FIC: A Love Like The Sea 2/4
Title: A Love Like The Sea 2/4 heterotroph
Pairing: Liebgott/Webster
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: They are very, very, very much not mine.
Word Count: 4.876
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.
PART ONE: He wanted to be loved in a way that was as infinite and endless as the ocean.
There was a crush of crowd when the boat docked in New York City with a much different population than had set out. Endless scores of its original passengers would perpetually rest in foreign graves and blood-soaked soil while others would stay with new families. The remainder of that initial deportation of willing volunteers returned home to lives put on hold and to a hopeful warm welcome.
Liebgott had stuck with Easy Company best as he could on that trip home. It was a last hurrah, a way to stick close to men who would understand him far better than any of the civilians back in San Francisco would ever have a chance of. He slept in a bunk between Skinny Sisk and Doc Roe. Every night, his entertainment consisted of watching Webster write in his journal while his cot swung to and fro under the ocean’s control.
Every night, Liebgott wondered how many times his name appeared in that neat and somewhat-girlish script of Web’s. He would close his eyes and feel his bunk sway and rock on the Atlantic Ocean and imagine that somewhere in those pages, Webster was writing about him the way he wrote about the water and the way that men fondly wrote their letters home to their loved ones. In the thickness of dreams, things didn’t have to be real and Liebgott could pretend for the moments before sleep that Webster wanted Liebgott in a visceral way that could only be expressed on those worn and yellowed pages of his journal.
When he woke up the next day, land was in sight and it was the beginning of the end.
*
Liebgott didn’t get a single wink of sleep between Christenson waking him up with a phone call and Webster being discharged from the hospital. It was eight in the morning and the Californian sun was blasting down on the world with a vengeance, making Liebgott sweat and making him wish that he’d at least tried to nap in the visitor’s chair in Webster’s room. Instead he had sat awake and watched Webster shake off the wooziness of the drugs that they had given to him (the same drugs in pill-form that they had put in Joe’s hands with wariness, as if they didn’t entrust them into his care). It was a simple task by the description -- twice a day, with food -- and Liebgott might be dodgy in a lot of ways, but not with this.
Christenson had found them some old beater Cadillac and it was sitting outside the hospital, the sun dully gleaming off its sea green color. Liebgott didn’t want to know whether the color was just coincidence or some smarmy joke on Christenson’s part, but it was actually kind of perfect, so Joe wasn’t going to say anything on the subject.
He was smoking outside the entrance doors to the hospital when they wheeled Webster out with his single-bag of possessions and wearing a too-big navy-blue long-sleeved shirt and a faded pair of denims. His dogtags gleamed in the sun and Liebgott squinted to watch him. He wrapped an arm around Webster’s waist to help him onto his feet (the other man still woozy from drugs and still listening to the tail-end of a lecture about his stitches and how he shouldn’t get the dressings wet unless he wanted to suffer a possible infection).
“He’s got it, Doc,” Liebgott promised as he wrapped his other arm around Webster’s waist temporarily to get him vertical.
Christenson had taken off earlier after a goodbye to Webster and it was just the two of them now with an old car and barely enough possessions cobbled between the two of them to be able to call them travelers. Slowly, they shuffled away from the hospital and Liebgott got Web settled in the passenger seat of the car.
“I need a pair of sunglasses,” Webster muttered, sounding like he was half-drunk.
“And I need my old job back,” Liebgott added easily, slamming the door (that creaked every time he opened it). “Can’t get what we want, Webster.” This was especially true when part of what you wanted was sitting three feet to the right of you and you didn’t exactly know what that was about, anyway, except a jealousy of the ocean. And didn’t that all sound stupid when he put it like that.
He gunned the gas as soon as he got the ignition started and drove the first ten miles too fast and played the music at least two volumes too loud and not once did Webster complain about it. In fact, he seemed well-removed from the world. The only time that he actually budged was halfway through the trip when he started to dig through his satchel and brought out a journal that was all-too-familiar to Joe. Its pages were more frayed than they had been six months ago and the ink looked faded to his eye, but it damn well sure was the same journal that had been with Webster through the war.
“When you write about this,” Liebgott shouted above the music, “Talk about how I swooped in and saved you like Prince Charming!”
He glanced sidewards in time to catch Webster’s reaction - a shake of his head and a fond smile - and that made Liebgott grin like a young kid who’d just been given his favorite treat. So maybe he wasn’t going to star in Webster’s journal, but if he could keep earning smiles like that, it didn’t matter.
He only turned down the music when Webster started giving directions. He even slowed down when Webster made a big deal of grabbing the dash and biting out a comment about how he hadn’t survived the war just to die in an auto accident. Then he’d gotten really sullen and silent and Liebgott didn’t need to be a genius to piece together that he was talking about Janovec and that day on guard duty.
They went from the sun-baked highway to suburban streets and kept driving past them until they wound their way closer to the ocean. The houses refused to dot the landscape as constantly as they had in suburbia and spans of space began to appear between each house as the sand overtook the road more often than not. Liebgott didn’t turn the ignition off until Webster pointed out a little house with the paint peeling off the outside walls. It couldn’t be more than four rooms and had a porch going all the way around the front of the house. The ocean was within a stone’s throw of the front door. Somehow, that was all Liebgott needed to know to know that this was definitely Webster’s house.
“This is it,” Webster said quietly, leaning closer to Liebgott in order to look at the property. There was a boat tied down to the dock and Liebgott suddenly felt like an intruder on a personal moment, even if all of the moments in Web’s near future were going to involve him. Without another word, Liebgott grabbed the bag of prescriptions and his own stuff and made his exit, slamming the creaking door shut as soon as he was clear of the car.
