FIC: A Love Like The Sea
Title: A Love Like The Sea 1/4 low tide
Pairing: Liebgott/Webster
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: They are very much not mine and do not belong to me in any fashion.
Word Count: 6,015
Summary: Joe Liebgott is roused in the middle of the night by a phone call (an intervention in disguise) and ends up anchored down to one place while he tries to reconcile the man he's become with the man who went to war.
Notes: Thanks plenty to thejazzter for the beta. This goes AU after Points, but not in any dire way besides the events of the story being clearly not how history played out.
The war had been over for six months when the phone call came.
Liebgott had let it go the first time, but whoever was on the other end wasn’t willing to be ignored. They’d called back twice and when Liebgott ignored that too, they rang back a third time. When it became pretty clear that the caller wasn’t planning on stopping, Joe finally picked up the phone. Liebgott had been trying to keep a low profile, not wanting to go home to a family that wouldn’t recognize him and wouldn’t want him back. He’d bunked with some of the harder-to-find guys from Easy and sometimes he slept on the street. Sometimes he paid for the motel. Tonight was one of those nights where he reached down deep into his pocket and dug out the money for a room.
“What the fuck do you want?” Liebgott slurred into the mouthpiece. It was four in the morning and he wasn’t in the mood for any crap. And at that hour of the night, it wasn’t going to be anything but.
Who it turned out to be was, of all people, Christenson.
“How’d you get this number?” Liebgott sleepily muttered. He leaned to the side of the bed to find the nearest t-shirt and pulled it on while waiting for the response from the other man. They had managed brief ‘hello’s and ‘how are you’s before silence reigned over the conversation. Ever since the war ended, silence hung on Liebgott like the heaviest of chains. It trapped him and forced him to think about everything that had come to pass. Silence made Joe Liebgott remember who he’d become and made him think about the blood he’d shed.
Silence made Joe inclined to bolt again.
“I need your help. I’m swinging by the motel.”
“How’d you get this number?” Liebgott reiterated.
“Ramirez gave it to me and we have to go to the hospital, so for once in your life, Liebgott, shut up,” Christenson insisted. Before Joe could even find so much as a retort, the line was dead.
“Son of a bitch,” Liebgott swore under his breath as he threw the mouthpiece at the night table. It hit with a severely loud crash and caused the Bible to slide further to the edge. It didn’t topple, as if some absent faith was keeping it going. Liebgott had no use for the church these days. It hadn’t stopped men from getting killed and God hadn’t swooped down on high to stop his people from being murdered.
And now what? What was so important that Christenson was rousing him at this hour of the morning to get him to a hospital? Liebgott yanked on a loose pair of jeans and grabbed his wallet, shoving it in the back pocket of his denims. With him came the key to a storage locker, a pack of smokes, his lighter, and his razorblade. He pretty much had the majority of his possessions on him. Once he tugged on his paratrooper jacket, he was ready to leave town and find a new one.
He briefly toyed with the idea of running while waiting outside in the muggy California air. Instead, he just sat in the cheap folding metal chair outside the motel room. The only light around him was the filter of his cigarette and the accompanying fireflies trying to light the way home for some poor sap. Liebgott didn’t have a way home anymore. All he had were temporary stays.
The headlights of an old Pontiac soon joined the light sources as the scrape and creak of brakes signaled Christenson’s arrival. Liebgott sighed as he lifted himself from the chair and dropped himself right down into the passenger seat, flicking the butt of the cigarette out of the window as he shot the other man a glare.
“Why the fuck did you call me?”
“Because you’re the emergency contact,” Christenson replied, barely doing anything more than mumbling. He seemed just as sleepy as Liebgott did, but a lot less pissed-off. “I was the second number they called, but I figured he wanted you there if he went so far as to put your name down and not his sister’s or anyone else’s.”
Liebgott really didn’t have any idea who the fuck they were talking about and he definitely didn’t remember watching anyone signing his name on something like papers of import. He was chalking all of this up to late-night confusion, the kind of aura that surrounded you and made things obscure when they should be clear in the light of day.
Joe rubbed at his eyes as they pulled away from the motel and headed to the outskirts of San Francisco, down the coast and tracking through smaller towns. “Who are you talking about, Chris? No one in my family woulda called you.”
“Web’s in the hospital. Apparently there was a fishing accident,” Chris said sharply. “And the first name on his papers when it came to his contacts was you.” He took a hard corner on the pavement and for the next twenty-miles of highway, Liebgott didn’t say a single word.
Web’s in the hospital.
Liebgott thought it should’ve been funny. Like it should be a joke about how Web liked hospitals so goddamn much that even though they were back Stateside, he still couldn’t keep himself away from one. He would have even said it aloud if he hadn’t been gripped by sudden panic, the kind that had come since after Haguenau anytime there was news about someone being hurt. The war was over. Easy wasn’t supposed to keep getting injured and Web was in the hospital.
Shit, thought Joe.
*
The first inclination that Joe ever got that Webster had a love waiting for him back home came in Austria on one of the most beautiful days either man had ever seen. Joe didn’t care much for the lake, but it was a sure bet that if you wanted to find Christenson, Winters, or Webster, all you had to do was find the glint of the sun off the pristine and crystal reflection of the lake-water and head in that direction.
Webster had always made bitter comments about how their girlfriends had probably already left them for other men, but no one in Easy had ever gotten a name out of him or a description and so she was left to vague auras and possibilities.
It was Liebgott who found out just who this woman was and he did it by accident one sunny Austrian day.
Webster was late -- again -- for breakfast and Liebgott was swearing his way down to the lake, combat boots making the gravel and the sand beneath his feet crunch in a more than satisfying way, as if he could take out his anger on the ground. And what was Webster doing? He was just sitting there on the dock with a fishing rod and hardly a thing on him but baseball shorts and his PT shirt.
Joe stopped about twenty feet from the dock and stuck his fingers in his mouth, letting out a piercing whistle that disturbed half the lake’s wildlife in one go. He had to take his victories where he could, and Joe couldn’t help a smug little smirk as he clopped his way down, boots making a lot more noise on the uneven boards of the dock.
“Breakfast time, Web,” Liebgott signaled. “You’re late.”
“I’ll skip it,” Webster replied. “I’ll stay here.”
So Liebgott had wound up staying there too and had started to ask questions while Webster passed him a hat to cover his head. The questions seemed useless and without point at first - ‘what are you even expecting to catch?’ and ‘what are you going to eat if you’re skipping breakfast, you idiot?’ - but when it came down to it, Liebgott asked exactly the right question.
“Why do you love this place so much?”
“I love the water,” Webster had enthused, staring out at the sun-dappled surface of the lake with a look of longing in his eyes. “When we get home, I’m going to move out West and never leave sight of the Pacific Ocean.” He turned that affectionate and longing gaze to Joe and something in Joe’s stomach fell away at the thought that Webster could hold so much love for something inanimate like the ocean.
