Note: This is a bit of an odd one for me so it may have some kinks. I've been watching a lot of shows/reading a lot about addicts recently which mainly inspired this but I know its not perfect! Anyways, please read & review.
Louis Lebeau walked slowly along the London streets. He did not enter the many shops he passed, though at first glance this was perhaps because the shops in this particular area of the city were not the kind Lebeau would usually frequent. The storefronts were battered and dirty, and the customers few and far between. Most of the other people on the street were not walking along as Lebeau was, but instead were squatting on a street corner or leaning against shop doors.
Glancing at these people, and the looks they were giving him as he gaze slid past them, made Lebeau want to pull his jacket closer around himself. He did not like this street, nor the people on it. He especially did not like his reason for being here.
It had been many years now since he had last been to London. Life had carried on for him in the near ten years since the war had ended. He had taken over his father's restaurant, met a lovely woman to share his life with, even started a family. Yes, he had been busy over the past few years. Too busy even to visit old friends…or at least that was what he told himself as he continued his walk down the street.
When he had received the call, two weeks ago now it had to be, he had left for London immediately. That was when his thus far fruitless search had begun. He glanced at every face he saw, looked into every shop and down every alley. No where did he see the man he sought.
He sighed, and stopped as the street ended abruptly. He was back where he had begun his search that morning, and once again he had nothing to show for it. Shaking his head, he turned down the next street and began keeping his eyes peeled for a cab to take him back to his hotel. He was unlikely to find one until several streets over, but he looked nonetheless. Once his business was finished on this street he had no desire to remain any longer than he had to.
"Louis…?"
At the sound of that soft accent he knew so well, Lebeau stopped in his tracks. It would seem the man he was seeking had found him.
He turned to face Peter Newkirk, and his breath caught in his throat when his eyes fell on his friend. Newkirk's cheeks were hollow, and his eyes dark and sunken. His dark hair was longer than Lebeau had ever seen it, and looked greasy and unkempt. He was dressed in a simple t-shirt and dark pants, all of which was rumpled and had a light layer of dirt. But what really stopped Lebeau's breath was the look in Newkirk's eyes. His sunken eyes were wide and the pupils dilated, and more than that there was a manic quality to his gaze that raised the hair on Lebeau's arms.
"It is you!" Newkirk's sunken face broke out in a grin and he reached to pull Lebeau to him and wrap his arms around the smaller Frenchman. "Bloody hell it's good to see you mate! Fancy running into you here eh?"
Lebeau did not know what to say to his old friend. When Newkirk's sister Mavis had called him, and told him what had become of his friend, he had known that his friend would no longer be the same man that he had lived at Stalag 13 so many years ago. Yet still, he had not expected the drastic difference he saw in front of him.
"Hey Louis? Cat got your tongue?" Newkirk asked, confused at his friend's silence.
"Oui, Pierre!" Lebeau pulled himself out of his momentary shock. "It is good to see you also."
But that was all he could say. He could not find the words to have a normal conversation with Newkirk considering Newkirk's condition.
"Well," Newkirk said, clearly confused at his friend's loss for words but determined to feign cheerfulness, "Come on then, we'll have a drink! Been to long it has, we have to catch up... How's the restaurant? How's Marie-Louise?"
As he spoke, Newkirk wrapped his arm around Lebeau's shoulders and pulled him back down the street which Lebeau had spent the last two weeks walking up and down, searching futilely for his old friend. He could feel Newkirk's arm shaking against his back as he steered him into one of the dive bars Lebeau had previously been particularly anxious to avoid. They slipped into a booth with faded, torn leather seats as Lebeau answered Newkirk's quickly shot out questions.
"Marie-Louise is well Pierre, thank you for asking. The boys keep her busy, as they do me. I am also occupied with the restaurant, we have expanded recently and business is booming," Lebeau found himself rambling about the many thing that had kept him busy over the past few years, he found himself needing to convince Newkirk how extremely busy he had been, how occupied, how distracted, until eventually he trailed off and looked Newkirk in the eyes, "I am sorry Pierre. I am sorry that I have not kept in touch, that I have not visited. That I have not been here for you…"
Newkirk, who had been grinning and nodding along at Lebeau's stories, sat back in his chair as Lebeau fell silent. His face fell, and a dark, suspicious light entered his eyes.
"Here for me?" he asked, his dangerous tone undercut by the continuous shaking of his entire body, "Why exactly would I need you here for me Lebeau?"
Again, Lebeau found himself at a loss for words. He knew his friend, or at least he thought he did, and he knew that Newkirk was not one to look for help or sympathy. The whole reason he had come to this street in the first place had been to find and help Newkirk. If he alienated his friend by saying the wrong thing, he might never get the chance again…
But he had stayed silent too long. Newkirk had drawn back even further against his seat, and Lebeau could see more clearly then how much weight his friend had lost as his ribs stuck out on his chest.
"Why are you here Lebeau?" Newkirk's voice was low and dangerous, "Why are you in London, why are you on this street? Don't tell me it was by chance, I know you got no business down here."
Startled at the sudden change in his friend's mood, Lebeau chose his words carefully. The truth seemed simplest.
"I was looking for you Pierre."
"Looking for me," Newkirk said flatly. "Who told you to find me here?"
Lebeau winced.
"Mavis asked me to find you," Lebeau answered slowly. He paused a moment before going on, "She is worried about you Pierre. She says you...left the house, and she has not seen you since."
Newkirk laughed then, a sickly laugh that Lebeau had never heard from his friend before.
"I left?" He nearly spat the words. "That what she told you? That I left? I didn't bloody leave, she bloody kicked me out. Why should I see her?"
