said, uncharacteristically gentle, and I just wanted to remind you that many people notice.

The feather was soft as he drew it through his fingers, listening to Sirius’ talk. He didn’t hear many of the actual words, just the tone, the cadence that, after five years, was so familiar. Back and forth, the feather ruffled between his fingers. He would go home and use the quill to write the letters that it would take Sirius weeks to respond to, but he would keep writing them, posting them in the mail in their careful envelopes, with their careful addresses and their careful owls.

The sunlight was shafted across the small, heavily draped room and it caught the blue-black of Sirius’ hair. It wasn’t the first time that Remus had noticed that it matched the Grackle’s feathers, black until the light hit it. More than what it seemed, plain and simple until illuminated.

It wasn’t the first time that Remus wondered if he was anything like that as well.

"And you've left her room exactly as it was," Holmes asked as he shuffled through a rather large stack of papers, not really attempting to keep them in any order. Lord Bath watched suspiciously. Holmes, at least, was wearing clean clothing. His hair was combed, his hands stained with ink, but scrubbed. Holmes was clean like a cat, but had the hoarding habits of a crow. "You haven't touched anything since she disappeared, when was it-" He straightened suddenly, a small notebook in his hand.

"Yesterday afternoon," Lord Bath said, surprised out of his incredulous examination of the mess by Holmes snapping his fingers.

"And I'm assuming the Yard is on the case as well." He flipped the notebook open and began to scribble. Whether this was sincere or an act was anyone's guess.

"Well...no. I chose not to inform them. This is a rather...sensitive matter I would prefer to keep quiet."

( Holmes smirked, as if expecting this answer, and nodded. )

It smelled of shit and sand. Shit, he could understand. Hell, it could have been him for all he knew. He was, as they say, scared shitless. But why sand? He found he really didn't have that much time to ponder the question as it wasn't too long before the Germans realized they were in the trench and started shooting down at them. Hall hadn't been in close combat until now. He had already killed a man, and he had seen his own friends dead or dying, but he hadn't been in a battle. The Germans they had killed the night before hadn't had time to shoot back. The Sargent had taken care of them before they could even realize what was going on. Bang, bang, no more krauts.

( The bullets made this odd hissing noise as they passed by his ear. )