Fic: "Strange Allies, Warring Hearts" - 02. The Dreamer (Webgott, NC-17)
Title : Strange Allies, Warring Hearts 2 - The Dreamer
Author : valmontheights
Rating : R
Warning : Dubious consent, mentions of alcohol abuse
Pairing : Joe Liebgott/David Kenyon Webster
Disclaimer : “Band of Brothers” is a property of HBO, and while the series itself is based on the true story of Easy Company, this story is purely a work of fiction, based on the fictionalized movieverse with no disrespect intended towards the actual people and events on which it is based.
Jesus Christ, they got me!
You’re on the dirt before you know it, sprawled on your back, limbs stuck out at awkward angles as your right leg shoots up with pain and numbness at the same time. The very next thing that enters your mind is whether or not you’re going to lose that leg, a deformity you never realized until that point that you detest beyond death itself. That’s ego talking, the vanity that comes in the same package as being born a man, and as your blood seeps to the wet earth underneath you the mortars fall suddenly silent, the screams of men killing and dying abruptly ends, and you never felt more alone or scared in all your life. It’s worse than a leg wound ought to feel. You flail your arms ineffectually, brushing only grass and the stock of your dropped rifle.
There you are at the bottom of the ditch, staring up at a cloudless grey sky, the world having shrunken in around you, and that’s when he appears. Helmet-first, stepping up onto the top of the dike without any hurry, and at first you can’t recognize his face against the sun. Then the smile materializes, flashing white teeth against dirt-specked skin, and a crimson stain blossoming from a hastily-wrapped bandage around his neck. You make out the shape of his prominent nose, the dark, thin-browed eyes, the narrowing line of his jaw. He’s still smiling, and for once it’s not the condescending smirk you’ve grown to associate with him but something else entirely, thin-lipped, like unwanted affection tempered with knowing. It’s disturbing to behold, especially being directed at you.
Joe?
He lifts his right hand-within it is clasped a gun, sure-gripped, and you can still see the smoke wafting off the muzzle. It’s pointing at you now, and you stare back as if expecting some sort of explanation, an obscure metaphor, because this is not how you remember it.
Joe?
He doesn’t move his mouth to speak, but you hear his words inside your head.
I got you, buddy…
---
Eyes flying open, everything around you shrouded in darkness, you’re forced to shut them again as the pain begins wracking your head. Goddamn gin. Hands buried to the roots of your hair, you turn on the mattress and try to wait it out, your movements limited by the naked arm heavily draped over your torso. He stirs, one dark eye cracked half-open as you rub your temples.
“What is it?” he asks lazily.
“Nothing…” you say. “Just a bad dream.”
“Hmmm…” he sounds thoroughly unconcerned. “About what?”
You sigh and roll over onto your stomach, burrowing your pounding head into the pillow. On the floor, you spot at least two empty bottles lying haphazardly, their contents no doubt spilt into your gut. “Nothing. Just go back to sleep.”
At first you think he’s let the matter drop, but mere seconds later his arm returns, slithering up your back, fingers awake as it searches out your shoulderblade. “C’mon, Web…tell me.”
“I’d rather not.”
He makes a disgruntled sort of noise and easily slides himself on top of you, his weight on your back pushing you further down into the thick mattress, thank the Krauts and their comforts. “Tell me.”
You exhale once, softly, and curl your fingers into the sheets. “Holland. I dreamt of the crossroads…and getting shot.” What else could you have said?
“Jesus,” he snorts against your bare neck. “And here I thought it was something really awful.”
Fingers scrawling unseen designs on your back, seeking out the places in your flesh where he knows he’s marked you. A bitemark on your shoulder, a red scratch of fingernails just below your nape, a deepening bruise near your hip where he held you just a little too tight. You allow him this misled indulgence, this belief that it was all necessary, that nothing else could’ve bound you to him the way he wants. In truth, you’re starting to believe that it would’ve required no more than a few words from him to reach the same outcome. But Joe doesn’t care about results. He’s all about process, about drawing out those small, significant moments until he’s sure that neither of you will ever forget it, and if that’s considered overkill then so be it. No half-measures, no second-guessing.
“Y’know, Alley came back to us with thirty-something holes in his body because all of that damn shrapnel he took,” he drones on. “Never said fuck about dreaming of it.”
“Did you ever ask him?”
“Oh yeah,” he says triumphantly. “Says he sleeps like a stone these days.”
“Then it’s not about the wound,” you mutter. “It’s something else.”
It’s about you, Joe.
“There you go again,” he says. “Dreams are dreams, professor. You have ‘em, you forget ‘em.”
Can’t do that with you. You can’t do that with me, neither.
He licks a spot at the base of your neck and you shudder, headache momentarily forgotten. This is pathetic-you’re making this so easy for him, molding yourself into what he wants you to become. Resistance never entered your mind-why fool around with the concept of injured pride when in truth you want this just as much as he does?