Now, Joe had loved his fair share of women in his time. He’d also told women he loved them in order to get what he wanted. He didn’t think he’d ever felt something as pure as what Web was talking about and all for something that could never satisfy you the way a pair of tits could.
And maybe, just maybe, Joe felt a little bitter that no one had ever felt that way about him. Sure, the girls always said he was a good guy, but he’d never seen a look like that leveled his way until David Kenyon Webster.
Joe pressed his lips together and leaned over, yanking the fishing rod out of Webster’s hands and offering a mild sneer. “Gimme that,” he muttered, fingers brushing the sun-tanned warmth of Webster’s palm, belying just how long he had been out there in the sun with nothing but the fishing rod and his love for the sea. “Don’t see what’s so great about it. Can’t be better than drinking or having a night on the town.”
Webster just grinned at him and that look of affection, that look of fondness and longing, it had yet to dissipate.
For one moment, for one long moment, Liebgott pretended that it was meant for him instead of some expansive lover as fickle as the sea, who let anyone into her embrace and always eventually took from you.
He leaned forward until his toes touched the edge of the water and looked at his reflection in the mirror-like glassy liquid.
Back then he could still stand to look at himself. The war was still going in some corners of the world and Liebgott didn’t have to reconcile who he was with the man who had joined the paratroopers in the first place. At that point in time, no one was expecting him to be anything but the man who shot first and shouted later.
The fishing rod got a hard yank and Liebgott turned to Web as he let out a vocal ‘fuck!’ of delight, yanking on it to get the fish out of the water.
David Kenyon Webster loved the ocean. He loved the water and he loved the refreshing feel of it on your face and on your toes and he loved the way it washed away all your sins.
Joe Liebgott realized that day on the dock that he wanted Webster to love him the way he loved the ocean. He wanted him to love him in a way that expected him to leave, but to always come back -- to go cold at times and yet to surround him always. He wanted to be loved in a way that was as infinite and endless as the ocean.
He never did say anything about that. He just watched as Webster netted the fish and then tugged the man up the hill for a late breakfast (if the cooks would even let them touch any of the food at that point).
*
Once the twenty mile stretch of highway ended, Christenson exited off the turn for Alameda and Joe came back to his senses.
“You coming in?”
“Course I am,” Christenson noted defensively. “We couldn’t even find you until I pulled the search together. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here.” He was talking as if Joe owed him something because of it, but Joe didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror. How was he supposed to find one place to call it his home when he couldn’t even bear to look at himself? How was he supposed to hold down a job? How could he have neighbors? They were all going to see right through him. They’d look at his hands and see the weapons that killed Nazis and innocent boys both. He couldn’t afford to discriminate in the war and now his guilt refused to discriminate in his nightmares.
Sometimes it was Landsberg. Sometimes it was the mountaintop. Sometimes he dreamed about all the lives he took and all the future generations that would never be because of him. Most of the time, awake and asleep, he saw ghosts. He really wished his head would just find peace and silence for once. He really wished that it would just all stop.
“How’d he even get himself in a fishing accident?” Liebgott muttered, filling the silence with conversation so he didn’t have to delve deeper into thoughts about what he had done during the war. “Thought he was supposed to be Mister Fucking Experienced with a fishing line.”
“Yeah,” Christenson sighed as he pulled into the parking lot of the medium-sized hospital. “So did I.”
Liebgott really didn’t like the sound of that implication and resolved not to say a word about it as they got out of the car. At this hour of the night, the car doors slamming caused a sharp disturbance of the previously eerie silence, echoing in the lot. After that, the only sound that could be heard in the vicinity was the noise of their abnormally-loud footsteps. He let Christenson take the lead, lingering behind him and wondering why he had come.
Why hadn’t he just run again? He could probably have reached Berkeley if he’d picked the right car to hitch with. And instead here he was entering the halls of a hospital, which was one of the few places Liebgott didn’t think he’d ever have to see again until the circumstances of his life led him to something happier.
It felt like he was nearly bulldozed with the smell of antiseptics. He raised his forearm, covering his nose with the cloth of his jacket as he coughed out a “Jesus fucking Christ” and suddenly, out of nowhere, the scar on his neck started to ache and itch at once with a fierceness that Joe had never experienced before.
He hung back while Christenson conferred with the nurse at the desk and Joe tried hard not to associate this too-clean hospital with the ones on the line. The nurses were all young and fresh and pretty here and none of them looked like they might just kill themselves if they had to patch up another wounded man. Roe never did talk much about that girl he’d met in Bastogne, but what he did say of her, he mentioned that she’d been so weary, as weary as any of the soldiers.
“Room 106,” Christenson said under his breath, returning to Liebgott.
And then they simply stood there without moving.
“What?” Liebgott demanded, not sure what the hell Christenson was expecting of him. He lowered his arm and shot him an incredulous look. “I’m fine, it’s just the smell.” By the ensuing look of reply, that wasn’t what Christenson had meant, though, and Liebgott shook his head. “What?” he asked again, sharper than before.
“You’re his first contact,” Christenson reminded him. “Room 106.”
Room 106 was only thirty feet away. Joe turned and angled his body towards it, looking at the width and the length of the hallway and swearing that it tripled right before his eyes. He took the first step and paused, glancing over his shoulder at Christenson and wondering one more time why he hadn’t run when he had the chance.
He took the second step and he didn’t hesitate after that.
*
When Liebgott got to the hospital after Arnhem, he had expected that they’d shoot him up with morphine and just get him all patched up. He knew Dukeman was dead and some part of him was already mourning the man, but some other battle-weary and battle-ready part of him knew that he was just happy that it hadn’t been him. Out of all those S.S. troops, they had only managed to take down Dukeman in a permanent fashion.
Morbid as fuck for a thought, Liebgott noted to himself, but it was the truth. He hadn’t been given morphine though, because the medic on duty had rushed towards some new arrival.
Liebgott just hadn’t expected that to be Webster.
“Fuck,” Liebgott exhaled a laugh as he smirked at the other man. “Did you get tired of translating for the prisoners? Get shot so they’d make me do it?”
Webster shot a weary look over at him. “Can this wait?” he asked, voice strained. “I’ve been shot and I’m having an intellectual crisis that I’ve already gone stale and the war’s hardly begun.”
“Intellectual crisis,” Joe echoed, shaking his head as he glanced up at the medic getting bandages ready to press to Liebgott’s neck. “You believe this guy? He got shot in the fucking calf defending his country and fighting with Easy Company. He’s a rifleman and you know what he’s worried about? That brain of his.” He craned his neck in Webster’s direction, shaking his head dubiously. “You oughta just be glad the Germans’ haven’t splattered your brain all over the countryside.”
“You’re so uplifting, Joe,” Webster muttered. “I don’t know why more people don’t ask you to cheer them up on their deathbed.”
The morphine came soon after that and gave the whole world a new patina of bright lights and colors. Sounds became much more vivid and Liebgott could have sworn that everything swayed and moved like the branches of a willow tree in the wind.