“Nice digs,” he appraised. “You own the place?”
“It was the family’s. Now it’s mine,” Webster agreed as he leaned his elbows on the roof of the car, squinting in the sunlight as if to prove just how much he needed those sunglasses. “Joe, your job? You didn’t get it back?”
“What can I say? Heavy demand, not enough fucking supply,” he said, trying to brush it off, wishing Webster had been too drugged up to properly remember his off-hand comment. He hitched his bag on his shoulder and made the walk from the driveway to the front door of the house, looking up to see shells hanging with fishing line from the ceiling amidst wind chimes, bird-feeders, and other paraphernalia. It looked like a home and Liebgott had been in short supply of those since he’d left his for the war.
He hesitated by the front door and waited for Webster, taking the moment to really look at the other man. He was still too thin and in need of a shave and haircut, but here (standing in the sun), it seemed like he had been born to live in this weather. His dark hair gleamed and his skin seemed to look healthy rather than sickly in the hospital lights. He joined Liebgott on the porch, standing shoulder-to-shoulder as he dug out the key and glanced warily at Joe.
“What?”
“It’s a mess. And…I only have the bedroom. I mean, the couch is nice and all, but it’s still a couch.”
“Stop your whining and open the door, Web. Jesus,” Liebgott exhaled as he shook his head. “You act like I’m here permanently.” The moment he said those words, he regretted it. No, he wasn’t going to be there to stay, but even a week could seem permanent now that they were fixed in one place. Guilt swarmed him and he made a mental note to apologize for that later, when he had the capacity to put what he was feeling into words.
Webster opened the door and wandered in as though he were going through the motions of old routine. His bag was dropped by the door and his keys went on top of a cedar table in the hall. He checked his reflection in the mirror (and winced) before heading inside, one hand protectively hovering over the wound on his torso. Liebgott was a little slower in following him, not sure how welcome he was and wanting to make sure he didn’t piss Web off within the first sixty seconds of being inside his home.
“So, this is it,” Webster said, gesturing to the space. The kitchen, den, and most everything else shared one large space. To the side was a bathroom and a bedroom and that was it. It was cozy and quaint and small and Liebgott had the sense that by the looks of it, Webster spent more time on his boat than he did inside.
Which brought something else to the fore that Liebgott had been putting off until now.
“You ain’t goin’ sailing, by the way,” Liebgott said sharply as he dropped his things on his couch (claiming it now because he had the feeling he’d be there a while). Before Webster could whine about it, Liebgott kept bulldozing forward with his words, “You heard what the Doc said. No getting the dressings wet.” The fact that Liebgott was likely going to have to help Webster bathe had occurred to him, but he wasn’t about to confront that fact, yet. “And I know you, Webster. You get out on the water, you’re going to get them soaked and then I’ll have to cart you right back to the hospital and I don’t feel like driving all that way just so I can watch them open you up again like a fucking practice kit for sewing.”
That seemed to get through to Webster, but he didn’t say a thing. He just managed to storm off to the bedroom looking sulky as hell while Liebgott settled in and picked up books from the coffee table, reading in a recumbent and lazy position while Web got settled in.
“We’ll redress the wounds tonight,” Liebgott called over after he gave Webster about five minutes. “Then I’ll get you looking like a decent human being again.” He put the book down, expecting a reply from Webster in the bedroom and instead finding him hovering above the couch and staring down at him. “What?” he asked, voice edged with mild anxiety.
“If you’re planning to make me look good and proper, does that mean I get to make sure you put weight on so you look less like a skeleton?” Webster demanded, sitting himself down where a brush of Webster’s hand would mean he was touching Liebgott’s feet. Suddenly, they were too close, but Liebgott didn’t say a word. All he wanted to do was argue that he wasn’t too thin and that just because the Army wasn’t pumping him full of protein and iron didn’t mean he wasn’t perfectly healthy.
“You cook?” Liebgott asked dubiously.
“No. You do. I’ll happily keep you well-supplied in food,” Webster promised, patting his hand on Liebgott’s thigh as he pushed himself to his feet and picked up one of the books from the table, wandering outside as if he hadn’t been in the hospital and hadn’t picked himself up a new houseguest and didn’t look like hell warmed over.
Liebgott always knew that Web was a fucking odd one along with being strange. He also knew that if he was going to be left alone and he had a comfortable couch, he was catching up on the sleep that he’d been denied because he was suddenly babysitter to a careless buddy in arms.
When Joe roused again, the light of the sky had changed severely and there was a smell in the house of freshly-fried vegetables and eggs simmering on the stove. He shifted and cracked one eye open to find two things. The first was that sometime in the day, Webster had covered him with a thick blanket and the second was that Webster was standing by the stove in a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved shirt and was cooking omelettes and fried potatoes, sucking small tastes off his pinky every once in a while.
“Thought you didn’t cook,” Liebgott muttered sleepily, his words still groggy. He slowly shifted into a sitting position, watching Webster for a long moment. He waited until he was slightly more awake before sliding off the couch and approaching, rubbing his eyes tiredly and peering over Webster’s shoulder at the stove-top.
It didn’t even look half-bad. Not that he was about to say that aloud and give Webster any kind of praise. Web turned his head slightly and suddenly Liebgott felt like if he inched forward, their noses would be touching. He eased back just as Web pointed to the food with the spatula. “It’s an omelette, Joe, it’s not exactly fine cuisine,” he pointed out with a shrug, giving Liebgott’s hip a light nudge with the back of his palm. “Go sit down. I’ll feed you before you fix me up.”