“How many…” you say throatily. “How many bottles did we go through?”
How many times did you fuck me?
“Shit. Can’t remember,” he drawls. Don’t care. “Plenty more where they came from, though.” This ain’t over.
Sighing, you rub your cheek against the pillow. “I know…”
Being with Joe this way takes care of many things-it alleviates your guilt, even if it doesn’t elevate you to any better place in his eyes. It answers your own thirst for touch, for attention, moments when you feel that you exist solely to absorb the pain. You’ve known since that night in Landsberg, since the spot of your blood flecking his palm, that things between the two of you would never be the same. Is it bigger, smaller, better, worse? You don’t know. You won’t know until it’s over and past you, which it must be someday, but not now. Please God not now. In the present, he answers your quiet prayer with a hand sliding underneath your body, which you lift slightly off the mattress cooperatively, allowing him free roam of your belly, which he caresses with a maddening pretense at tenderness you know won’t last, then his hand plunges down and finds its real target.
“Joe…” Stop.
“Shhhh…” he breezes softly in your ear. “Let me.” Make me.
Is there a word for this? Lurking in one of the yellowing pages of some obscure book hidden in a dusty alcove somewhere you haven’t found? If so demanded, can you explain it to anyone? Do you understand it yourself? It’s like a curse you carry, the price paid for the gift of your capable mind. You have to explain everything. You have to know why things are the way they are, lest the question preys on your mind until you have nothing left but an empty shell filled with madness. Joe doesn’t have this problem. He can live without knowing. He can live with the simple act of doing, unbothered by reason. Consequence he might think of, in one of his increasingly rare moments of sobriety and calm, but not cause. Joe already has his own cause for going to war, for killing Krauts left and right long after the rifles have been laid down. He needs no cause to fuck you raw. He only needs you to lie there and let him, and you do. Does he think of you when he does it, or does he think of merely himself and his own lust? Or does he think of the ghosts of hollow men, lying dead by the hundreds, beyond being assuaged by any form of liberation your great army can deliver? You can only imagine what it did to Joe, but what it did to you was shatter the illusion that you could make things right. These people, killed without reason save for the blood that ran through their veins, untermensch, denied the right to exist. What hope did you have of alleviating their sorrow, when you could barely look them in the eyes?
Disillusion. Dissolution. Now there’s a word. Dissolve. Becoming liquid and shapeless. You’re reminded of the snow melting into the Moder river seen from the wrought-iron balconies of Haguenau. It slushed and frothed, clinging feebly to the banks before being swept along with the water and the coming of spring. Now it’s you who’s dissolving, underneath Joe, into him, for him, with him. If this is about give and take, then who’s giving and who’s taking? Do either of you care? He’s grunting, moving in and out of you, mouthing coarse ”David”s into your ear as if to imply something you don’t already know. You move with him, not because it hurts less that way but because it feels so much better, whatever twisted definition of ‘better’ resides in your mind now. Your name on his lips, soiled and dirtied, and fuck if you’ve ever been as turned on as you are now. Boundaries inevitably bend and expand, like a fault of learning, a price of knowing. It’s complicated enough without Joe being there, because with him you tend to abandon reason altogether. Something in him has changed you, somewhere between sardonic smiles and shared cigarettes and his endless mocking, drawing vague shapes behind your eyes.
“David…”
He has a husky voice, throaty, words spoken from a deep rumble in his chest. It’s a small comfort for you, knowing that he doesn’t dream himself into a different bed with a different person. It’s you he wants, you he takes. His hand finds yours and soon your fingers are laced together, tight and bent at the knuckles, anchoring your bodies together as he leverages himself for the home stretch. You’ve already lost yourself into his hand moments ago, whimpering unintelligible words into muffling cotton. Come on, Joe. And why the word come? It implies arrival, followed immediately by leaving. An abrupt end. Climax. Except climax implies satisfaction, and that isn’t always the case. He rakes his teeth down your neck as the moment approaches, and bruises your hand in his grip when it happens. Exhausted, he rolls off you with only half the grace of the reverse gesture not ten minutes ago. Even so you still feel the weight of him on your body, the heat, the aching, the newly-vacated place in your body where everything is still throbbing from aftershocks. The mattress shifts and now it’s his back pressing against your side, thank you very much, all done for tonight and let’s do this again sometime.
Yeah, Joe. Let’s.
You wonder if you’ll dream of him again this time. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll smile down at you from the dike and you’ll be able to smile back. Maybe you’ll feel relief and not terror, and maybe this time you’ll know it’s him before you even see him. Or maybe the skies will open up and rain will come down on you both, washing the blood and dirt away. And there you’ll be, staring at the barrel of the gun in his hand, no longer questioning his presence there and relieved of your need for things to make sense. It’ll be no more than a lapse, a detour to a place where a soldier’s mind shouldn’t go, but you’re even less of a soldier now than you were before you signed up, just a man in a worn uniform that no longer fits his body, glory no longer a promise to you but merely a word, and not a favored one at that. With that in mind, maybe you’ll dream of words instead, see them fade in and fade out in dizzying succession, as you search for the right one to define what goes on between David Kenyon Webster and Joseph Liebgott.