When he looked over to his side, he could really see Webster. And when he looked right at Webster, he watched the other man open his eyes and Liebgott swore that he’d never seen a blue that incredible in his life.
The only other time he could remember thinking that was a bright and beautiful day in Oakland when the sea was calm and so serene and so blue that it hadn’t seemed real. Right then, in that moment, Webster didn’t seem real.
As he drifted off to sleep, they were trying to staunch the bleeding and he could still feel and taste the blue of Webster’s eyes on him. They hummed and crashed to shore like waves and Liebgott smiled drowsily as the drugs took hold of his thin frame and put him out of pain.
*
Step thirty wasn’t the hardest.
Step twenty-seven had been. That was when Joe had considered ducking into a nearby empty room and pretending it was Webster’s so Christenson would let up and maybe go grab a coffee or something. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy and so he took step twenty-eight and then came step twenty-nine and suddenly he was on step-thirty and opening the door to a pristine and disinfected room with only one occupant.
His eyes weren’t as brilliantly blue anymore. In fact, Webster looked a lot more broken than Liebgott really remembered seeing him. He was staring at the ceiling and his face was covered with a heavy beard that looked like it’d had at least weeks to grow. It was strange, but Liebgott suddenly felt too fucking cold, as if he was seeing some version of Webster that would have been there with them at Bastogne.
Webster looked exhausted.
What was more important was the thick bandage plastered over his arm just above the wrist that aroused Liebgott’s suspicion.
“Thought you had a fishing accident?” he announced his presence with the blunt comment, shooting him a dubious look as his eyes fell to the bandage and his mind began to do laps around other possibilities.
Webster lightened the slightest bit as he shifted in the bed. By the time he turned his gaze upwards, Liebgott could almost see a flicker of an echo of the look that had been on Webster’s face that day on the dock in Austria. Joe set it aside. He had no use for confusing looks right now when his whole brain was alight in confusion as to just what had happened to Webster.
He stepped closer and looked down at the man, giving his hair a sharp yank.
“You need a haircut and a shave like nothing else. What the hell were you doing with yourself?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Web muttered hoarsely, looking up at Joe with those accusing eyes. Joe shifted with only the slightest bit of discomfort to him. Yeah, so maybe he hadn’t grown a beard the envy of Webster’s hobo thing and maybe his hair was long, but it was under control. Joe was completely aware of two things. When he looked in the mirror, he hated the guy he saw there. He also knew that the man in the mirror was thinner than before and Joe Liebgott had been a skinny son of a bitch to begin with. “What, they don’t have food in San Francisco?”
“Haven’t been in San Francisco, and you’re the worse-looking of the two of us, so I’d bite your tongue, college boy,” Liebgott retorted, his remarks as sharp as razorblades when he was provoked. Webster always did seem to know exactly which buttons to push in order to make Joe bristle and defend himself with the only weapons he had. “You got family out here and other friends. Hell, Christenson tracked me down. Why’d you put me as your contact?”
“You’re the closest friend I’ve got,” Webster admitted, turning in the bed until he was positioned away from Liebgott and staring at the wall. “Verbal abuse notwithstanding. Did I interrupt some busy time in your life that’s been keeping you from eating?”
“Shut up,” Liebgott muttered without much malice. He took the last few steps until his thighs were pressed up against the bed and he could reach down and grab Web’s upper arm and elbow with his hands, lifting up the left arm so he could stare at the bandage with an accusatory glare, as if this body part was entirely separate from Webster.
He gripped that arm so tight that his fingers began to make white marks in Web’s pale skin, not quite bruising him just yet.
“Fishing accident,” Liebgott echoed prior words with disbelief as he started to pry and yank at the thick cotton bandage.
“Liebgott! What the fu…Joe!”
He yanked it off and stared at the horizontal cut accusingly, turning that look to Web’s face rather than his forearm for the first time. He was sure that he looked disappointed and that he was filled with rage, but all he could muster up in his expression was boyish confusion, a how could you? for the ages.
“It was a fishing accident,” Webster insisted gutturally, yanking the bandage and his arm back at once to try and patch it back up. “The hook let loose and dug into my skin and dragged me before I could dig it out.” He lay back on the hospital bed, grabbing Joe’s palm and pressing it firmly to Web’s lower belly.
Joe could feel three things at once.
The first was the severe warmth that came with touching Webster, even if there was a layer of clothing between them. It was like he hadn’t felt that kind of warmth in six months since the war ended and if Joe really thought about it, he hadn’t had proper human contact in much longer than that. His breath caught slightly and he set his jaw, trying not to act like some weak girl.
The second thing he felt was the brush of a scar under his fingertips. It felt just like the one on the forearm did, though a little narrower and not as long. With Web lying on his back, Joe could see the trajectory of the fishing hook from arm to torso and his doubts fell away, feeling like an idiot for thinking that Web would off himself.
The third thing that he felt was his stomach bottoming out on him. Webster’s hand was still wrapped around his wrist and Joe’s fingers brushed at Web’s stomach where they rested and suddenly, Joe didn’t care why he was Web’s first contact, just that he was.
It was this third thing that struck up all his impulses and got him to make a rash decision.
“I’ll get the nurses and doctors to put my name on the papers when you’re discharged.” He didn’t even know what he was saying, just that he thought it was the right thing to say. “I’m staying with you, make sure you stay okay.”
Never mind that Liebgott hadn’t actually been invited. Never mind that he was starting to grow pretty sure that Webster hadn’t done this to himself and didn’t need a watchdog. And beyond that, it seemed like Web was on his own quest to leave the war behind and wouldn’t Joe just remind him of that place? Not to mention the even bigger vice-versa of that. He still said it though.
Webster shifted and it dispelled Joe’s hand from his torso. He didn’t give any inclination as to whether he agreed to the offer or not, but as far as Liebgott was concerned, it wasn’t a question. It was an order.
He patted Web on the back of his hand and offered the flash of a brief smile before leaving the room and walking those thirty feet back to Christenson who was waiting for him.
This time, it was step twenty-four that gave him trouble.
*
They’d sprinted to the basement to avoid another barrage from the enemy, but when it had ended, Liebgott had stayed down there to enjoy a cigarette in peace. It was the Night That Never Was, the patrol that never happened. He almost believed that the Germans were enacting their revenge for killing their men and stealing prisoners so close to the end of the war by letting loose as much firepower as they could over the river. After all, wasn’t that what they would do if Easy got taken?
In that dank basement, though it was silent, Liebgott swore he could still hear the echoes of pained screams and the bitter and broken reactions of the men. Liebgott didn’t think he’d ever heard Webster sound so beaten down as when he’d announced that Jackson was dead.
Liebgott had surprised himself by not having much reaction at all. Bastogne had frozen that out of him and while he still hated those German bastards, it didn’t fluctuate or flare. It just kept on burning the same as always.
