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Dick frowns down at the card stock invitation in his hand, flipping it over as of the back side might reveal its perfectly scripted wording to be a joke.
“So it’s an actual ball,” he says grimly.
From his location behind the desk, Nixon tosses a paperweight into the air, catching it effortlessly and tossing it back up again. He’s slouched in Dick’s good leather chair, heels propped on the desk’s corner, looking every inch the bored heir of a rich business man.
“Afraid so,” he tells Dick, shooting him a sympathetic grimace. “Penguin suits, use of the good china, synchronized dancing, twenty foot Christmas trees. The whole shebang.”
Dick’s frown deepens. “And tell me again why,” he pauses, checks the wording on the invitation, “‘my presence is cordially requested?’”
Nixon shrugs. He misses the next catch and the paperweight goes clattering to the floor. He tsks but makes no move to retrieve it.
“You’re management,” he says simply. “Stanhope’s gotta parade his best and brightest before the Ton to show off his superior hiring prowess.”
“Your father didn’t hire me, you did. And even then it’s barely skirting nepotism.”
Nixon waves away his protest, dropping his feet heavily to the floor. “Semantics. You’re a valuable cog in the machine that preserves the Nixon lifestyle and therefore have to be spit polished and shown off.”
“So all the managers have to show up?”
“The ones that are war heroes do. And Janet, of course.” He narrows his eyes pensively. “She somehow blackmails her way in every year and takes advantage of the free booze.”
Dick shifts his weight from foot to foot, rubs absently at the back of his neck with his free hand. He glances at the invitation and back at Nixon’s face, trying to get a read on the real reason for being pushed into this. Nix knows he only interacts with his father as much as necessary to complete his job. He’s seen the way Stanhope cuts into Nix, dripping poison into the wounds with his cruel words and icy demeanor. Hobnobbing the the man’s most obnoxiously rich friends for a whole evening, being scrutinized from underneath the vice of an uncomfortably starched suit - it sounds like torture.
“I don’t know, Lew,” he says. “I’m not sure I’d fit in at something like this.”
Nixon pushes back from the desk, circumventing the corner in a saunter to perch on the opposite edge, close enough for his knee to brush Dick’s pant leg.
“That’s exactly why I need you there.”
His tone is still light hearted, but there - a tension Dick recognizes has deepened the lines at the corner of his eyes, betrays his good humor. He’s worried. Dick’s seen that expression beneath an expression before. When they strode into the Bois Jacques, half of the German army closing in. When a second trip across a freezing river was ordered and they stood shoulder to shoulder on the bank, deciding best how to commit mutiny for the good of the men. When he kissed Dick on the shores of a crystalline lake and asked him, heart in his throat, if he’d come home with Nix, maybe for good.
Nixon has been away from home for nearly five years. He’s not the same man he was when he left. None of them are. Dick wonders if he’ll feel as out of place in such a pompous setting as Dick is sure to be. If eating pork and beans cold from a can will taste better than caviar from a silver spoon.
War had, at least in this aspect, made them equals.
“Ok, Lew,” he sighs at last, tossing the invitation down on the desk and setting hands at his hips in defeat. He watches the relief flood Nixon’s face, setting it back to it’s normal rugged handsomeness. He pats at the hand Nixon snakes out to cling for the briefest moment at Dick’s coat lapel. As if he might fall without Dick in front of him to lean on.
Nixon’s trepidation melts away as quickly as it appeared and now he bounces off Dick’s desk, thumping at his shoulder with a jovial fist as he skips in the direction of the door. “Good man!” he says. “I’ve already sent in your RSVP anyway, so you’re all set.”
Dick drags both hands down his face with a groan.
“I can’t dance,” he calls at the retreating back.
Nixon does an about face to grin at Dick, continuing to edge out of the office in reverse. “Everybody can dance.”
“Ok, I don’t want to dance,” Dick corrects. “It's my goal not to make a fool of myself in public. Especially in front of your father, my employer, and a thousand of his rich friends.”
Nix clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “That’s a shame. Because I love to dance.”
Dick gives him a small, remorseful smile. “I know you do.”
“Guess I’ll have to settle for cutting a rug with the second best looking person there.” He rights himself, passing a salacious wink over his shoulder. “I’m heading out for the day, I’ll see you later.”
He’s out the door and turning the corner before Dick can do more than gape, face an unflattering beet red that clashes with his hair and gives him the appearance of a scandalized teenager.
He stands, mouth open and dumbfounded for a long minute, before shaking up his watch to glance at the time.
“It’s only 2:30 in the afternoon,” he mumbles to himself. He leans back on his heels, hunting his missing paperweight. “He didn’t get here till one.”
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He ruminates and broods a full day, laying out all his assets and assessing all his weaknesses. He comes to the conclusion that while he’s more than capable of rigging up some suitable outfit and cramming the rudimentary rules about formal table etiquette, there’s nothing to be done about his appalling lack of rhythm.
Dick can run a mile in just under eight minutes. He still holds the record time for running Currahee. He can march 20 miles in the rain in full gear without stopping, he can tread water for seven hours and he can do a hundred push ups with each hand. He can coach a basketball team and wrestle a man twice his weight to the ground and hold Nix up against the wall while he fucks him to completion.
But Dick Winters cannot dance.
With some vague, carefully worded inquiries, he finds out through the grapevine at the office there is one on staff who can. And it’s sheer dumb luck, that one is the other Nixon Nitration administrative employee attending the party.
He waits for a day Nixon plays hookie, choosing a quiet moment towards the end of the afternoon when there are less likely to be emergencies calling his attention away.