Liebgott sat at the oval table and flicked at the dulled lightbulb hanging above them with a finger, settling only when Web slid the plate in front of him. Liebgott didn’t even make a comment about the fact that there was twice as much on his plate as was on Web’s.
“You’ve lost weight since the war,” was all Webster said when he saw the look on Liebgott’s face. “You look like skin and bones. No nice Jewish girl is going to have you looking like that.”
Joe let out a quiet scoff accompanied by a half-giddy smile. “You remember that day?”
“How could I forget?” Webster asked, gesturing with his chin into the den. “There are comics in there because of you. I was…persuaded to give them a shot.” He caught Liebgott’s near-manic grin and let out a small laugh. “Yes, you can read them any time. They’re not exactly collector’s items. They’re just under the television.” He sat down beside Liebgott after bringing the collection of food to the table.
Neither of them said grace and nothing was discussed beyond the plot arcs of the Dick Tracy series that Liebgott loved so much. Liebgott reached over to help Webster cut food when his hand seemed to weaken thanks to the wound and he dug out the pills after enough was consumed.
Webster eyed the two pills warily and then raised his glance to Liebgott. “Web, you gotta,” Liebgott insisted quietly, pushing the tall glass of water over along with it. “It’ll help the pain and the healing. Besides, the haircut and shave will breeze by if you take ‘em. Promise.”
He didn’t get an argument past that and Joe watched those pills until Webster swallowed them down, gulping back half a glass of water with them. Liebgott gave an assured nod and gestured for him to stand. “Come on. I’ll clean up while you’re resting later.” He left the room before Webster did, getting everything ready from the razor to the scissors to the dressings to turning on the light to make sure everything would shine brightly.
If he was going to drag Webster back into the real world and wound up an unwilling passenger, he was doing it in good lighting.
*
The day they disembarked the ship in New York had been brisk and sunny, a good day. Liebgott thought it ought to have been storming to match the way it was signaling an end to a life that had become routine and expected. Every time he said goodbye to someone else (to Skinny, to Popeye, to the Doc), he felt like he was never going to see them again. He’d said his goodbye to Major Winters before they even left and the same went for Captain Speirs and Lip (who’d always be just Lip, even if he’d always held the highest of respect for the man). Now, he was making his rounds around the dock and hugging his brothers one by one.
He got to Webster last. Webster’s gaze was already stuck on the water beneath the massive ship and Liebgott almost had to laugh.
“Already moving on, huh?” he asked quietly, turning to catch something like sadness lurking on Webster’s face. Of all of them, Web probably felt this keenly. He was the author, he knew that goodbyes meant the end and that books didn’t just start up again. They were finished and closed and new books were opened. New chapters were written. This was going to be hard on Webster, but Liebgott knew he had to say the words.
He had no plans. He had a ticket booked on a train West, but beyond that, Liebgott figured he would let the wind take him wherever it went. He’d try for his old job back and he would maybe go to some bars and try and woo girls with pretty words and a big smile and a charming wink.
They stood awkwardly opposite each other for many moments while the hum of men around them shouted and said goodbyes and promised to write. They stood two feet apart and neither of them said any of the words that had been thought up on the journey over. Liebgott wanted to tell Webster that he ought to come West and see if the Pacific Ocean was as beautiful as he wanted it to be and if it wasn’t, he could stay at Joe’s side anyway, for a while. Liebgott had no idea what Webster wanted to say, but he could tell it was something. His brow was pinched and his mouth kept opening only to close and avoid saying something.
In the end, they didn’t even say goodbye. Someone whistled loudly for the next train out and that was Liebgott’s ticket out of there. So all he did was press in close and hug Webster tightly, clapping him on the back.
“Don’t make me out to be too bad in that book of yours,” Liebgott mumbled into Webster’s ear and then he was gone, vanishing into the crowd like he had never even been there to begin with.
He thought that was supposed to be the last page of the book.
Except then six months later, Christenson called him and it turned out that all they had done was rounded out a chapter and the words ‘the end’ had never been involved in the first place. It was for the best, Liebgott supposed. In hindsight, he was always going to hate that he never got a proper goodbye with Web. At least this time around, he had time to prepare.
*
This time around, Liebgott was already starting to suspect, he didn’t know if he would be able to muster up the words to say goodbye when it eventually came time to go.
Webster had sank down into a wooden chair in the bathroom and was sitting with perfect posture, awaiting Liebgott’s hands in his hair to fix up the errant strands that had grown too long and unruly in their curl. His beard was thick and made him look at least ten years older and for a moment, Liebgott forgot the age difference between them and almost felt the younger of the two.
He stood behind Webster and stared at his own reflection in the mirror for five seconds, which was about three seconds longer than he could usually bear to do it. He looked gaunt and he looked like a stranger and both of those things made him turn his head down to focus on giving Web’s hair a trim. “They’d mistake you for a woman if you’d let this grow out any longer,” Liebgott ribbed lightly, strands of hair falling away to the ground until Liebgott was content with the length of it.
He was nothing if not professional when it came to cutting hair and by the time he edged around Webster with the razor, he was back in barber mode, tipping Web’s neck up with two taps of his fingers to the underside of his chin, scraping away at stubble and watching as he found the man that he’d gone to war with. Inch by inch, Webster was slowly revealed under this stranger’s guise and Liebgott couldn’t help a smile as he watched his progress. He wiped away the last of the shaving cream with a towel and stepped back to take a look at him.