He was leaning hard and heavy against the brickwork when he heard the shuffle of footsteps and didn’t flinch or move his eyes when Webster closed the outside door behind him. He seemed out of sorts, as if he hadn’t expected to find anyone.
“What do you want?” Liebgott demanded, not about to give up his space.
Webster didn’t say anything in reply, which really did get on Liebgott’s nerves. Here he was, trying to have a moment to himself, and Webster was interrupting him? He still wasn’t ready to forgive and forget. Webster was late; everyone in the Company knew that. He was looking for an easy way back into their ranks, but Liebgott didn’t want to deal with this guy who still had all his shit together. Bastogne had broken all of them and Webster got to evade that. He had to pay for that somehow and Liebgott had assumed the role of judge, jury, and executioner.
He sucked in an inhalation of his cigarette harder than before and shot a dirty glare at Webster, who was picking through the remnants of the basement. Some of the belongings were Easy’s and some were from the previous owners, whoever they had been before they’d been run out so that the 506th could have a place to rest their heads.
“Webster,” Liebgott snapped again. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Something fell out of Jackson’s pocket last night, I just came to find it,” he mumbled. He was searching half-heartedly, as if a part of him didn’t really want to find whatever it was. Liebgott was letting him search probably much longer than he needed to because he’d already found the errant object when he’d first come down to the basement.
Liebgott dug into his pocket, fingers brushing against his pack of smokes, his lighter, and dug out the small retractable knife that had Jackson’s initials carved into the side, tipping it out to Webster as an offering.
“This?” Liebgott offered, arching a brow easily. He still had yet to stop staring at Webster, still had yet to quit condemning him for his absence on the snowiest days and in the coldest chills. Webster hadn’t been there while they lost their friends and maybe Liebgott was being stubborn because he knew that if Web were out there, if he’d come back early like Toye, he probably wouldn’t be standing there in Haguenau, but he still reserved the right to be bitter.
They had been broken while Webster had healed. They suffered while he recovered. It made him different. It made him unrecognizable.
Webster leaned over and took the knife from Liebgott’s hands, fingers brushing Joe’s, but all he could feel was the scratchy material of the gloves that Webster had taken to wearing. The ones that Joe had first seen and made a biting comment about how Webster had no idea what cold was, seeing as he’d never set foot in those freezing forests. Liebgott’s eyes were on Webster’s palm as he folded the knife in there and held it tight and he never did look away from his cigarette or Webster’s hands.
“Martin says you did good on the patrol,” Liebgott eventually spoke. “Guess you didn’t forget how to be a soldier, huh?”
“No matter how hard I tried,” was Webster’s dulled response as he tucked away the knife and left the same way he came in.
Liebgott watched him go and snorted derisively at the thought that David Kenyon Webster thought he was somewhat better than this life that the rest of them had to live without reprieve. They didn’t get to while away four months in a cushy hospital bed while a pretty nurse massaged away old hurts. Part of Liebgott was always going to hate Webster for that. It was the part of him that was keeping him from forgiving him when every other part of him was itching to welcome him back.
A good Toccoa man was hard to come by these days. Web was one of them. Liebgott just wanted him to serve out the punishment he was meting out. Then he could forgive him. Then. He just didn’t know how long that was going to take.
*
He made it back to Christenson’s side and was already in the process of digging out a cigarette and his lighter while his brain tried to make the connections between what he had just seen, what he had just said, and what was going to come out of the both. Liebgott shrugged when Christenson gave him an expectant look. “You got a car I can borrow?” was Liebgott’s first comment.
Christenson shook his head, rubbing at his forehead with charcoal-stained fingertips, as if he had been interrupted from something when all this happened. “I can make some calls.”
Liebgott didn’t even know what was going to come of his demand of Webster, but he damn well wasn’t about to go back on his words. He’d stay wherever Webster had been for the last six months, ever since they had stepped off that ocean liner and made their first steps into a new life. He cracked his neck and leaned heavily against the nurse’s desk while looking Christenson up and down.
“I told him I’m staying with him.”
“Why?”
Why? Liebgott couldn’t even put into words the why of it and he didn’t want to condemn Webster to a hypothesis just because Joe wasn’t sure about that wound on his arm. It really probably was from that fishing hook and nothing more, but he still didn’t know. And because of that small sliver of not-knowing, Liebgott wasn’t about to take any chances.
Liebgott just shook his head. “What else have I got to do, huh?” He lifted his chin to the nurse to beckon her over. “Yeah, Kenyon Webster, David,” he prompted. “He’ll be going home under supervision of Joseph Liebgott. When’s he discharged?”
She walked away to find the answer for him and in the meantime, Joe had Christenson’s incredulous glare to stand up to.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Liebgott challenged. “You wanted me here and now I’ll take care of him.”
Something faltered on Christenson’s face and it made Liebgott suspicious enough that when the papers came back for him to sign, he didn’t automatically take the pen and he didn’t sign right away. There was something in that look of his that Liebgott didn’t understand, but it looked half like guilt and half like a secret was being kept from him.
“What?” Liebgott demanded bluntly.
“Part of the reason Ramirez and I thought to get you is because everyone’s worried about you.”
That made Liebgott harden, like the stubborn young boy he had been once upon a time who did things in direct contrast to what everyone else suggested. This was the same stubbornness that had led him to living in a boarding house and taking on a job as a cook. Part of him blamed that stubbornness for his eventual joining of the paratroopers, but it was only partial blame. So when Pat Christenson was talking about how worried the men were about him and how he needed some kind of intervening or saving, he debated tearing up the forms at his side and walking away.
The only thing that kept him from doing that was the mistaken belief that he could still feel the warmth of Webster’s skin on his fingertips.
“Yeah, well, fuck you,” Liebgott announced as he turned and signed his name with a jab of the pen on the ‘I’ of his last name, sneering heavily and biting back a dozen angry jabs at Christenson for thinking he could even be more broken than he’d been after Landsberg, which seemed an impossible feat.
He’d just put his name on a document that was going to give him full responsibility over another man and he wasn’t about to fuck it all up. It was a bit like a rope tying him down, anchoring him to one place. He hadn’t had any kind of anchor to any place, person, or thing in six months since he had come back from the war. Still, he didn’t need saving and he didn’t need help. He was going to help someone else and that meant he had to be at least somewhat okay to do it. It meant he was okay.
“Find us a car and you can leave the moment you do,” Liebgott promised him, stealing the pen that he had signed the forms with, his wandering fingers having learned to pocket whatever he could. “We don’t need your charity. Neither of us do.”
Christenson didn’t wilt under Liebgott’s harsh glares or his angry words and that made Liebgott hate him just a little more for coming out of the war so calm and cool and collected. He hated him and he loved him like a brother in that singular moment. He was trying to tell Liebgott that he needed fixing and implying he was broken, but he was the man that had brought him back to Webster.