Dick clears his throat, leans against the door frame and tries not to appear too eager or desperate. “Mrs. Haversham, can I beg your assistance in a personal matter?”
“Oh,” the secretary gushes, spinning in her chair, already flushed pink and staring at him with wide watery eyes from behind her spectacles. It gives her the appearance of an overly eager dragonfly. She drops her nail file and scoots the rest of her home manicure tools to the side of her desk, giving him her complete and unwavering focus. “ Please do. But only if you call me Janet.”
Dick gives her a tight smile. “Only if you call me Dick.”
“I will not,” she counters without pause. “But I will do my best not to address you as Major.”
Dick huffs a laugh, taken aback. He’s not had an exorbitant amount of interactions with Janet, her proper title being Nixon’s personal secretary, which means she’s normally busy either cleaning up his messes or waiting on him to show up for work. But from the encounters they’ve shared, he knows she’s overqualified, she smokes like a chimney, she brings home a hefty paycheck for doing her nails once a week, she’s the real reason Nixon Nitration hasn’t fallen into chaos and she is not subtle about dropping hints of engaging in a steamy love affair with him.
He is adding accomplished formally educated dancer to the list.
“I’ve been told you were quite the dancer once upon a time,” he says, getting straight to the point.
Janet gives him the same look his mother gives when he’s treading the line for being offensive. “You’ve been misinformed, Major Winters,” she sniffs. “I am an extraordinary dancer. Save for a trick hip, I could be at Rockefeller Square right now.”
“My mistake,” he offers graciously. “However this is excellent news for me, as I am an appalling dancer seeking to rectify the situation.”
She looks like she’s about to hyperventilate, eyes bugging out and hands clasped to her chest dramatically. “Are you asking me to give you private one-on-on dance lessons so you don’t make an ass of yourself at the Nixon Christmas party?”
Dick’s smile falls into something pained. “No, Mrs. Haversham. I’m begging you.”
Janet pushes herself away from the desk, rolling across the floor in a fashion Dick could only describe as triumphant. “I accept,” she purrs. “Never fear, young man. I’ll have you so whipped into shape, the aristocrats will be swooning at your nimble feet.”
“Mrs. Haversham-”
“Janet,” she interrupts sharply.
“Janet. I feel compelled to warn you. Please don’t underestimate me when I say I’m truly awful.”
“Remind me again how long we have until the ball?”
“Six weeks,” he says warily. “You think you can work a miracle in that time?”
Janet drops her chin to peer at him, dissecting his tall frame in a shameless once over from above her spectacles. She even goes as far as lifting them off her nose as far as the chain will allow, using them like a magnifying glass.
“Give me five,” she says smartly, replacing the glasses on their proper perch on her face.
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In the first late night lesson, Dick trips on the rug and knocks Janet to the floor more than once. By the third lesson, she has the rug removed from his office and gives Nixon some concocted excuse about moths when he raises a brow at the absence.
By the sixth lesson, it’s clear her confidence in Dick’s ability to be taught was overestimated.
“No,” admonishes Janet, for the fourth time in as many minutes. She kicks at Dick’s shin with a mousy brown heel hard enough to make him wince, smearing his trouser leg with dirt as a warning. “You have to bend your knees. One cannot float over the dance floor if one’s knees are locked like the goddamn Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.”
Dick grits his teeth and strengths back up to full height, taking first position again. “One is going to toss a certain bossy secretary out the window if she doesn’t stop kicking One’s shins,” he grumbles.
Janet ignores him and repositions his hand at her waist up between her shoulder blades.
“Again,” she orders. “And this time count out loud so you don’t fall behind and fuck it up.”
He clears his throat, rolls his shoulders, putting a loose hinge in his knees as directed and waits for the scratchy gramophone in the corner to start warbling a new song.
“For a lady of merit, you swear worse than half the men under my command did, Janet,” Dick says conversationally.
Janet shoots him a glance over the top of her spectacles, clasps his right hand hard enough for her red manicured nails to leave crescents and huffs derisively. “And for a goody goody, you sure do like screwing the men under your command, Major. At least the lazy, drunk ones with impeccable brows.”
Dick feels his face burn as his cheeks go violently red. Though they’re alone in the building, he glances towards the door for eavesdroppers out of habit, gives the room a thorough scan to make sure his secrets aren’t being carelessly spilled to the whole free world.
“Jesus Christ,” he hisses. “Will you keep your voice down?”
Before he can jerk away and storm out the door, the opening paragraph of Janet’s pink slip letter already running through mind, the sound of a tinny waltz fills the office and he’s kicked into motion by an ugly brown heel.
“Oh calm down,” Janet says, having the gall to sound annoyed by Dick’s embarrassment and dismay. “You and Mr. Nixon make a lovely couple. Mazel tov on your choice of an exceptional partner. Now count! Out loud.”
Flushed and wanting nothing more than to sink into the floor, Dick bends his knees and starts a soft “One, two, three,” count under his breath. He leads Janet through a natural turn at each down beat, taking her criticism like rogue flak with each step. His confidence is bearing more holes by the second, the last bit of dignity bleeding a trail behind them as they spin. He wants to drill her about where he stumbled up, what gave him away. He’s always been so careful about giving Nix space anytime other eyes have been upon them, the lack of touch a wound in itself. But Janet’s barking orders in his ear, tapping the beat on his chest with her crimson nails, kicking him soundly every time he makes a mistake. It stakes his focus on the task at hand and so he never asks.