“There,” Liebgott announced, “Now you look presentable. Ought to take you on the town, let the women at you.” And looking the way he did, Liebgott had no doubts that if Webster just kept his mouth shut, he could have any of them he wanted. Except maybe Liebgott was also wondering if he really wanted to do that when he was still holding back on words he should have said on a New York dock or on an Austrian shoreline and why was it that all the important moments of his life seemed to be by the water?
He meticulously cleaned his shaving wares and eyed Webster carefully as if judging his own work, as though he would never truly be content with it. Every few seconds, he found a new mistake and would lean forward to edge away a small piece of stubble or to cut a lone strand that had escaped his fingers the first time.
Standing in front of Webster now, Liebgott could see him every time he closed his eyes and his lips parted, something like a gasp of content skating past his lips every time Joe’s fingers brushed at his neck or at the shell of his ear.
When he was finally content and every tool was cleaned, he took hold of the clean dressings. He was meticulous with them as he began to wrap them around his palm, unwrapping them, and rewrapping them while nodding to Webster’s shirt.
“Take it off,” he encouraged, perching on the bathroom sink lightly. He set the dressings and bandages aside when Webster could only manage with the one hand and leaned forward, both hands tangled up in the hem of Webster’s shirt and lightly coaxing it over his head, leaving him bare-chested and bandaged.
Now, Liebgott had seen most of Easy naked in their time during the war. Webster, though…Web had always evaded that, as if he required some kind of privacy. He’d never been to the showers at Toccoa with Easy because he’d been with F Company and he had that thing where he constantly wore pajamas to bed, as if he was worried about what his naked body would tell the other men. They’d had private stalls in England and Webster hadn’t needed a shower in Haguenau when it came their turn. Even in Austria, Webster swam with full shirt and shorts and always tried to keep himself clothed.
Liebgott realized very quickly that seeing Webster like this was as much of an invitation to intimacy into the man’s life as he was going to get. He had the real distinct feeling that not many people ever got to see him like this, even if it was just his shirt off.
Liebgott was planning on saving the ‘I sleep in next to nothing’ warning for right before he went to bed that night.
Still, even if it was only his shirt, Web seemed heavily uncomfortable, as if suddenly he felt like he was on display for the world. Liebgott felt like smacking him over the head and telling him that it wasn’t a big deal. He’d seen most of the guys without a shred of clothing on them and this wasn’t any different, he would lie. He would tell Webster that it didn’t matter how hairy his chest was and that he oughta get that pink flush out of his cheeks. Except he couldn’t say that without coloring himself and Liebgott doubted he could look Web in the eye as he said it, so instead of saying any words at all, he just kept his head down and stared at Web’s torso.
The arm was easy. The arm was a two-minute job that he could have done on the battlefield. Call him Doc Liebgott if you wanted. The stomach was going to take him a little more concentration. The first part was easy. Ripping away the other bandages with his razorblade took one swift cut.
Liebgott sidled behind Webster and coaxed him to his feet. “C’mon,” he urged. “Easier this way.” Without another word, he went to work peeling away all the dressings and keeping one hand on Webster’s hip to keep him steady while the other worked at getting it gone. From there, it was easy as applying the disinfectant cream and standing behind Webster to use the mirror’s reflection to guide him.
He could feel the heat pouring off of Web and Joe’s hips nearly canted forward in a single moment’s crazy desire to get closer to that warmth. He stopped himself by making it part of his whole body’s movement forward for the bandages, gripping Web’s hip tighter than before as he made sure they fit snugly.
Webster’s breath was hitching and Joe was ignoring that completely as he circled around to quickly change the arm dressings as well, giving Web a smile of accomplishment and a pat on the shoulder. “You’re all done,” Liebgott guaranteed, putting away his things on one of the shelves in the bathroom. “You should get some sleep before the pills really kick in. You got pretty woozy and out of it this morning when you took ‘em.”
Webster seemed to sway slightly, blinking like a deer in headlights at Liebgott’s suggestion.
“Web? You still in there?”
“Yeah, I just…they’re hitting a bit hard,” Webster admitted, rubbing sleepily at his face with a broad palm, marvelling in the mirror at the fact that he didn’t bear even a lick of facial hair after Joe had gone to work on him. “Can you just make sure I get to bed?” he asked hesitantly, as if it was killing him to ask such a simple thing.
Liebgott nodded and his arm went back around Webster’s hip as the other went around his good arm to guide him into the main bedroom. The ceiling fan chopped lazily above and Liebgott helped Webster collapse on the queen-sized bed, rumpling the covers even more than before.
Joe could see blood stains on the covers and he stared at them for a long and accusing moment, but didn’t ask. He just got Webster under the sheets and offered him a sunny smile.
“You need anything, I’m just outside, okay?”
“You got it,” Webster agreed tiredly, bunching a pillow up in his hands as he adjusted and tried to settle in, staring at Liebgott with those tired blue eyes that already seemed brighter than they had in the hospital.
Liebgott switched off the lights on his way out, lingering in the doorway. “And Web?”
He got a grunt in reply.
“I sleep in next to nothing, so you better not give a shit if I’m naked in a time of emergency.”
He didn’t get any sound in reply that time. Liebgott figured that Webster was already fast asleep or just couldn’t be bothered to form words in reply to that. Liebgott shrugged and closed the door lightly behind him, stripping out of his t-shirt and jeans by the time he got to the sofa and made sure that one of his three pairs of clothes was put away neatly before he got comfortable.
It was the first night. Liebgott wished he could say how many more he’d be so he could start composing graceful verses of goodbyes, but that was a piece of knowledge as lost to him as was the man he’d lost when he became someone other than his mother’s boy.
tbc
Pairing: Liebgott/Webster
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: They are very, very, very much not mine.