And so he hated him and he loved him and that made him more like family than anyone had been to Joe in a good while.
tbc
Pairing: Liebgott/Webster
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: They are very much not mine and do not belong to me in any fashion.
Word Count: 6,015
Summary: Joe Liebgott is roused in the middle of the night by a phone call (an intervention in disguise) and ends up anchored down to one place while he tries to reconcile the man he's become with the man who went to war.
Notes: Thanks plenty to thejazzter for the beta. This goes AU after Points, but not in any dire way besides the events of the story being clearly not how history played out.
The war had been over for six months when the phone call came.
Liebgott had let it go the first time, but whoever was on the other end wasn’t willing to be ignored. They’d called back twice and when Liebgott ignored that too, they rang back a third time. When it became pretty clear that the caller wasn’t planning on stopping, Joe finally picked up the phone. Liebgott had been trying to keep a low profile, not wanting to go home to a family that wouldn’t recognize him and wouldn’t want him back. He’d bunked with some of the harder-to-find guys from Easy and sometimes he slept on the street. Sometimes he paid for the motel. Tonight was one of those nights where he reached down deep into his pocket and dug out the money for a room.
“What the fuck do you want?” Liebgott slurred into the mouthpiece. It was four in the morning and he wasn’t in the mood for any crap. And at that hour of the night, it wasn’t going to be anything but.
Who it turned out to be was, of all people, Christenson.
“How’d you get this number?” Liebgott sleepily muttered. He leaned to the side of the bed to find the nearest t-shirt and pulled it on while waiting for the response from the other man. They had managed brief ‘hello’s and ‘how are you’s before silence reigned over the conversation. Ever since the war ended, silence hung on Liebgott like the heaviest of chains. It trapped him and forced him to think about everything that had come to pass. Silence made Joe Liebgott remember who he’d become and made him think about the blood he’d shed.
Silence made Joe inclined to bolt again.
“I need your help. I’m swinging by the motel.”
“How’d you get this number?” Liebgott reiterated.
“Ramirez gave it to me and we have to go to the hospital, so for once in your life, Liebgott, shut up,” Christenson insisted. Before Joe could even find so much as a retort, the line was dead.
“Son of a bitch,” Liebgott swore under his breath as he threw the mouthpiece at the night table. It hit with a severely loud crash and caused the Bible to slide further to the edge. It didn’t topple, as if some absent faith was keeping it going. Liebgott had no use for the church these days. It hadn’t stopped men from getting killed and God hadn’t swooped down on high to stop his people from being murdered.
And now what? What was so important that Christenson was rousing him at this hour of the morning to get him to a hospital? Liebgott yanked on a loose pair of jeans and grabbed his wallet, shoving it in the back pocket of his denims. With him came the key to a storage locker, a pack of smokes, his lighter, and his razorblade. He pretty much had the majority of his possessions on him. Once he tugged on his paratrooper jacket, he was ready to leave town and find a new one.
He briefly toyed with the idea of running while waiting outside in the muggy California air. Instead, he just sat in the cheap folding metal chair outside the motel room. The only light around him was the filter of his cigarette and the accompanying fireflies trying to light the way home for some poor sap. Liebgott didn’t have a way home anymore. All he had were temporary stays.
The headlights of an old Pontiac soon joined the light sources as the scrape and creak of brakes signaled Christenson’s arrival. Liebgott sighed as he lifted himself from the chair and dropped himself right down into the passenger seat, flicking the butt of the cigarette out of the window as he shot the other man a glare.
“Why the fuck did you call me?”
“Because you’re the emergency contact,” Christenson replied, barely doing anything more than mumbling. He seemed just as sleepy as Liebgott did, but a lot less pissed-off. “I was the second number they called, but I figured he wanted you there if he went so far as to put your name down and not his sister’s or anyone else’s.”
Liebgott really didn’t have any idea who the fuck they were talking about and he definitely didn’t remember watching anyone signing his name on something like papers of import. He was chalking all of this up to late-night confusion, the kind of aura that surrounded you and made things obscure when they should be clear in the light of day.
Joe rubbed at his eyes as they pulled away from the motel and headed to the outskirts of San Francisco, down the coast and tracking through smaller towns. “Who are you talking about, Chris? No one in my family woulda called you.”
“Web’s in the hospital. Apparently there was a fishing accident,” Chris said sharply. “And the first name on his papers when it came to his contacts was you.” He took a hard corner on the pavement and for the next twenty-miles of highway, Liebgott didn’t say a single word.
Web’s in the hospital.
Liebgott thought it should’ve been funny. Like it should be a joke about how Web liked hospitals so goddamn much that even though they were back Stateside, he still couldn’t keep himself away from one. He would have even said it aloud if he hadn’t been gripped by sudden panic, the kind that had come since after Haguenau anytime there was news about someone being hurt. The war was over. Easy wasn’t supposed to keep getting injured and Web was in the hospital.
Shit, thought Joe.
*
The first inclination that Joe ever got that Webster had a love waiting for him back home came in Austria on one of the most beautiful days either man had ever seen. Joe didn’t care much for the lake, but it was a sure bet that if you wanted to find Christenson, Winters, or Webster, all you had to do was find the glint of the sun off the pristine and crystal reflection of the lake-water and head in that direction.
Webster had always made bitter comments about how their girlfriends had probably already left them for other men, but no one in Easy had ever gotten a name out of him or a description and so she was left to vague auras and possibilities.
It was Liebgott who found out just who this woman was and he did it by accident one sunny Austrian day.
Webster was late -- again -- for breakfast and Liebgott was swearing his way down to the lake, combat boots making the gravel and the sand beneath his feet crunch in a more than satisfying way, as if he could take out his anger on the ground. And what was Webster doing? He was just sitting there on the dock with a fishing rod and hardly a thing on him but baseball shorts and his PT shirt.
Joe stopped about twenty feet from the dock and stuck his fingers in his mouth, letting out a piercing whistle that disturbed half the lake’s wildlife in one go. He had to take his victories where he could, and Joe couldn’t help a smug little smirk as he clopped his way down, boots making a lot more noise on the uneven boards of the dock.
“Breakfast time, Web,” Liebgott signaled. “You’re late.”
“I’ll skip it,” Webster replied. “I’ll stay here.”
So Liebgott had wound up staying there too and had started to ask questions while Webster passed him a hat to cover his head. The questions seemed useless and without point at first - ‘what are you even expecting to catch?’ and ‘what are you going to eat if you’re skipping breakfast, you idiot?’ - but when it came down to it, Liebgott asked exactly the right question.
“Why do you love this place so much?”
“I love the water,” Webster had enthused, staring out at the sun-dappled surface of the lake with a look of longing in his eyes. “When we get home, I’m going to move out West and never leave sight of the Pacific Ocean.” He turned that affectionate and longing gaze to Joe and something in Joe’s stomach fell away at the thought that Webster could hold so much love for something inanimate like the ocean.