“Shoulder blades together. One needs to radiate elegance, not the clumsy slouch of a bear scrounging for trash. Yes, yes. That’s better. Chin up! Don’t look at me, look where you’re going!”
Dick grunts, struggling to obey. The position she molds him into is not unlike standing at attention, which is something that comes second nature at this point. But he can’t focus on keeping his arms at the right angle and keeping tempo with his feet at the same time. By the fifth time he’s trod directly on Janet’s toes, she’s worked herself into an irate, grating screech.
“For God’s sake, man!” Somehow her smokey, crackling croak has gone shrill enough to make his eardrums ring and he turns his head away, wincing under the onslaught of her fury. “This is a goddamn dance! Not a field assault!”
“It’d be much easier if it was,” says Dick, rather waspishly. He wouldn’t normally dream of snapping as a lady, but his gall is up, his pride more than a little dinged and his defenses on high alert with the secret of his relationship with Nixon exposed and threatened.
Janet slaps a palm to her forehead in exasperation, clacks away on her orthopedic heels to give them space and paces a few times across the room. Dick watches her, hands in white-knuckled balls at his side, breathing fast and shallow in his ire. He can see the wheels turning in her head as she walks, glancing over at him every few paces.
“Objectives,” she says at last, blurting it like she’s struck gold.
Dick scrunches his brow in confusion. “What?’
She doubles down, pacing back his way. “Mission objectives,” she explains. “You’re given objectives to achieve in the field of battle, right?”
“Right,” he says slowly, cautiously.
“Ok so here it is.” She’s growing more animated by the second, a wicked gleam coming to her eye. “The objective is to get your partner around the circle. But if you fall out of count, you’ll trip a ground wire and set off a bomb that will blow you both to hell.”
“That’s not really how combat works-”
Janet silences him with a wave of a hand. “Hush! This will work. I’m the Colonel here and I’m ordering you to get me safely around the circle without casualties. The only way to achieve it is to time your turns. Don’t worry about the change step. Just get me once around the circle.”
Dick looks at the room, really measuring the distance from wall to wall and the mass of his desk. The chair to the left. Janet’s petite form. He takes note of the space, starts to overlay a grid on top of it, finally seeing it as a map to traverse. He compares it to what he estimates is the length of his stride and quickly runs the math.
“Alright,” he says, nodding along with the crazy scheme as it starts to click. “That’s six paces to the window. Two turns. Half a stride in the turn there at the corner, four turns down the long side. This might- this might work.”
Janet places his hands on her back once more, shoves his elbow up at the correct angle. “It will work,” she says. “It’s an order, Major.”
Dick huffs a laugh. “Yes sir, Colonel, sir.”
He waits for the chorus to sound and then counts, spins Janet in a mathematically perfect circle, never stepping on her once. He surrenders to the numbers, trusts in the mission. Because this - this he can do.
When they arrive back at their starting position, Dick whoops loudly and snatches Janet up in a hug. Crushing her against him, he lifts her clear of the floor, spinning her a few times in victory.
“For fuck’s sake, don’t stop!” she bellows, banging at his chest with double fists. “Keep going! Two full circuits this time!”
His joy tempered, Dick resumes his bent knee stance with a weary sigh, taking up Janet’s hand again and off they go.
“I hate the waltz,” he announces loudly for the official record.
Janet sniffs primly. “Well you shouldn’t, since it’s the only thing you’re decent at.”
It’s the first praise without strings attached he’s received since they started this venture two weeks ago. He does a quick change-step without thinking, twirling her gracefully the opposite way.
Dick grins at her, despite himself. Tints it with the charm he knows she’s not immune to. “What’s this? An actual compliment from the Colonel?”
She blushes beneath her narrowed eyes, lips pressed into a thin line. “ Count,” she orders.
He rolls his eyes, the stalemate between them obviously over. “One, two, three….”
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They’re sitting on the floor of Dick’s office, sweaty and exhausted, Janet on an oriental cushion she’s pulled from somewhere. They share a midnight picnic of fruit and cheese, sprawled out and eating like romans, having learned the hard way that hours of stumbling through dance routines lead to roaring hunger pangs.
“Why all this effort?” she asks him, picking an orange free from it’s peel with her long nails. “You don’t care about impressing the upper crust. You hate them as much as I do.”
Dick pops a grape in his mouth, chews slowly as he strives for an acceptable answer that won’t entrap Nixon. He shrugs, preoccupies his hands with removing the rest of the grapes from their stems and placing some on her napkin.
“I’m not sure,” he says, noncommittally. “I’m not used to failing so miserably at something, I guess.”
Janet hums, but watches him over the edge of her glasses. Examining him as she does. It makes Dick feel transparent and exposed. He ducks his head, extremely interested in ordering his grapes from biggest to smallest. He hopes she doesn’t prod at him any further, not when he’s too tired to come up with a witty, shielded answer. He’s afraid he might say something too truthful, give too much of himself up to her quiet, piercing interrogation.
Thankfully, she just sucks the pulp from an orange section and keeps her musings to herself.
“Well you are making progress,” she says at last. “It’s excruciating to watch. And I’ve had school children with polio advance faster than you. Quite frankly, it’s embarrassing and you should be ashamed of yourself for wasting my god given time and talent. But there is progress.”
“Thanks,” Dick deadpans.
“Don’t thank me yet, handsome. We’re going to six lessons a week starting tomorrow.”
“Six??”
Janet steals one of his grapes, face as serious as a grave. “We don’t work on Sunday. That’s the Lord’s Day.”