Word Count: 4.876
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.
PART ONE: He wanted to be loved in a way that was as infinite and endless as the ocean.
There was a crush of crowd when the boat docked in New York City with a much different population than had set out. Endless scores of its original passengers would perpetually rest in foreign graves and blood-soaked soil while others would stay with new families. The remainder of that initial deportation of willing volunteers returned home to lives put on hold and to a hopeful warm welcome.
Liebgott had stuck with Easy Company best as he could on that trip home. It was a last hurrah, a way to stick close to men who would understand him far better than any of the civilians back in San Francisco would ever have a chance of. He slept in a bunk between Skinny Sisk and Doc Roe. Every night, his entertainment consisted of watching Webster write in his journal while his cot swung to and fro under the ocean’s control.
Every night, Liebgott wondered how many times his name appeared in that neat and somewhat-girlish script of Web’s. He would close his eyes and feel his bunk sway and rock on the Atlantic Ocean and imagine that somewhere in those pages, Webster was writing about him the way he wrote about the water and the way that men fondly wrote their letters home to their loved ones. In the thickness of dreams, things didn’t have to be real and Liebgott could pretend for the moments before sleep that Webster wanted Liebgott in a visceral way that could only be expressed on those worn and yellowed pages of his journal.
When he woke up the next day, land was in sight and it was the beginning of the end.
*
Liebgott didn’t get a single wink of sleep between Christenson waking him up with a phone call and Webster being discharged from the hospital. It was eight in the morning and the Californian sun was blasting down on the world with a vengeance, making Liebgott sweat and making him wish that he’d at least tried to nap in the visitor’s chair in Webster’s room. Instead he had sat awake and watched Webster shake off the wooziness of the drugs that they had given to him (the same drugs in pill-form that they had put in Joe’s hands with wariness, as if they didn’t entrust them into his care). It was a simple task by the description -- twice a day, with food -- and Liebgott might be dodgy in a lot of ways, but not with this.
Christenson had found them some old beater Cadillac and it was sitting outside the hospital, the sun dully gleaming off its sea green color. Liebgott didn’t want to know whether the color was just coincidence or some smarmy joke on Christenson’s part, but it was actually kind of perfect, so Joe wasn’t going to say anything on the subject.
He was smoking outside the entrance doors to the hospital when they wheeled Webster out with his single-bag of possessions and wearing a too-big navy-blue long-sleeved shirt and a faded pair of denims. His dogtags gleamed in the sun and Liebgott squinted to watch him. He wrapped an arm around Webster’s waist to help him onto his feet (the other man still woozy from drugs and still listening to the tail-end of a lecture about his stitches and how he shouldn’t get the dressings wet unless he wanted to suffer a possible infection).
“He’s got it, Doc,” Liebgott promised as he wrapped his other arm around Webster’s waist temporarily to get him vertical.
Christenson had taken off earlier after a goodbye to Webster and it was just the two of them now with an old car and barely enough possessions cobbled between the two of them to be able to call them travelers. Slowly, they shuffled away from the hospital and Liebgott got Web settled in the passenger seat of the car.
“I need a pair of sunglasses,” Webster muttered, sounding like he was half-drunk.
“And I need my old job back,” Liebgott added easily, slamming the door (that creaked every time he opened it). “Can’t get what we want, Webster.” This was especially true when part of what you wanted was sitting three feet to the right of you and you didn’t exactly know what that was about, anyway, except a jealousy of the ocean. And didn’t that all sound stupid when he put it like that.
He gunned the gas as soon as he got the ignition started and drove the first ten miles too fast and played the music at least two volumes too loud and not once did Webster complain about it. In fact, he seemed well-removed from the world. The only time that he actually budged was halfway through the trip when he started to dig through his satchel and brought out a journal that was all-too-familiar to Joe. Its pages were more frayed than they had been six months ago and the ink looked faded to his eye, but it damn well sure was the same journal that had been with Webster through the war.
“When you write about this,” Liebgott shouted above the music, “Talk about how I swooped in and saved you like Prince Charming!”
He glanced sidewards in time to catch Webster’s reaction - a shake of his head and a fond smile - and that made Liebgott grin like a young kid who’d just been given his favorite treat. So maybe he wasn’t going to star in Webster’s journal, but if he could keep earning smiles like that, it didn’t matter.
He only turned down the music when Webster started giving directions. He even slowed down when Webster made a big deal of grabbing the dash and biting out a comment about how he hadn’t survived the war just to die in an auto accident. Then he’d gotten really sullen and silent and Liebgott didn’t need to be a genius to piece together that he was talking about Janovec and that day on guard duty.
They went from the sun-baked highway to suburban streets and kept driving past them until they wound their way closer to the ocean. The houses refused to dot the landscape as constantly as they had in suburbia and spans of space began to appear between each house as the sand overtook the road more often than not. Liebgott didn’t turn the ignition off until Webster pointed out a little house with the paint peeling off the outside walls. It couldn’t be more than four rooms and had a porch going all the way around the front of the house. The ocean was within a stone’s throw of the front door. Somehow, that was all Liebgott needed to know to know that this was definitely Webster’s house.
“This is it,” Webster said quietly, leaning closer to Liebgott in order to look at the property. There was a boat tied down to the dock and Liebgott suddenly felt like an intruder on a personal moment, even if all of the moments in Web’s near future were going to involve him. Without another word, Liebgott grabbed the bag of prescriptions and his own stuff and made his exit, slamming the creaking door shut as soon as he was clear of the car.