Now, Joe had loved his fair share of women in his time. He’d also told women he loved them in order to get what he wanted. He didn’t think he’d ever felt something as pure as what Web was talking about and all for something that could never satisfy you the way a pair of tits could.
And maybe, just maybe, Joe felt a little bitter that no one had ever felt that way about him. Sure, the girls always said he was a good guy, but he’d never seen a look like that leveled his way until David Kenyon Webster.
Joe pressed his lips together and leaned over, yanking the fishing rod out of Webster’s hands and offering a mild sneer. “Gimme that,” he muttered, fingers brushing the sun-tanned warmth of Webster’s palm, belying just how long he had been out there in the sun with nothing but the fishing rod and his love for the sea. “Don’t see what’s so great about it. Can’t be better than drinking or having a night on the town.”
Webster just grinned at him and that look of affection, that look of fondness and longing, it had yet to dissipate.
For one moment, for one long moment, Liebgott pretended that it was meant for him instead of some expansive lover as fickle as the sea, who let anyone into her embrace and always eventually took from you.
He leaned forward until his toes touched the edge of the water and looked at his reflection in the mirror-like glassy liquid.
Back then he could still stand to look at himself. The war was still going in some corners of the world and Liebgott didn’t have to reconcile who he was with the man who had joined the paratroopers in the first place. At that point in time, no one was expecting him to be anything but the man who shot first and shouted later.
The fishing rod got a hard yank and Liebgott turned to Web as he let out a vocal ‘fuck!’ of delight, yanking on it to get the fish out of the water.
David Kenyon Webster loved the ocean. He loved the water and he loved the refreshing feel of it on your face and on your toes and he loved the way it washed away all your sins.
Joe Liebgott realized that day on the dock that he wanted Webster to love him the way he loved the ocean. He wanted him to love him in a way that expected him to leave, but to always come back -- to go cold at times and yet to surround him always. He wanted to be loved in a way that was as infinite and endless as the ocean.
He never did say anything about that. He just watched as Webster netted the fish and then tugged the man up the hill for a late breakfast (if the cooks would even let them touch any of the food at that point).
*
Once the twenty mile stretch of highway ended, Christenson exited off the turn for Alameda and Joe came back to his senses.
“You coming in?”
“Course I am,” Christenson noted defensively. “We couldn’t even find you until I pulled the search together. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here.” He was talking as if Joe owed him something because of it, but Joe didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror. How was he supposed to find one place to call it his home when he couldn’t even bear to look at himself? How was he supposed to hold down a job? How could he have neighbors? They were all going to see right through him. They’d look at his hands and see the weapons that killed Nazis and innocent boys both. He couldn’t afford to discriminate in the war and now his guilt refused to discriminate in his nightmares.
Sometimes it was Landsberg. Sometimes it was the mountaintop. Sometimes he dreamed about all the lives he took and all the future generations that would never be because of him. Most of the time, awake and asleep, he saw ghosts. He really wished his head would just find peace and silence for once. He really wished that it would just all stop.
“How’d he even get himself in a fishing accident?” Liebgott muttered, filling the silence with conversation so he didn’t have to delve deeper into thoughts about what he had done during the war. “Thought he was supposed to be Mister Fucking Experienced with a fishing line.”
“Yeah,” Christenson sighed as he pulled into the parking lot of the medium-sized hospital. “So did I.”
Liebgott really didn’t like the sound of that implication and resolved not to say a word about it as they got out of the car. At this hour of the night, the car doors slamming caused a sharp disturbance of the previously eerie silence, echoing in the lot. After that, the only sound that could be heard in the vicinity was the noise of their abnormally-loud footsteps. He let Christenson take the lead, lingering behind him and wondering why he had come.
Why hadn’t he just run again? He could probably have reached Berkeley if he’d picked the right car to hitch with. And instead here he was entering the halls of a hospital, which was one of the few places Liebgott didn’t think he’d ever have to see again until the circumstances of his life led him to something happier.
It felt like he was nearly bulldozed with the smell of antiseptics. He raised his forearm, covering his nose with the cloth of his jacket as he coughed out a “Jesus fucking Christ” and suddenly, out of nowhere, the scar on his neck started to ache and itch at once with a fierceness that Joe had never experienced before.
He hung back while Christenson conferred with the nurse at the desk and Joe tried hard not to associate this too-clean hospital with the ones on the line. The nurses were all young and fresh and pretty here and none of them looked like they might just kill themselves if they had to patch up another wounded man. Roe never did talk much about that girl he’d met in Bastogne, but what he did say of her, he mentioned that she’d been so weary, as weary as any of the soldiers.
“Room 106,” Christenson said under his breath, returning to Liebgott.
And then they simply stood there without moving.
“What?” Liebgott demanded, not sure what the hell Christenson was expecting of him. He lowered his arm and shot him an incredulous look. “I’m fine, it’s just the smell.” By the ensuing look of reply, that wasn’t what Christenson had meant, though, and Liebgott shook his head. “What?” he asked again, sharper than before.
“You’re his first contact,” Christenson reminded him. “Room 106.”
Room 106 was only thirty feet away. Joe turned and angled his body towards it, looking at the width and the length of the hallway and swearing that it tripled right before his eyes. He took the first step and paused, glancing over his shoulder at Christenson and wondering one more time why he hadn’t run when he had the chance.
He took the second step and he didn’t hesitate after that.
*
When Liebgott got to the hospital after Arnhem, he had expected that they’d shoot him up with morphine and just get him all patched up. He knew Dukeman was dead and some part of him was already mourning the man, but some other battle-weary and battle-ready part of him knew that he was just happy that it hadn’t been him. Out of all those S.S. troops, they had only managed to take down Dukeman in a permanent fashion.
Morbid as fuck for a thought, Liebgott noted to himself, but it was the truth. He hadn’t been given morphine though, because the medic on duty had rushed towards some new arrival.
Liebgott just hadn’t expected that to be Webster.
“Fuck,” Liebgott exhaled a laugh as he smirked at the other man. “Did you get tired of translating for the prisoners? Get shot so they’d make me do it?”
Webster shot a weary look over at him. “Can this wait?” he asked, voice strained. “I’ve been shot and I’m having an intellectual crisis that I’ve already gone stale and the war’s hardly begun.”
“Intellectual crisis,” Joe echoed, shaking his head as he glanced up at the medic getting bandages ready to press to Liebgott’s neck. “You believe this guy? He got shot in the fucking calf defending his country and fighting with Easy Company. He’s a rifleman and you know what he’s worried about? That brain of his.” He craned his neck in Webster’s direction, shaking his head dubiously. “You oughta just be glad the Germans’ haven’t splattered your brain all over the countryside.”
“You’re so uplifting, Joe,” Webster muttered. “I don’t know why more people don’t ask you to cheer them up on their deathbed.”
The morphine came soon after that and gave the whole world a new patina of bright lights and colors. Sounds became much more vivid and Liebgott could have sworn that everything swayed and moved like the branches of a willow tree in the wind.