Dick collapses on his back with a thud, arms starfished wide in exhaustion. “For Pete’s Sake, I didn’t work this hard in the army.”
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By the third week, he’s mastered the box step. He graduates to a magic step and a cross step waltz.
By the fourth week, he can manage a decent quickstep and a passable rumba. They skip the tango due to Janet’s trick hip.
Before the last week is out, he’s perfected all three waltzes. But the Lindy Hop is still sending him to the floor in a pile of limbs on top of Janet. No amount of military lingo or bullying helps.
He lifts her to her feet, apologizing profusely, face damn near crimson with shame.
“It’s alright,” she tries to console him, rubbing at her poor battered hip. “They won’t be dancing the Lindy Hop. Probably.”
She still makes Dick count his steps out loud. He starts to count in his sleep. He finds himself humming waltzes to the coffee pot in the morning, daydreaming about Nix in a sharp suit, gliding him across a checkerboard ballroom to the sound of thunderous applause.
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“I don’t have a tuxedo,” Dick realizes with horror at the end of their final lesson.
Janet removes her glasses to rub a bony hand over her eyes, her sigh deep enough to deflate her in half. “Christ Almighty. How on earth did you manage to survive an entire war?” she says, fully serious.
Dick gives her a withering glare. “Our uniforms were provided. And there were less winter balls. More bullets.”
“Fine. Let me get a measuring tape, I know there’s one around here somewhere.” She stomps out of his office to rummage through her array of drawers, making short work of them before moving onto the cabinets along the wall. “You aren’t the only veteran in this office who can’t get his own suits properly tailored.”
Dick lifts his hands in dismay. “I didn’t say I couldn’t, Janet, I just don’t have-”
“Hush,” she commands, whipping around armed with the measuring tape trailing behind her like ribbon. “Shoes off, let me get your numbers and I’ll take care of it first thing in the morning.”
When she imperiously informs Nixon upon her arrival to work that she will be departing early on personal matters, he’s got little choice but to give her his blessing. Afterward, with much paranoid glancing over his shoulder, he mutters to Dick about her bizarre behavior as of late and how he wonders if it’s because she’s got a new boyfriend she’s determined to hide.
Dick hums in agreement, ducks his head to hide his smile and decides he really does like Janet, for all her thorns.
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“You look marvelous ,” Janet gushes, brushing a few lingering creases out of the fabric at his back.
Dick tugs his waistcoat down. He tilts his head in examination, the impeccably dressed man in her guest room mirror a delightful surprise to what he was expecting to see. The tuxedo cuts his slim figure into an elegant line of black, the breadth of his shoulder accentuated, the gangliness of his limbs tapered into a silhouette more refined and coordinated. His hair is sleek and combed back, locked in place with roughly a gallon of pomade, it’s copper shine bright enough to rival the glossy patent of his shoes.
“Fancy enough to fool the gentry for a night?” he says with a grin.
“Fancy enough to fool the King of England,” Janet assures him.
“You’re a gem, Janet.”
She gestures for his hand, cuff link at the ready and the spare appearing between her teeth from thin air. “Just don’t fuck up and knock any of the haughty dames to the ground and you’ll be golden.”
Dick tsks at her foul language and shakes his head. “I take it back.”
She scoffs, dropping his newly cuffed wrist to fiddle with his bow tie. “You do not. If I were thirty years younger and you were into broads, you and I would have been knocking boots from day one.”
He can’t help scanning the empty room, instinct taking over, but this time his face settles into a fond sort of exasperation instead of panic. For all her coarseness and vulgarity, the woman has never once treated him differently for his secrets or his past deeds. At first her infatuation was flattering because it had been a shallow, lust based brand, not stemming from his military rank or the medals on his mother’s mantle. He’d never been the most attractive man, his looks almost plain compared to classically handsome men like Nix or Buck Compton. Still, he’d held his own, his manners and level-headed demeanor catching the eye second but holding the attention longer.
Janet thinks him civilized and attractive. From the get go, she’s never tried to keep her personalized appreciation for him a secret and though being the spotlight of such attention, especially in the workplace, had been discerning and uncomfortable, he’s realizing suddenly he might appreciate her in return. Not as a love interest or a compatible mate. But as a friend. Another person he does not have to hide the most important facets of his life from. She knows he’s killed people and hates the war despite missing his men. She knows he has no rhythm and no sense of fashion and gets so busy he forgets to eat lunch sometimes. She knows he gets furious when Stanhope Nixon abuses the hardworking employees under his care. She knows he loves Stanhope Nixon’s only son with ferocity and is overly protective of him despite the risk being so is to them both.
Janet knows and likes him anyway. Flirts with him anyway. Spends months helping him charade as nobility to impress people neither of them can stand anyway.
Dick smiles at her, takes up her hand to press a gentle kiss to the array of gaudy cocktail rings across her fingers.
“You may be right,” he concedes. “In another life…”
She shakes herself free, the ash of her cheek a lovely shade of rose that compliments her gown. Then she pats his arm rather motherly, grooms a few wayward specks of dust off as she goes.
“Just as well,” she says, striding around him to check her work from the back, tugging and making minor adjustments as she goes. “I never had the stamina of young airborne captains.”
Dick cranes his head to track her, his gaze soft and thoughtful. “You don’t mind. You’ve known all along and never minded. Why?”
Janet glances up from the coat tail she’s picking stray threads off. She’s exchanged her everyday spectacles for a larger, more glitzy pair. It gives her the appearance of a crab peeking up through two glass bottles. It’s more endearing than it once was.