“Nice digs,” he appraised. “You own the place?”
“It was the family’s. Now it’s mine,” Webster agreed as he leaned his elbows on the roof of the car, squinting in the sunlight as if to prove just how much he needed those sunglasses. “Joe, your job? You didn’t get it back?”
“What can I say? Heavy demand, not enough fucking supply,” he said, trying to brush it off, wishing Webster had been too drugged up to properly remember his off-hand comment. He hitched his bag on his shoulder and made the walk from the driveway to the front door of the house, looking up to see shells hanging with fishing line from the ceiling amidst wind chimes, bird-feeders, and other paraphernalia. It looked like a home and Liebgott had been in short supply of those since he’d left his for the war.
He hesitated by the front door and waited for Webster, taking the moment to really look at the other man. He was still too thin and in need of a shave and haircut, but here (standing in the sun), it seemed like he had been born to live in this weather. His dark hair gleamed and his skin seemed to look healthy rather than sickly in the hospital lights. He joined Liebgott on the porch, standing shoulder-to-shoulder as he dug out the key and glanced warily at Joe.
“What?”
“It’s a mess. And…I only have the bedroom. I mean, the couch is nice and all, but it’s still a couch.”
“Stop your whining and open the door, Web. Jesus,” Liebgott exhaled as he shook his head. “You act like I’m here permanently.” The moment he said those words, he regretted it. No, he wasn’t going to be there to stay, but even a week could seem permanent now that they were fixed in one place. Guilt swarmed him and he made a mental note to apologize for that later, when he had the capacity to put what he was feeling into words.
Webster opened the door and wandered in as though he were going through the motions of old routine. His bag was dropped by the door and his keys went on top of a cedar table in the hall. He checked his reflection in the mirror (and winced) before heading inside, one hand protectively hovering over the wound on his torso. Liebgott was a little slower in following him, not sure how welcome he was and wanting to make sure he didn’t piss Web off within the first sixty seconds of being inside his home.
“So, this is it,” Webster said, gesturing to the space. The kitchen, den, and most everything else shared one large space. To the side was a bathroom and a bedroom and that was it. It was cozy and quaint and small and Liebgott had the sense that by the looks of it, Webster spent more time on his boat than he did inside.
Which brought something else to the fore that Liebgott had been putting off until now.
“You ain’t goin’ sailing, by the way,” Liebgott said sharply as he dropped his things on his couch (claiming it now because he had the feeling he’d be there a while). Before Webster could whine about it, Liebgott kept bulldozing forward with his words, “You heard what the Doc said. No getting the dressings wet.” The fact that Liebgott was likely going to have to help Webster bathe had occurred to him, but he wasn’t about to confront that fact, yet. “And I know you, Webster. You get out on the water, you’re going to get them soaked and then I’ll have to cart you right back to the hospital and I don’t feel like driving all that way just so I can watch them open you up again like a fucking practice kit for sewing.”
That seemed to get through to Webster, but he didn’t say a thing. He just managed to storm off to the bedroom looking sulky as hell while Liebgott settled in and picked up books from the coffee table, reading in a recumbent and lazy position while Web got settled in.
“We’ll redress the wounds tonight,” Liebgott called over after he gave Webster about five minutes. “Then I’ll get you looking like a decent human being again.” He put the book down, expecting a reply from Webster in the bedroom and instead finding him hovering above the couch and staring down at him. “What?” he asked, voice edged with mild anxiety.
“If you’re planning to make me look good and proper, does that mean I get to make sure you put weight on so you look less like a skeleton?” Webster demanded, sitting himself down where a brush of Webster’s hand would mean he was touching Liebgott’s feet. Suddenly, they were too close, but Liebgott didn’t say a word. All he wanted to do was argue that he wasn’t too thin and that just because the Army wasn’t pumping him full of protein and iron didn’t mean he wasn’t perfectly healthy.
“You cook?” Liebgott asked dubiously.
“No. You do. I’ll happily keep you well-supplied in food,” Webster promised, patting his hand on Liebgott’s thigh as he pushed himself to his feet and picked up one of the books from the table, wandering outside as if he hadn’t been in the hospital and hadn’t picked himself up a new houseguest and didn’t look like hell warmed over.
Liebgott always knew that Web was a fucking odd one along with being strange. He also knew that if he was going to be left alone and he had a comfortable couch, he was catching up on the sleep that he’d been denied because he was suddenly babysitter to a careless buddy in arms.
When Joe roused again, the light of the sky had changed severely and there was a smell in the house of freshly-fried vegetables and eggs simmering on the stove. He shifted and cracked one eye open to find two things. The first was that sometime in the day, Webster had covered him with a thick blanket and the second was that Webster was standing by the stove in a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved shirt and was cooking omelettes and fried potatoes, sucking small tastes off his pinky every once in a while.
“Thought you didn’t cook,” Liebgott muttered sleepily, his words still groggy. He slowly shifted into a sitting position, watching Webster for a long moment. He waited until he was slightly more awake before sliding off the couch and approaching, rubbing his eyes tiredly and peering over Webster’s shoulder at the stove-top.
It didn’t even look half-bad. Not that he was about to say that aloud and give Webster any kind of praise. Web turned his head slightly and suddenly Liebgott felt like if he inched forward, their noses would be touching. He eased back just as Web pointed to the food with the spatula. “It’s an omelette, Joe, it’s not exactly fine cuisine,” he pointed out with a shrug, giving Liebgott’s hip a light nudge with the back of his palm. “Go sit down. I’ll feed you before you fix me up.”