When he looked over to his side, he could really see Webster. And when he looked right at Webster, he watched the other man open his eyes and Liebgott swore that he’d never seen a blue that incredible in his life.
The only other time he could remember thinking that was a bright and beautiful day in Oakland when the sea was calm and so serene and so blue that it hadn’t seemed real. Right then, in that moment, Webster didn’t seem real.
As he drifted off to sleep, they were trying to staunch the bleeding and he could still feel and taste the blue of Webster’s eyes on him. They hummed and crashed to shore like waves and Liebgott smiled drowsily as the drugs took hold of his thin frame and put him out of pain.
*
Step thirty wasn’t the hardest.
Step twenty-seven had been. That was when Joe had considered ducking into a nearby empty room and pretending it was Webster’s so Christenson would let up and maybe go grab a coffee or something. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy and so he took step twenty-eight and then came step twenty-nine and suddenly he was on step-thirty and opening the door to a pristine and disinfected room with only one occupant.
His eyes weren’t as brilliantly blue anymore. In fact, Webster looked a lot more broken than Liebgott really remembered seeing him. He was staring at the ceiling and his face was covered with a heavy beard that looked like it’d had at least weeks to grow. It was strange, but Liebgott suddenly felt too fucking cold, as if he was seeing some version of Webster that would have been there with them at Bastogne.
Webster looked exhausted.
What was more important was the thick bandage plastered over his arm just above the wrist that aroused Liebgott’s suspicion.
“Thought you had a fishing accident?” he announced his presence with the blunt comment, shooting him a dubious look as his eyes fell to the bandage and his mind began to do laps around other possibilities.
Webster lightened the slightest bit as he shifted in the bed. By the time he turned his gaze upwards, Liebgott could almost see a flicker of an echo of the look that had been on Webster’s face that day on the dock in Austria. Joe set it aside. He had no use for confusing looks right now when his whole brain was alight in confusion as to just what had happened to Webster.
He stepped closer and looked down at the man, giving his hair a sharp yank.
“You need a haircut and a shave like nothing else. What the hell were you doing with yourself?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Web muttered hoarsely, looking up at Joe with those accusing eyes. Joe shifted with only the slightest bit of discomfort to him. Yeah, so maybe he hadn’t grown a beard the envy of Webster’s hobo thing and maybe his hair was long, but it was under control. Joe was completely aware of two things. When he looked in the mirror, he hated the guy he saw there. He also knew that the man in the mirror was thinner than before and Joe Liebgott had been a skinny son of a bitch to begin with. “What, they don’t have food in San Francisco?”
“Haven’t been in San Francisco, and you’re the worse-looking of the two of us, so I’d bite your tongue, college boy,” Liebgott retorted, his remarks as sharp as razorblades when he was provoked. Webster always did seem to know exactly which buttons to push in order to make Joe bristle and defend himself with the only weapons he had. “You got family out here and other friends. Hell, Christenson tracked me down. Why’d you put me as your contact?”
“You’re the closest friend I’ve got,” Webster admitted, turning in the bed until he was positioned away from Liebgott and staring at the wall. “Verbal abuse notwithstanding. Did I interrupt some busy time in your life that’s been keeping you from eating?”
“Shut up,” Liebgott muttered without much malice. He took the last few steps until his thighs were pressed up against the bed and he could reach down and grab Web’s upper arm and elbow with his hands, lifting up the left arm so he could stare at the bandage with an accusatory glare, as if this body part was entirely separate from Webster.
He gripped that arm so tight that his fingers began to make white marks in Web’s pale skin, not quite bruising him just yet.
“Fishing accident,” Liebgott echoed prior words with disbelief as he started to pry and yank at the thick cotton bandage.
“Liebgott! What the fu…Joe!”
He yanked it off and stared at the horizontal cut accusingly, turning that look to Web’s face rather than his forearm for the first time. He was sure that he looked disappointed and that he was filled with rage, but all he could muster up in his expression was boyish confusion, a how could you? for the ages.
“It was a fishing accident,” Webster insisted gutturally, yanking the bandage and his arm back at once to try and patch it back up. “The hook let loose and dug into my skin and dragged me before I could dig it out.” He lay back on the hospital bed, grabbing Joe’s palm and pressing it firmly to Web’s lower belly.
Joe could feel three things at once.
The first was the severe warmth that came with touching Webster, even if there was a layer of clothing between them. It was like he hadn’t felt that kind of warmth in six months since the war ended and if Joe really thought about it, he hadn’t had proper human contact in much longer than that. His breath caught slightly and he set his jaw, trying not to act like some weak girl.
The second thing he felt was the brush of a scar under his fingertips. It felt just like the one on the forearm did, though a little narrower and not as long. With Web lying on his back, Joe could see the trajectory of the fishing hook from arm to torso and his doubts fell away, feeling like an idiot for thinking that Web would off himself.
The third thing that he felt was his stomach bottoming out on him. Webster’s hand was still wrapped around his wrist and Joe’s fingers brushed at Web’s stomach where they rested and suddenly, Joe didn’t care why he was Web’s first contact, just that he was.
It was this third thing that struck up all his impulses and got him to make a rash decision.
“I’ll get the nurses and doctors to put my name on the papers when you’re discharged.” He didn’t even know what he was saying, just that he thought it was the right thing to say. “I’m staying with you, make sure you stay okay.”
Never mind that Liebgott hadn’t actually been invited. Never mind that he was starting to grow pretty sure that Webster hadn’t done this to himself and didn’t need a watchdog. And beyond that, it seemed like Web was on his own quest to leave the war behind and wouldn’t Joe just remind him of that place? Not to mention the even bigger vice-versa of that. He still said it though.
Webster shifted and it dispelled Joe’s hand from his torso. He didn’t give any inclination as to whether he agreed to the offer or not, but as far as Liebgott was concerned, it wasn’t a question. It was an order.
He patted Web on the back of his hand and offered the flash of a brief smile before leaving the room and walking those thirty feet back to Christenson who was waiting for him.
This time, it was step twenty-four that gave him trouble.
*
They’d sprinted to the basement to avoid another barrage from the enemy, but when it had ended, Liebgott had stayed down there to enjoy a cigarette in peace. It was the Night That Never Was, the patrol that never happened. He almost believed that the Germans were enacting their revenge for killing their men and stealing prisoners so close to the end of the war by letting loose as much firepower as they could over the river. After all, wasn’t that what they would do if Easy got taken?
In that dank basement, though it was silent, Liebgott swore he could still hear the echoes of pained screams and the bitter and broken reactions of the men. Liebgott didn’t think he’d ever heard Webster sound so beaten down as when he’d announced that Jackson was dead.
Liebgott had surprised himself by not having much reaction at all. Bastogne had frozen that out of him and while he still hated those German bastards, it didn’t fluctuate or flare. It just kept on burning the same as always.