“Why would I?” she says, dismissively. “I’m from the City.”
Dick snorts, cocking a brow.
Janet surrenders with a sigh. “I’ve got a brother.”
“Is he happy?” He’s not sure why he asks, it suddenly seems important to know. Like maybe a stranger’s relationship status might offer some answers for the questions he has about his own.
At his elbow she’s gone quiet, her face unreadable as she continues to fiddle and pluck. Dick wonders if perhaps he’s crossed a line.
“He was killed,” she says at last. Blunt. Without emotion.
Dick nods solemnly. He doesn't recall seeing a flag or consolation medals on his way in, but not everyone likes the reminder of what they've lost. “The war?”
“No. He was beaten to death by men who thought men like him shouldn’t be allowed to live their lives.”
When she lifts her head, her eyes are overly bright, glossy behind the lens with too many emotions for Dick to name. He stands in solidarity of her rage and sorrow, speechless. A living epitaph to a beloved sibling who suffered a fate Dick has night terrors of Nix suffering too. If he’s too reckless. If he dares reach for that happiness that dangles within reach of his fingertips so often.
“I’m sorry,” is all he can muster.
Janet sniffs hard once, tugs hard enough on his coat back to force his shoulders ramrod straight.
“Don’t be sorry,” she tells him, wielding the command with all the absolute authority of a Colonel. “You just live your goddamn life. Don’t you stay here too long and let that boy drown in his father’s undertow. You take him and you run like hell. You get away from all the eyes and you go somewhere where you can breathe and you dance with him wherever he wants, whenever he wants. You hear me?”
“Yes,” he whispers, chest tight. “I hear you.”
Janet nods, a single jerky confirmation. “Good. Now get my coat and let’s go, the taxi is waiting. Don’t rumple your suit.”
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It’s snowing by the time they arrive at the Nixon mansion.
Dick whistles, long and low, tilting his head up to marvel at the full splendor of the enormous house. It’s gilded with gold and marble sculptures, the ostentatious grandeur more fitting for a castle than a home.
Janet scoffs like the mansion has personally offended her. “If you got it, flaunt it in the most elaborate and tacky way possible,” she sneers, stomping up the grand steps to the front door.
He forgets she’s been coming to the house at Christmas for many years.
“Has it always been like this?” he says in wonder. He imagines a young Nixon growing up in the hollow, cold halls, alone and small and suddenly isn’t as impressed as he once was.
“Oh no,” says Janet, shooing away the butler in disgust and letting Dick take her coat. “It was bigger. The west wing burnt down fifteen years ago, they just haven’t rebuilt it yet.”
She says it with such glee, he’s got no choice but to laugh.
There are too many people inside. Despite the vaulted ceiling frosted in chandeliers and the grand expanse of open rooms, Dick feels claustrophobic. He tugs at the collar of his shirt until Janet yells at him and with a roll of his eyes, departs on his own in an attempt to find a familiar face. It's an unsuccessful venture until, making a second round past the coat check, a brazenly bright white back beneath a dark swatch of hair catches his eye.
Lewis Nixon is laughing with a trio of rich men Dick doesn’t know and putting every movie star to shame in the way he looks. He’s chosen a pristine white dinner jacket that makes his hair and eyes and the shadow of stubble at his jaw seem even darker. His hair is slicked back and tidy in a way it hasn’t been since Toccoa and he’s flashing that debonair smile around like it’s a form of currency.
If Dick wasn’t already head over heels for him, he certainly would have been by the time Nix catches him staring.
Nixon turns and sees him, his face lighting up as if Dick was a fine expensive bottle of whiskey all for him. He mumbles a few excuses to the group he’s talking to and slips away in a beeline for Dick.
“Wow.” Nixon’s smile spreads slowly, lasciviously , across his face. He licks his lips involuntarily and his gaze is so hot, it feels like a caress.
“Lew,” Dick says, low and warning. The cautionary tale of Janet’s brother looms like a spectre in the space between them.
“What? Just admiring the view. Everyone’s all dolled up and dudded out, it’s nice.”
He reaches for Dick without thinking, making to adjust the bow tie that’s perfectly straight as an excuse. Dick takes a step back, expression stoic and gives a minute jerk of his head. He sees Nixon give the peripheral scan of the surrounding area and it must have cleared because he deems it safe enough to lean in with hands safely in his pockets. To the outside eye, it would just look like two businessmen exchanging gossip at a holiday party.
“It’s very, very nice,” Nix whispers, hot and suggestive in his ear.
Dick curses being a fair redhead sometimes. He wears his reaction to the heated compliment in the form of a bright pink flush extending up to the roots of his hair. Hopefully in the dim light he’ll just look mildly inebriated and blend in with the other guests.
“Thank you,” he says politely. “So what’s the itinerary here?”
Nixon jerks his chin off to the far right. “Lounge is through there,” he instructs, gesturing for Dick to follow as he walks. “That’s where the bar is and where most of the mingling will be done. Don’t worry, I told them to keep soda in stock.”
Dick’s heart gives a small wet flip-flop at the tiny thoughtful gesture and he lets himself moon over Nix just a little as they promenade. He diligently nods as Nix points out certain important figures, looks where Nixon points as various locations.
“Formal dining room is through here,” he says. “Dinner’s served in about fifteen minutes. Then it will be more mingling around the bar with breakaway conversations about how to increase everyone’s wealth from obscene to astronomically obscene. Ballroom is three doors down on the left from the rest rooms, but depending on how drunk everyone is at that point, the dancing might be spilling out into the foyer here.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Dick says. “Am I sitting next to anybody I know?”