Liebgott sat at the oval table and flicked at the dulled lightbulb hanging above them with a finger, settling only when Web slid the plate in front of him. Liebgott didn’t even make a comment about the fact that there was twice as much on his plate as was on Web’s.
“You’ve lost weight since the war,” was all Webster said when he saw the look on Liebgott’s face. “You look like skin and bones. No nice Jewish girl is going to have you looking like that.”
Joe let out a quiet scoff accompanied by a half-giddy smile. “You remember that day?”
“How could I forget?” Webster asked, gesturing with his chin into the den. “There are comics in there because of you. I was…persuaded to give them a shot.” He caught Liebgott’s near-manic grin and let out a small laugh. “Yes, you can read them any time. They’re not exactly collector’s items. They’re just under the television.” He sat down beside Liebgott after bringing the collection of food to the table.
Neither of them said grace and nothing was discussed beyond the plot arcs of the Dick Tracy series that Liebgott loved so much. Liebgott reached over to help Webster cut food when his hand seemed to weaken thanks to the wound and he dug out the pills after enough was consumed.
Webster eyed the two pills warily and then raised his glance to Liebgott. “Web, you gotta,” Liebgott insisted quietly, pushing the tall glass of water over along with it. “It’ll help the pain and the healing. Besides, the haircut and shave will breeze by if you take ‘em. Promise.”
He didn’t get an argument past that and Joe watched those pills until Webster swallowed them down, gulping back half a glass of water with them. Liebgott gave an assured nod and gestured for him to stand. “Come on. I’ll clean up while you’re resting later.” He left the room before Webster did, getting everything ready from the razor to the scissors to the dressings to turning on the light to make sure everything would shine brightly.
If he was going to drag Webster back into the real world and wound up an unwilling passenger, he was doing it in good lighting.
*
The day they disembarked the ship in New York had been brisk and sunny, a good day. Liebgott thought it ought to have been storming to match the way it was signaling an end to a life that had become routine and expected. Every time he said goodbye to someone else (to Skinny, to Popeye, to the Doc), he felt like he was never going to see them again. He’d said his goodbye to Major Winters before they even left and the same went for Captain Speirs and Lip (who’d always be just Lip, even if he’d always held the highest of respect for the man). Now, he was making his rounds around the dock and hugging his brothers one by one.
He got to Webster last. Webster’s gaze was already stuck on the water beneath the massive ship and Liebgott almost had to laugh.
“Already moving on, huh?” he asked quietly, turning to catch something like sadness lurking on Webster’s face. Of all of them, Web probably felt this keenly. He was the author, he knew that goodbyes meant the end and that books didn’t just start up again. They were finished and closed and new books were opened. New chapters were written. This was going to be hard on Webster, but Liebgott knew he had to say the words.
He had no plans. He had a ticket booked on a train West, but beyond that, Liebgott figured he would let the wind take him wherever it went. He’d try for his old job back and he would maybe go to some bars and try and woo girls with pretty words and a big smile and a charming wink.
They stood awkwardly opposite each other for many moments while the hum of men around them shouted and said goodbyes and promised to write. They stood two feet apart and neither of them said any of the words that had been thought up on the journey over. Liebgott wanted to tell Webster that he ought to come West and see if the Pacific Ocean was as beautiful as he wanted it to be and if it wasn’t, he could stay at Joe’s side anyway, for a while. Liebgott had no idea what Webster wanted to say, but he could tell it was something. His brow was pinched and his mouth kept opening only to close and avoid saying something.
In the end, they didn’t even say goodbye. Someone whistled loudly for the next train out and that was Liebgott’s ticket out of there. So all he did was press in close and hug Webster tightly, clapping him on the back.
“Don’t make me out to be too bad in that book of yours,” Liebgott mumbled into Webster’s ear and then he was gone, vanishing into the crowd like he had never even been there to begin with.
He thought that was supposed to be the last page of the book.
Except then six months later, Christenson called him and it turned out that all they had done was rounded out a chapter and the words ‘the end’ had never been involved in the first place. It was for the best, Liebgott supposed. In hindsight, he was always going to hate that he never got a proper goodbye with Web. At least this time around, he had time to prepare.
*
This time around, Liebgott was already starting to suspect, he didn’t know if he would be able to muster up the words to say goodbye when it eventually came time to go.
Webster had sank down into a wooden chair in the bathroom and was sitting with perfect posture, awaiting Liebgott’s hands in his hair to fix up the errant strands that had grown too long and unruly in their curl. His beard was thick and made him look at least ten years older and for a moment, Liebgott forgot the age difference between them and almost felt the younger of the two.
He stood behind Webster and stared at his own reflection in the mirror for five seconds, which was about three seconds longer than he could usually bear to do it. He looked gaunt and he looked like a stranger and both of those things made him turn his head down to focus on giving Web’s hair a trim. “They’d mistake you for a woman if you’d let this grow out any longer,” Liebgott ribbed lightly, strands of hair falling away to the ground until Liebgott was content with the length of it.
He was nothing if not professional when it came to cutting hair and by the time he edged around Webster with the razor, he was back in barber mode, tipping Web’s neck up with two taps of his fingers to the underside of his chin, scraping away at stubble and watching as he found the man that he’d gone to war with. Inch by inch, Webster was slowly revealed under this stranger’s guise and Liebgott couldn’t help a smile as he watched his progress. He wiped away the last of the shaving cream with a towel and stepped back to take a look at him.