He was leaning hard and heavy against the brickwork when he heard the shuffle of footsteps and didn’t flinch or move his eyes when Webster closed the outside door behind him. He seemed out of sorts, as if he hadn’t expected to find anyone.
“What do you want?” Liebgott demanded, not about to give up his space.
Webster didn’t say anything in reply, which really did get on Liebgott’s nerves. Here he was, trying to have a moment to himself, and Webster was interrupting him? He still wasn’t ready to forgive and forget. Webster was late; everyone in the Company knew that. He was looking for an easy way back into their ranks, but Liebgott didn’t want to deal with this guy who still had all his shit together. Bastogne had broken all of them and Webster got to evade that. He had to pay for that somehow and Liebgott had assumed the role of judge, jury, and executioner.
He sucked in an inhalation of his cigarette harder than before and shot a dirty glare at Webster, who was picking through the remnants of the basement. Some of the belongings were Easy’s and some were from the previous owners, whoever they had been before they’d been run out so that the 506th could have a place to rest their heads.
“Webster,” Liebgott snapped again. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Something fell out of Jackson’s pocket last night, I just came to find it,” he mumbled. He was searching half-heartedly, as if a part of him didn’t really want to find whatever it was. Liebgott was letting him search probably much longer than he needed to because he’d already found the errant object when he’d first come down to the basement.
Liebgott dug into his pocket, fingers brushing against his pack of smokes, his lighter, and dug out the small retractable knife that had Jackson’s initials carved into the side, tipping it out to Webster as an offering.
“This?” Liebgott offered, arching a brow easily. He still had yet to stop staring at Webster, still had yet to quit condemning him for his absence on the snowiest days and in the coldest chills. Webster hadn’t been there while they lost their friends and maybe Liebgott was being stubborn because he knew that if Web were out there, if he’d come back early like Toye, he probably wouldn’t be standing there in Haguenau, but he still reserved the right to be bitter.
They had been broken while Webster had healed. They suffered while he recovered. It made him different. It made him unrecognizable.
Webster leaned over and took the knife from Liebgott’s hands, fingers brushing Joe’s, but all he could feel was the scratchy material of the gloves that Webster had taken to wearing. The ones that Joe had first seen and made a biting comment about how Webster had no idea what cold was, seeing as he’d never set foot in those freezing forests. Liebgott’s eyes were on Webster’s palm as he folded the knife in there and held it tight and he never did look away from his cigarette or Webster’s hands.
“Martin says you did good on the patrol,” Liebgott eventually spoke. “Guess you didn’t forget how to be a soldier, huh?”
“No matter how hard I tried,” was Webster’s dulled response as he tucked away the knife and left the same way he came in.
Liebgott watched him go and snorted derisively at the thought that David Kenyon Webster thought he was somewhat better than this life that the rest of them had to live without reprieve. They didn’t get to while away four months in a cushy hospital bed while a pretty nurse massaged away old hurts. Part of Liebgott was always going to hate Webster for that. It was the part of him that was keeping him from forgiving him when every other part of him was itching to welcome him back.
A good Toccoa man was hard to come by these days. Web was one of them. Liebgott just wanted him to serve out the punishment he was meting out. Then he could forgive him. Then. He just didn’t know how long that was going to take.
*
He made it back to Christenson’s side and was already in the process of digging out a cigarette and his lighter while his brain tried to make the connections between what he had just seen, what he had just said, and what was going to come out of the both. Liebgott shrugged when Christenson gave him an expectant look. “You got a car I can borrow?” was Liebgott’s first comment.
Christenson shook his head, rubbing at his forehead with charcoal-stained fingertips, as if he had been interrupted from something when all this happened. “I can make some calls.”
Liebgott didn’t even know what was going to come of his demand of Webster, but he damn well wasn’t about to go back on his words. He’d stay wherever Webster had been for the last six months, ever since they had stepped off that ocean liner and made their first steps into a new life. He cracked his neck and leaned heavily against the nurse’s desk while looking Christenson up and down.
“I told him I’m staying with him.”
“Why?”
Why? Liebgott couldn’t even put into words the why of it and he didn’t want to condemn Webster to a hypothesis just because Joe wasn’t sure about that wound on his arm. It really probably was from that fishing hook and nothing more, but he still didn’t know. And because of that small sliver of not-knowing, Liebgott wasn’t about to take any chances.
Liebgott just shook his head. “What else have I got to do, huh?” He lifted his chin to the nurse to beckon her over. “Yeah, Kenyon Webster, David,” he prompted. “He’ll be going home under supervision of Joseph Liebgott. When’s he discharged?”
She walked away to find the answer for him and in the meantime, Joe had Christenson’s incredulous glare to stand up to.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Liebgott challenged. “You wanted me here and now I’ll take care of him.”
Something faltered on Christenson’s face and it made Liebgott suspicious enough that when the papers came back for him to sign, he didn’t automatically take the pen and he didn’t sign right away. There was something in that look of his that Liebgott didn’t understand, but it looked half like guilt and half like a secret was being kept from him.
“What?” Liebgott demanded bluntly.
“Part of the reason Ramirez and I thought to get you is because everyone’s worried about you.”
That made Liebgott harden, like the stubborn young boy he had been once upon a time who did things in direct contrast to what everyone else suggested. This was the same stubbornness that had led him to living in a boarding house and taking on a job as a cook. Part of him blamed that stubbornness for his eventual joining of the paratroopers, but it was only partial blame. So when Pat Christenson was talking about how worried the men were about him and how he needed some kind of intervening or saving, he debated tearing up the forms at his side and walking away.
The only thing that kept him from doing that was the mistaken belief that he could still feel the warmth of Webster’s skin on his fingertips.
“Yeah, well, fuck you,” Liebgott announced as he turned and signed his name with a jab of the pen on the ‘I’ of his last name, sneering heavily and biting back a dozen angry jabs at Christenson for thinking he could even be more broken than he’d been after Landsberg, which seemed an impossible feat.
He’d just put his name on a document that was going to give him full responsibility over another man and he wasn’t about to fuck it all up. It was a bit like a rope tying him down, anchoring him to one place. He hadn’t had any kind of anchor to any place, person, or thing in six months since he had come back from the war. Still, he didn’t need saving and he didn’t need help. He was going to help someone else and that meant he had to be at least somewhat okay to do it. It meant he was okay.
“Find us a car and you can leave the moment you do,” Liebgott promised him, stealing the pen that he had signed the forms with, his wandering fingers having learned to pocket whatever he could. “We don’t need your charity. Neither of us do.”
Christenson didn’t wilt under Liebgott’s harsh glares or his angry words and that made Liebgott hate him just a little more for coming out of the war so calm and cool and collected. He hated him and he loved him like a brother in that singular moment. He was trying to tell Liebgott that he needed fixing and implying he was broken, but he was the man that had brought him back to Webster.
And so he hated him and he loved him and that made him more like family than anyone had been to Joe in a good while.
tbc