A little drabble about Liebgott and Webster. Slash is present in this piece, though it is not detailed. Ye be warned. This is one of plenty more to come about WEBGOTT, since I just so happen to be in love with the idea of them being together. :D It's a little rough, but I'll probably look over it and edit it later. I'll replace this version with the revised version someday. ;
Disclaimer: I hold the real men of Easy Company far from the characters that I portray in my stories and the things that happen and I write about are just my fantasies about the men present in the movie. I'm not trying to associate anything with the real men that risked their lives for the United States we lived today. All rights belong to HBO, and such along those lines. (Obviously, disclaimers are hard for me to write).
Afraid.
"Are you ever afraid?" Webster let his lips clasp around the cigarette as he planted the stick into his mouth. He sucked in lightly and let the thick smoke dance around his tongue and down his throat.
"What ya saying, Web?"
Webster formed his lips into a circle and let a blotch of smoke escape. He knew Liebgott heard what he was saying.
"Are you ever afraid." Webster brought the smoke-stick up to his lips again and turned his body so he could stare at Joe.
Joe snorted. "You're talking to a guy that decided to jump out of fucking planes, Web. What kinda question is that?" He took out a cigarette from his pocket and flicked his lighter. The orange flame burnt the tip of his tobacco wrap. Liebgott inhaled hard and flipped his lighter away. "Am I fucking afraid." He let out another snort.
Webster let his blue eyes glide over Joe's face, he let the brightness of his orbs take in Liebgott's pointy nose, dark eyes, and the slight snarl that always graced his lips. "So, you've never been afraid then?"
Liebgott shifted slightly and turned his head towards Web. "No, college boy. Never really had anything to be afraid of. Got it?"
Webster could feel the man's brown eyes burning into his. He didn't get it. He remembered how he saw all of them, all the Tocoa men sitting on the back of a truck after Bastogne their eyes glazed like they'd seen all their dead friends ghosts and their hopes and dreams in the palms of their hands shattered by German shells and artillery.
But maybe Liebgott wasn't broken then, maybe he wasn't afraid like they were.
"Malark's afraid. Luz, Lip, Winters. We all are." Webster laid back on the grass and placed his hands behind his head.
Liebgott switched his head back to where he was looking before: the Austrian night sky. "Not me."
Webster smiled slightly, the corners of his lips rising. "You're not afraid of guns, Krauts, books?"
Liebgott took another heavy huff of his cigarette and pushed the burning tip of the rest into the moist grass next to him. "Nah."
"What about death, Joe. Are you afraid of death?" Webster let his eyes trace the outline of Liebgott against the night sky, his back to him, eyes looking for something in the black of the only peace they've had the whole war.
"Never really been." Liebgott bent back onto his arms, stretching his legs out in front of him.
Webster remembered Landsberg. He remembered the silence that swept over the men when they figured any of the dead faces with empty eyes could have been Joe. He remembered the tears that painted wet trails on Liebgott's face and how afterwards he told them all that 'it just sucked, seeing his peoplel like that. That's it.'
So maybe Joe Liebgott was right about himself, maybe he wasn't afraid of anything.
Webster looked next to him to see that Liebgott had joined him on his back, hands behind his head.
"Whatta bout you Web? You've ever been afraid?" Webster watched as the man turned his head to face him. His brown eyes weren't stabbing holes into his own orbs anymore, and Web could have sworn he caught some of the vulnerable Joe that no one really got to meet for a moment.
"Yeah. I'm afraid of a lot of things. I suppose Harvard taught me that." Liebgott let the left side of his mouth rise up into a crooked smirk. He winked at Web and clicked his tongue against his teeth, which Web usually took as a good thing.
Webster sighed contently and took one last soft puff of his ciggerette, letting the short stub rub in between his lips before throwing it to his right. Next to him he felt Liebgott move. He turned his head to the left, expecting to see the soldier to be gone, since whenever Web tried to have a deep talk with Liebgott he'd either freak out or give some halfass answer before disappearing.
To his surprise, Liebgott wasn't gone and within moments he felt cold, thin lips against his. A boney hand on his hip, another clutching onto his hair and a thin frame against his, Webster pressed back against him and let his soft lips contrast against Liebgotts.
That day, in the middle of a grass plain in Austria, Joseph D. Liebgott noticed the only thing he would ever be afraid of was going home after the war and not having Webster's soft lips always there to clasp against his.