“There,” Liebgott announced, “Now you look presentable. Ought to take you on the town, let the women at you.” And looking the way he did, Liebgott had no doubts that if Webster just kept his mouth shut, he could have any of them he wanted. Except maybe Liebgott was also wondering if he really wanted to do that when he was still holding back on words he should have said on a New York dock or on an Austrian shoreline and why was it that all the important moments of his life seemed to be by the water?
He meticulously cleaned his shaving wares and eyed Webster carefully as if judging his own work, as though he would never truly be content with it. Every few seconds, he found a new mistake and would lean forward to edge away a small piece of stubble or to cut a lone strand that had escaped his fingers the first time.
Standing in front of Webster now, Liebgott could see him every time he closed his eyes and his lips parted, something like a gasp of content skating past his lips every time Joe’s fingers brushed at his neck or at the shell of his ear.
When he was finally content and every tool was cleaned, he took hold of the clean dressings. He was meticulous with them as he began to wrap them around his palm, unwrapping them, and rewrapping them while nodding to Webster’s shirt.
“Take it off,” he encouraged, perching on the bathroom sink lightly. He set the dressings and bandages aside when Webster could only manage with the one hand and leaned forward, both hands tangled up in the hem of Webster’s shirt and lightly coaxing it over his head, leaving him bare-chested and bandaged.
Now, Liebgott had seen most of Easy naked in their time during the war. Webster, though…Web had always evaded that, as if he required some kind of privacy. He’d never been to the showers at Toccoa with Easy because he’d been with F Company and he had that thing where he constantly wore pajamas to bed, as if he was worried about what his naked body would tell the other men. They’d had private stalls in England and Webster hadn’t needed a shower in Haguenau when it came their turn. Even in Austria, Webster swam with full shirt and shorts and always tried to keep himself clothed.
Liebgott realized very quickly that seeing Webster like this was as much of an invitation to intimacy into the man’s life as he was going to get. He had the real distinct feeling that not many people ever got to see him like this, even if it was just his shirt off.
Liebgott was planning on saving the ‘I sleep in next to nothing’ warning for right before he went to bed that night.
Still, even if it was only his shirt, Web seemed heavily uncomfortable, as if suddenly he felt like he was on display for the world. Liebgott felt like smacking him over the head and telling him that it wasn’t a big deal. He’d seen most of the guys without a shred of clothing on them and this wasn’t any different, he would lie. He would tell Webster that it didn’t matter how hairy his chest was and that he oughta get that pink flush out of his cheeks. Except he couldn’t say that without coloring himself and Liebgott doubted he could look Web in the eye as he said it, so instead of saying any words at all, he just kept his head down and stared at Web’s torso.
The arm was easy. The arm was a two-minute job that he could have done on the battlefield. Call him Doc Liebgott if you wanted. The stomach was going to take him a little more concentration. The first part was easy. Ripping away the other bandages with his razorblade took one swift cut.
Liebgott sidled behind Webster and coaxed him to his feet. “C’mon,” he urged. “Easier this way.” Without another word, he went to work peeling away all the dressings and keeping one hand on Webster’s hip to keep him steady while the other worked at getting it gone. From there, it was easy as applying the disinfectant cream and standing behind Webster to use the mirror’s reflection to guide him.
He could feel the heat pouring off of Web and Joe’s hips nearly canted forward in a single moment’s crazy desire to get closer to that warmth. He stopped himself by making it part of his whole body’s movement forward for the bandages, gripping Web’s hip tighter than before as he made sure they fit snugly.
Webster’s breath was hitching and Joe was ignoring that completely as he circled around to quickly change the arm dressings as well, giving Web a smile of accomplishment and a pat on the shoulder. “You’re all done,” Liebgott guaranteed, putting away his things on one of the shelves in the bathroom. “You should get some sleep before the pills really kick in. You got pretty woozy and out of it this morning when you took ‘em.”
Webster seemed to sway slightly, blinking like a deer in headlights at Liebgott’s suggestion.
“Web? You still in there?”
“Yeah, I just…they’re hitting a bit hard,” Webster admitted, rubbing sleepily at his face with a broad palm, marvelling in the mirror at the fact that he didn’t bear even a lick of facial hair after Joe had gone to work on him. “Can you just make sure I get to bed?” he asked hesitantly, as if it was killing him to ask such a simple thing.
Liebgott nodded and his arm went back around Webster’s hip as the other went around his good arm to guide him into the main bedroom. The ceiling fan chopped lazily above and Liebgott helped Webster collapse on the queen-sized bed, rumpling the covers even more than before.
Joe could see blood stains on the covers and he stared at them for a long and accusing moment, but didn’t ask. He just got Webster under the sheets and offered him a sunny smile.
“You need anything, I’m just outside, okay?”
“You got it,” Webster agreed tiredly, bunching a pillow up in his hands as he adjusted and tried to settle in, staring at Liebgott with those tired blue eyes that already seemed brighter than they had in the hospital.
Liebgott switched off the lights on his way out, lingering in the doorway. “And Web?”
He got a grunt in reply.
“I sleep in next to nothing, so you better not give a shit if I’m naked in a time of emergency.”
He didn’t get any sound in reply that time. Liebgott figured that Webster was already fast asleep or just couldn’t be bothered to form words in reply to that. Liebgott shrugged and closed the door lightly behind him, stripping out of his t-shirt and jeans by the time he got to the sofa and made sure that one of his three pairs of clothes was put away neatly before he got comfortable.
It was the first night. Liebgott wished he could say how many more he’d be so he could start composing graceful verses of goodbyes, but that was a piece of knowledge as lost to him as was the man he’d lost when he became someone other than his mother’s boy.
tbc