Wartober/Kisstober - Day 15

Wartober/Kisstober - Day 15

I’ve decided to combine @rubinecorvus Wartober 2021 and @raincoffeeandfandoms Kisstober 2021 prompt challenges for double the fun and double the headache. :3

Day 15 - Spirit + Kisses In The Rain

WARNING: Chick flick moments ahead. And yes I did listen to Easy On Me on repeat for this one and I make zero apologizes, SO THERE. xD

“Come home,” Nixon says.

The rain mats his dark hair into a fringe that covers half his vision and he keeps spitting out mouthfuls of waters he’s gathering as he pants. He’s shaking but it has nothing to do with the water soaking him to the bone.

“I can’t,” Dick tells him sadly. “I told you.”

“I know. I know what you said. But just come home.”

“Lew-“

“I signed up for rehab,” Nixon cuts him off.

For a long pause, the rain falls around them, indifferent and cold, misting their breath into little clouds in the space between them.

“You did?” Dick’s voice is soft, hesitant.

Nixon nods, and dares to take a slow step closer. As if Dick is a skittish animal who might run if he rushes the approach.

“I check in next Thursday.”

Dick blinks water from his lashes, frozen in disbelief.

“And I’m gonna go,” Nixon says. “I’m gonna give it my best shot. But Dick, I’m so fucking scared.”

He takes another step, closing the distance one foot at a time. Heel to toe, scraping over the slick pavement. So far Dick hasn't moved. He’s just staring with a hungry intensity, like he wants to believe what he’s being told but can’t help search for a chink in Nixon’s honesty.

“Of relapsing?” Dick croaks.

“Of living without armor. I’m not like you. I don’t charge into battle certain I’ll come out on top. I’m- well, I’m a goddamn coward.”

Dick doesn’t like this admission. His mouth tightens into a line.

“You’re not a coward, Lew. You jumped out of moving planes.”

“Because you did,” Nixon corrects him. “I enlisted for myself. But I survived over there on your borrowed spirit, we both know that.”

Dick turns his head with a huff, jaw set.

“Loan it to me just a little while longer. I swear I’ll give it back once I figure out how to do this.”

Dick shakes his head, indicating he doesn’t know what ‘this’ is.

“Live,” he clarifies. “Charge. Jump.”

Dick’s eyes are wet and Nixon can’t tell if it’s rain or not. His face keeps wobbling between devastation and hope. It makes Nixon’s chest constrict to the point of pain, because he has no desire to be a sadist, to keep dragging this man’s trust through the mud with his negligent callousness. But at some point Dick has become as integral as oxygen and Nixon is terrified of suffocating should he fail to barter another chance he doesn’t deserve.

He holds out imploring hands, begging Dick not to run. “I figure it might be easier if I knew I had something - anything - waiting for me on the other side.”

Dick exhales shakily.

Nixon gears up for the agony of choking when Dick turns and walks away. He’s not ready, will never be ready, but he’ll stand at attention in the rain and watch the love of his life serve a benefiting sentence for his crimes against his steadfast heart.

Then Dick drops his knapsack to splash on the ground at his feet, snaking forward to hook Nixon by the back of the neck and draw him in for a punishing kiss.

Nixon gasps beneath him, trembling, numb fingers clutching at Dick’s shirt front like a lifeline. Dick breathes life back into him, every place their lips connect bursting forth with warmth and color enough to combat the grey of the storm. He can taste lifetimes wasted and never lived on Dick’s mouth, their future washing away with every passing second, like water through Nixon’s fingers.

He wants to stop the world, slow it’s rotation and drag this moment out so he can memorize every piece of it, use it’s light to illuminate the dark cold existence waiting for him without Dick’s fire.

All too soon, Dick withdraws. Nixon whimpers.

Sniffing once, twice, Dick knocks his forehead into Nixon’s, presses in like he’s trying to get even closer and squeezes the nape of his neck.

“Dick?” Nixon breathes in a sob.

He clings to him, heart in his throat. He fears it’s a goodbye kiss until Dick cuts the drone of the rain with a barely audible, gruff promise.

“You got something, Lew. You got me.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34542667

Leave me comments/emojis/just random noises on my ao3 please and thank you! :D

🤤

Somebody 👏🏻 put it 👏🏻 into 👏🏻 words.

There’s always a lingering question that I ask myself, which is why do I, a cis bisexual woman, enjoy romance between two men so much?  

There are easy answers, like that it’s just fetishizing.  And like, I find men attractive, yes.  But I also find women attractive.  I don’t have a problem with enjoying het romance, assuming I can find good ones.  I enjoy stories with female characters I can relate to.

But there’s something much deeper at play, IMO.  A friend of mine who is a gender studies professor was the first person to point this out to me, but a lot of women enjoy m/m romance and gay porn because of the lack of women.  It removes a source of pressure and sexism.  Without any women present, you don’t have to constantly evaluate the sexism of their portrayal, or be reminded of negative experiences in your own life.  It allows women to experience romance and especially sexuality without all the baggage that comes with it in our patriarchal society.

This was recently illustrated to me rather dramatically.  I read a recommendation for a het romance.  And it sounded cute, and came highly recommended.  The tropes at play were fun.  Until I read a snippet and realized this was a romance between a woman and her boss.  I had a visceral negative reaction.  

Instantly I’m thinking of sexual harassment stories I’ve read and heard from other women. I’m thinking of how uncomfortable it would be to have your boss develop feelings for you.  How icky the power dynamics would be, etc.  

And then I realized…this wouldn’t bother me if it were two men.  Now, there’s no logical reason for that.  Sexual harassment is just as wrong when its object is a man.  But I know I’ve read fics with a similar premise and never thought about it.  Because when it’s two men I can accept this is just a light romance, a fantasy, meant to be fun and sexy and not to represent the real world.

But I can’t when it’s a het relationship.  There’s too much baggage there.  Too much societal history of abuse.  I can’t relax enough with the premise to enjoy that story.  

Now some people can.  And that’s fine.  And some people are never going to be okay with power imbalances like that regardless of gender.  That’s also fine.  I don’t think having either reaction makes one morally superior.  It’s okay to just enjoy light entertainment for what it is without going into deep analysis.

But it’s much more difficult for me, and I think for many women, to relax and enjoy romantic and sexual stories when they involve female characters.  We’ve been burned too many times by shitty depictions, by shallow role models, by abuse portrayed as romantic.  We have developed a stress response, a trauma response to heterosexual romance.  We are hyper-reactive to a wide variety of triggers in regards to it.   But removing women from the equation makes stories safer for us.  And maybe it shouldn’t?  In an ideal world?  But for many of us, that’s the truth.

BAND OF BROTHERS || Behind the Scenes

Featuring such beloved hits as:

Die Die Die

As Long As You Maim Me

Tearin’ Up My Heart (and eating it)

I Gank It That Way

(Today’s prompt reminded me of a 90′s boyband so….uh… yeah. *cough*) 

(Please don’t repost) 

I love you Dick Winters