Nix grins, gives his shoulder a squeeze that is casual and friendly,nothing more. “I’ve got you seated right across from me, next to Blanche. You’ll love her, she’s a hoot.”
In fifteen minutes on the dot, they’re summoned to dinner and Blanche is as lovely as he’s promised. She’s got all of the Nixon dry wit with less of the acidity and capacity for brooding. About the same tolerance for alcohol, Dick notices, as she pours herself a fourth glass of wine.
He likes her very much.
His end of the table ends up being the lively one, with both Nixon siblings spinning tales that sent the majority of the guests into wheezing laughing fits. At the end of every joke, Nix meets his eye across the table, occasionally tossing in a wink at the apex of the laughter when it’s sure to go unnoticed.
Dick is more flustered by how good Nixon looks than he realizes. He doesn’t end up eating much, distracted as he is.
At one point, Blanche leans in to whisper conspicuously in his ear. “You must be careful, Mr. Winters,” she says, gesturing a few seats to the left of Nix. “Your overflow of decorum is singling you out.”
Dick turns his gaze to where she’s pointing and is startled to see a young blonde woman with heavily rouged cheeks simpering back at him. He smiles politely for want of a better reaction.
“I assure you, it wasn’t intentional,” he whispers back to Blanche. “But in my defense, I never stood a chance being heard over both Nixons at once.”
She laughs gaily at his wit and he glances across the table to see Nixon watching them both, his dark gaze fond and happy.
“You definitely won’t like Lucy Rothchild then,” Blanche tells him. “She’s got all the charm and intelligence of a butterfly with the penchant for chatter of a toddler.”
“I’ll do my best to steer clear.”
It’s to no avail. Lucy Rothchild corners him on the way back from the rest rooms, demanding in her honeyed, cooing tone to be asked to dance. With multiple pairs of eyes on his back, Dick has little choice but to acquiesce to her request. He offers her his hand and leads her out to the ballroom floor, taking a place somewhere he hopes it out of most of the spotlight.
Other couples break off in pairs and someone calls for the orchestra that has seemingly appeared out of thin air to play.
Dick tries to swallow the lump in his throat and desperately blinks into the shadowy crowd for any sign of Nixon. He finds Janet glaring at him instead, pantomiming with her arms up in the air and mouthing in exaggeration for him to “ Count, goddamn you! Don’t forget to count!”
The violins pick up an airy Viennese waltz in an exuberant major key, better suited for the spring’s burst of blooms than the dredges of winter, but Dick heaves a sigh of relief, automatically starting the one-two-three count in his head. If he can stick to the math and move his body accordingly, this shouldn’t be a total disaster. He executes the formal bow, which sends Miss Rothchild into another flushed tizzy. With a demure, giggling curtsy, she accepts his outstretched hand and steps into the circle of his arms.
Though his only partner thus far has been Janet, the reality of dancing with a socialite doesn’t match the one he’s envisioned in his head. The height difference is all wrong, the waist under his palm too slim and tapered. Where there should be wrinkled cotton and wool that smells of smoke and whiskey and sandalwood aftershave, there’s instead scratchy lace and satin that reeks of cloying florals. Instead of a disheveled dark mop escaping it’s day-old gel, his eye line is filled with perfectly coiffed blonde curls. No stubble. No chin divot underneath a sly, thousand watt grin.
It’s not the partner he desires. But she’ll have to do.
He waits for the start of the upbeat, looking over Miss Rothchild’s shoulder at the space. He runs the numbers, images the handful of couples milling about as cannons to avoid and adds in the safe distances he should use on his turns in order to give them a wide berth.
He just hopes like hell Miss Rothchild doesn’t want to engage in conversation at the same time.
By some stroke of luck, it seems she’s happy enough just gazing up at him with wide doe-eyes, letting out an excited little shriek every time he whips her around in a turn.
The waltz arrives at it’s penultimate climax, the swell of the layers strings triumphant and joyful, exuding levity and high society romance with every chord. He moves them into a toe-leading skip, turning her hard at the end of each three-beat step. He’s vaguely aware of the room vanishing into the distance, the crowd parting and withdrawing to give them space to shine and spin. They twirl, dipping and rising to the tempo, so fluid and unrestrained Dick has to grin.
The unwavering internal counting in his mind has disappeared into the resonation of cellos and he moves now only to the elemental lure of the music. Like a living entity with its own gravitational pull forcing his heartbeat to a new, more joyous cadence. For this moment, his pulse leaps out of it’s normal dull two-beat drum and into a spritely waltz. As the climax grows more dynamic in volume and buoyancy, so too do Dick’s movements, perfectly complemented by Miss Rothchild’s well schooled following step. She matches him stride for stride, elbow at the perfect 90 degree angle and leaning into his lead the entire time.
There are oohs and aahs as they float past, loud stage whispers about how a more dashing couple has never graced this ballroom. What a picture they present. What a catch the distinguished Major Winters must be. What an exceptional dance partner he is.
What an exceptional dance partner.
Exceptional. Partner.
The last one snaps him out of his reverie. He glances up, registering the gathered throng witnessing their spectacle for the first time.
Nix. Where’s Nix?
It’s Nixon who’s the dancer, not him. He’s let himself get lost in the fervor of the melody, abandoning the core reason he’s here, the very catalyst for this mission.