He scoffed at the last bit, taking a swig from one of the mugs of beer the skinny bartender had dropped off a few minutes previously.
"She worries about you Pierre," Lebeau said cautiously, "You are her brother, she cares about you."
"Does she?" Newkirk rolled his eyes.
Lebeau took a deep breath. Once again, while he had anticipated a change in Newkirk, he was shocked by the depth of the darkness that seemed to have built up within his friend.
"What exactly did Mave tell you Lebeau?" Newkirk asked quietly, his eyes one the mug clenched between quivering hands, "Did she tell you why she kicked me out?"
"She told me," Lebeau answered just as quietly.
"Well then," Newkirk said, his manic eyes scanning the room, "Then you know everything then don't you."
"I know that you are hurting Pierre," Lebeau said softly, "And I think I know why. And why you cannot speak with your sister about it. This is why I should have been here. Me."
"And what would you have done Louis?" This time, there was apparent anger in Newkirk's voice. "What is so wrong with me that only you can solve it?"
"There is nothing wrong you Pierre, any more than there is anything wrong with me," Lebeau said earnestly, "But I was also there. At the end. I know what we both went through when the war ended, and I know the way that that can affect a man. It affected me. I struggled with much when I went back to France. It was Marie-Louise who made me wake up and see that life goes on, that I cannot dwell on the past. I came here to help you as she helped me. Please Pierre. It pains me to see you here, like this. Let me help."
Newkirk still stared into his mug of beer, his face tight and his grip on the mug nearly enough to stop the shaking of his hands. Lebeau waited, afraid to say more in case Newkirk had been offended. Newkirk did not respond for several moments, his eyes shifting slightly back and forth as he struggled internally. Then, suddenly, all the tightness in his body left, and he sagged back against the booth. He raised his eyes to meet Lebeau's, and there was a pain in those eyes unlike any Lebeau had seen before.
"Don't bother Louis," Newkirk choked out, "I'm too far gone. If you've talked to Mave, you know that. You know what I've done, what I am now."
"It is not to late Pierre," Lebeau interjected, "You can come back from this."
Newkirk continued as though he had not spoken.
"I couldn't take it Louis. Every night I saw it again. That last night. The gunfire, the planes, all of our friends, everyone we knew, scattered and running for their lives. The explosions...and then...when we finally made it and they were just there. Lying on the ground like they didn't matter, people running past them like they hadn't spent the last years of their life trapped in a camp saving everyone of their miserable live just to be left in the dirt like so much…I just...I can't keep seeing it. I had to make it stop."
He broke off bitterly, choking down the painful memories of their last night in Stalag 13. It was painful for Lebeau too, and he found himself taking a drink from the other, previously untouched beer on the table.
"Why us Louis?" Newkirk asked painfully, "Why did we get out? I keep asking myself again and again. I mean you, you did something with yourself, but why should I have gotten out instead of the Colonel? Or Carter, or Kinch? Or any of the others? I'm nothing. You know, Mave knows. There was no point to me coming back…"
"No Pierre," Lebeau said, startled at the dark thoughts Newkirk had voiced, "You cannot think that. Every life saved means something. Do you think the Colonel would want to see you like this? Would he want you to do this to yourself? Non! He would be ashamed to see you like this. This is not you. I cannot believe this is what you want your life to be."
"You think I don't know that?" Newkirk asked with a hint of desperation, "You think I don't know how he'd look at me? But he isn't here. And I made a mistake. And I've tried so many times to fix that but this...this stuff Louis."
Newkirk's head dropped, he leaned a skinny elbow on the table and he rested his head on it. To Lebeau, he looked like the most exhausted man in the world. Then his head came up slightly and he met Lebeau's eyes.
"This stuff is hard to kick Louis."
Lebeau could have cried, to see the look on his friends face, to see the depths to which Newkirk had sunk to in order to keep back the pain of their shared past. He reached across the table and took Newkirk's hands in his own.
"I know Pierre. I know. That is why I am here."
Lebeau took a deep breath before he spoke again.
"I want you to come home with me. I want you to come live with Marie-Louise and I. You can be an Uncle to my boys, you can work in my restaurant if you want, and you can be with people who care about you. If what you say is true, and you really want to be away from this place, I will take you as far away as I can get you."
"I don't know Louis," Newkirk said, shaking his head, "Maybe this is just meant to be…"
"Non Pierre, non!" Lebeau said fiercely, "I refuse to accept this, this is not you! I know you. You will come with me, and we will get better. We will get better together."
Newkirk looked at Lebeau for a long moment. Then, just for a second, his expression lightened and he chuckled just as Lebeau remembered from before the war ended.
"Alright alright," he said, nodding and chuckling, "I should've known you'd be the one to come drag me out again Louis. Besides, you're the only one left whoever really knew me."
Lebeau smiled hesitantly.
"You will go then?"
"Yeah Louis, I'll come with you," Newkirk said, still somewhat hesitant, "I'm not making any promises mind. But I'll come."
Lebeau's smile deepened, and he lifted the beer to tap his glass to Newkirk's.
"Then let us go Pierre. Let us leave this place and start again."
They left the bar then, Lebeau's arm clasped around Newkirk's bony shoulder. As they walked to the end of the street, Lebeau felt Newkirk pull away slightly and begin to turn back and look over his shoulder.
"Non Pierre," he said again, pulling Newkirk around to face forward once more, "Don't look back. Look forward, to the here and now. That is what Marie-Louise used to say to me. From now on, we only look forward."
Newkirk paused and looked at Lebeau for several seconds.
"Look forward," he said quietly, "Alright."
They turned down the next street, and they didn't look back again.