There, at the far edge of the throng, half hidden by the column he’s leaning on, Nixon meets his eye. Dick starts to add in change-steps at every half turn, just so he can maintain eye contact with him as long as possible, trying to decipher the expression on his face.
It’s a myriad of emotions all at the same time. Some terrible hybrid of pride and devastation and longing that makes Dick’s chest ache. Makes him want to abandon the dance, stride across the ballroom and scoop Nix up against him. Makes him want to take Nix away, get him as far away from this house, these people, as they can go.
Nixon tosses back the whiskey in his glass and by the time Dick has completed the next spin, he’s vanished. He scans the crowd, but there’s no sight of a white dinner jacket and he starts to get dizzy.
Dick loses count and almost trods right over Miss Rothchild’s glittering dance shoes. She laughs it off graciously, blaming the spinning and excitement of the dance and a hot spike of shame flips his stomach. She’s just here to dance, was having a fine time and now he’s gone and ruined it by being too inside his own head.
The orchestra finishes and their swirling slows and stops. He excuses himself with a kiss to Miss Rothchild’s hand and thanks her for the dance. Then, leaving her to giggle and chinwag with the young ladies who rush in for the details, he starts the arduous task of trying to pick Nix out of the wall of faces.
Between the mob of people and the shadows of architecture, it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Nixon is wearing white in a sea of black, it shouldn’t be this hard. After a brief foray back through the dining room, and then the rest rooms, he’s left cursing mansion houses and all their hidden nooks and crannies.
In true Nix fashion, Dick is the one snuck up on.
From behind, there’s a clearing of a throat and Dick spins on his heel to find him lounging in a feline lean against one of the marble columns, swirling his whiskey, haloed by Christmas tree lights and looking like a Hollywood leading man in his snow white tux.
“Where have you been?” Dick says with relief.
Nixon lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “You were busy making heiresses fall in love with you. I didn’t want to intrude.”
“I wish you would have. I think I might have a heart attack if I have to dance with every woman at this party.”
“You looked like you were having fun out there.” His voice is uncharacteristically neutral.
“Would have been more fun if I had the partner of my choice,” he tells Nix with a pointed look.
This seems to soothe the ruffled feathers of his jealousy and he ducks his head sheepishly, glances up at Dick through his lashes.
“Yeah, alright,” he yields. “Maybe later we can-”
“Nix.” Dick cuts him off. “I’m ready to go home.”
Nixon’s head snaps up, eyes wide. “Right now?”
Dick nods slowly, makes sure to put meaning behind it. “I had fun tonight. It’s been great. But I’m out of my element and I just...I’d really like to go home and get out of this suit.”
Nixon is also nodding enthusiastically now, glancing around and running some kind of calculation in his head.
“Uh, yeah, ok. Let me just - you came with Janet, right? Let me see if I can pull her away from the vodka and we can sneak out the side door.”
“Lewis!” The gruff bark makes them both startle. They whip around to see Stanhope Nixon angrily puffing on a cigar, back lit in the ornate door frame to the study where a handful of gentlemen have gathered.
“Goddammit,” Nixon mutters under his breath, eyes flashing.
“Get in here now,” his father growls, rolling his cigar to the other side of his mouth and looking like he’d rather hit Nix over the head than have him attend his business meeting. “The Governor’s waiting, stop messing about with your little friends. What the hell is the matter with you, boy?”
Nix’s “Coming, sir,” is clipped and bitter.
Dick frowns as he watches him throw back the remaining two fingers of whiskey in his glass. Nix jabs at the double doors behind him, the yellow light from inside glaring ominously. “I’ve got to be here for this,” he says, clearly unhappy. “No rest for the wicked, especially not at Christmas.”
Dick lets his hand graze the cuff of Nix’s jacket, touching just enough bare skin at his wrist to be safe. He plays it off like he’s reaching for the empty tumbler in Nix’s hand, taking the crystal from him in the hopes he won’t be able to get a refill until at least the meeting is over.
“That’s fine. I’m going to escort Janet home and then head back to my apartment.”
Nixon nods stiffly, the tension obvious in the hunch of his shoulders. He slumps in on himself, as if trying to protect his heart from something terrible trying to claw it out from the other side. Dick supposes his father is the right kind of monster for that job. How he wishes he could just reach into Nix’s chest and take it with him for safekeeping until he returns.
“I’ll see you later.”
Dick’s eyes search his face, his own heart aching at the shadows he sees there. “Will you?” he asks quietly. Seeking confirmation that he’ll be allowed to piece back together whatever shambles of Nix will hobble out of that room.
For a fleeting moment, Nixon softens, understanding the silent pleas being asked of him.
“Yeah,” he promises. Does his backwards walk towards the doom waiting in the yellow lit room. “You looked really great tonight,” he tacks on with a sad smile.
Dick returns it. “You too, Lew.”
Then the room swallows him up, the doors slamming in Dick’s face with a finality that makes him wince. He closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath. He’s got to pull himself together.
Nix will be home soon. And he’ll need to prep himself for damage control.
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Janet drunkenly praises his waltz the entire taxi ride home. He watches her try to reenact it within the confines of the backseat, occasionally dodging her flying hands and feeling his mood lighten in her company.
“Merry Christmas, Major,” she says, squeezing him tightly on the curb and almost toppling them both to the snow.
“Merry Christmas, Colonel,” Dick grins.
“Take courage, kid,” she tells him with a pat to both his arms, tone all at once solemn. “He’ll need you tonight.”
Dick doesn’t pretend not to know who she’s talking about. “I know. I’m ready for the fallout.”
Janet pats him again in approval. “You’re a good man. I do so wish Stanhope Nixon would just do all of us a favor and drown in the Atlantic Ocean.”
He offers his elbow with a smile that’s grimmer, more wry than before. “You and me both, Janet.”
He helps her up the stairs to her little house and gives her a wave once she makes it safely inside the door. Then he gives his own address to the cabbie and goes inside to wait for Nixon to come home.
He puts the kettle on for the extra heat and takes his cuff links off. There’s a moment after tugging on the choking collar he entertains just ridding himself of the tuxedo in favor of pajamas. But instinct tells him Nix will be disappointed at being robbed of the chance to feel him up in a fancy suit, so he reasons he can suffer on a bit longer.
He starts to fidget, tidying things that don’t need tidying and checking his watch every few minutes. Time seems to drag and when his eyelids start feeling like sandpaper and the clock on the wall chimes one, Dick starts to worry. He forces himself to sit down, knee jiggling off some of his excess anxiety against the underside of the kitchen table.
Eventually the slam of a car door outside heralds Nixon’s arrival and Dick almost flops to the table in relief. He doesn’t do anything stupid like rush out into the snow to greet him, but he does pace the length of the kitchen a few times in the span it takes Nix to enter.
He’s moving slow. Drained. And drunk.
He lets Nixon make his way inside at his own pace, unsure of his mood and not wanting to overstep his boundaries in his rampant concern. Dick frowns, glances at both of his empty hands for keys. “Did you drive here?”
He exhales slowly through his nose as Nixon shakes his head, his adrenaline ebbing back to normal levels.
“Took a cab.” He’s shucking his white jacket as he walks, purposefully and swiftly in Dick’s direction. He toes off his shoes too, never once setting a foot wrong during the process.
Dick’s smile is just a tad envious. The graceful bastard. “Wanna dance?”
“God yes,” Nix moans.
So Dick extends his hand, opposite elbow at the ready, and prepares to count.
“What are you doing?”
Dick blushes. “Well I was going to-“
Nixon makes an impatient noise and pulls at his arms, wrestling them around his waist before Dick can react.
“Come here,” he scoffs, ruining Dick’s perfect two step posture and molding them together at the chest and hips. Dick grunts as he’s manhandled into an awkward hug and he starts to stiffen with indignation. Here he goes again in typical Nix fashion, drunkenly bulldozing over Dick’s romantic efforts to do whatever he wants. Dick frowns, the lecture building on the back of his tongue.
But then Nixon sighs, leans into him heavily and lays his head on Dick’s shoulder. Tucks his nose into the hollow of Dick’s throat and takes a long, deep inhale and sighs again. The music hits the second chorus and he sways at the hips, pulling Dick into a matching momentum.
“This is all I’ve wanted all night,” he says, his breath warm on Dick’s neck. “Fucking torture having to keep my hands off you. Especially in that suit.”
He weaves his hands inside the coat, sliding easily along the satin lining until he’s got both arms banded tightly around his body. It makes for an awkward angle and with a huff, Dick’s forced to let go and find another way to enfold him back up. He settles for one arm around Nix’s hips, the other draped up to the elbow over Nix’s shoulder, Dick’s hand buried in his soft hair and scraping lightly on the beat over his scalp.
Nixon melts like putty against him. Burying into his warmth, his cheek still carrying the chill from outside and passing it to Dick’s neck as they hold each other. Under Dick’s adoring hands, his body settles and his soul calms. The remainder of the furious tremor subsides into drowsy pets and he unbuttons Dick’s vest, tugs the crisp shirt free of his trousers, seeking skin on skin contact. He spans the entire width of his hands on Dick’s good strong back and sighs once more, collapsing even further into Dick’s supportive arms.
Dick strokes the snow from his hair and hums off key to the music. Shuts his eyes and rests his cheek against Nix’s forehead, reveling in being able to hold him so close. Even if Janet would have some choice words about his sloppy form.
Eventually, when he’s thawed out and the anger has distilled down to an acceptable level in his blood, Nixon pulls back to grin drunkenly at him.
“Didn't expect to land a dance with the great Fred Astaire tonight,” he says, eyes glinting with mirth.
At first, Dick doesn't understand. “Huh?”
“I know you’ve been stepping out on me with Janet after hours. Courting her under the guise of dance lessons.”
Dick purses his lips, feigning annoyance. “Last time I take her into my confidence.”
“Oh she crumbled on the first question. Couldn’t wait to brag about all the hours you spent in her arms.”
Dick laughs, half in relief, half self deprecating. “I suppose it was a silly endeavor. It’s worthless on a resume. And I regret having to live now with the memory of Janet’s hands on my ass.”
Nixon snickers. “So why’d you do it? To show up the Ton?”
Dick looks into his face, watches the creases in his brow and the lines at the corners of his eyes smooth out the longer they sway.
“You love to dance,” he says simply. And I love you.
He won’t ever be able to save Nixon from his terrible father. He won’t be able to exorcise the demons that lead him to drink, or the ones that hiss how worthless he is in his ear, the ones that share a face with comrades who never came home. He won’t even ever be able to dance with Nix outside of the walls of their houses.
But Nixon is looking at him like he’s just been promised a whole glorious future in four words, glowing like a Christmas tree and beautiful beyond imagination. And by God, Dick is determined to do everything in his power to make sure he gets as much of it as he can.
Even if it’s just a clumsy waltz now and then in the kitchen of a cramped apartment.
He leans in to kiss Nix and there, just behind the bitter whiskey and smoke, Dick tastes his happiness.