You think too much.
Of course you do. It’s the only thing left to you now.
---
Space on the deuce-and-a-half was tight, most of it taken up by crates upon crates of Goering’s liquor, some bottles lodged firmly in gritty yet jubilant hands. Spoils of war. The rightful reward for an army that conquered the very heart of evil. Is that true, and do you believe it? You’re squeezed in between Malarkey and Liebgott, your pack shoved under the seat, full of your Berchtesgaden loot as the convoy trundles into Austria. The men are singing, smoking, chatting, enjoying the sights. The war is over, and surrounded by these beautiful green hills and snow-capped mountains, it’s not hard to believe. The sunlight stroking your face makes you almost forget about the soreness of your body, the pain in your every joint, the ache visited upon you by the simple act of sitting down. Beside you, the culprit is grinning as he fishes in his pocket for a pack of Luckies. You return the smile half-heartedly and ask for a cigarette, which he generously supplies. He also lights it for you, a hand expertly shading the fire from the wind, fingers scraping your cheek. You pull back, your murmured thanks greeted with his signature wink as you wonder about the moment that just passed, the brief touch, the concession to human kindness you’ve often witnessed in him. Does it mean anything to him at all? Because fuck it, Webster, you’re the one with the big ideas and big words in your head, you’re the one whose need to know often leaves you blindsided by the things that really matter.
You’re full of shit, you know that?
Maybe. Or maybe you’re just full of dreams.
---
In 1867, King Ludwig II of Bavaria was twenty-one years old. His first three years on the throne had been marked with troubles: the scandal of his friendship with the flamboyant composer Richard Wagner, Bavaria’s humiliating defeat in the Seven Weeks’ War, and the mounting scrutiny of Ludwig’s own personal life. Concerned rumblings grew over Ludwig’s dislike of his capital, Munich, his dereliction of his royal duties, and his fondness for the escapism of theater. Many hoped that he would soon marry and settle down, devoting himself to the business of ruling and producing an heir, but there had never been any real gossip connecting Ludwig to a feminine interest or, indeed, even the slightest public hint that he was susceptible to feminine charms. Not only was Ludwig plagued with doubts about his own sexuality, but he also suffered from an abnormal degree of self-conscious dignity. As sovereign, he carefully hid his emotions from prying eyes behind an impenetrable reserve. This shyness extended even to his own family: He never forgot that he was king, and could not break down the emotional barriers which separated the romantic, ritualistic and regal from the harsher realities of the world. He found it nearly impossible to honestly share his own feelings or emotions, or treat his relatives as equal.
Ludwig was in love with ideals, not people. He would become enraptured with someone-a performer on stage, a nobleman, a peasant, or someone who inspired in him the thought of pure beauty and grace he so adored, and would shower them with gifts, praise and favors. In forming these relationships, he would often work himself into feverish devotion, writing page after page of letters directed towards his objects of affection filled with florid sentiments. His obsessive, almost overwhelming love was total, and in return he expected the same kind of complete devotion, body and soul. This was the love Ludwig saw idealized in Wagner’s operas and old Teutonic legends, love that was pure and chivalrous and true, the love of an age long gone. Inevitably, none of his acquaintances managed to live up to such expectations, levied upon them by a dreamer King lost in the ideas of yesterday. Whenever that happened, Ludwig would become disillusioned and cut that person off from his life completely, often to the extent of having them expelled from his capital. He could not understand that someone he loved might harbor similar feelings for someone else other than him, and the merest hint of betrayal-real or imagined-was enough to alienate even the most intimate of friends from his affections.
The failure of his engagement to Princess Sophie, younger sister of Empress Elizabeth of Austria, his favourite cousin, had a profound effect on Ludwig. Increasingly, he came to regard the crown as a burden and sought to relieve himself of its bonds through his own fantasies. His disastrous attempt at marriage left him with no doubt as to where his desires truly lay, and his answer to all of it-the duties, the ceremonies, the private feelings-was to fell into a world where there were no doubts, where he faced no dilemma. Since such a world did not exist in reality, Ludwig created his own, living a closeted, eccentric existence. His dislike of strangers, pervasive shyness, and growing disillusion caused Ludwig to purposely isolate himself from his court. His disenchantment with life had led him to misanthropic despair. He felt that no one understood him, and he in turn disliked and distrusted the world. No matter how much he tried, Ludwig could not bring himself to face the harsher realities of the nineteenth-century or his own personal desires.
With each passing week and month, each reception and court ball canceled, each public appearance delayed, and each military review postponed, it became harder and harder for Ludwig to resume his ceremonial duties as sovereign. He had purposely isolated himself in the gilded rooms of the Munich Residenz, in remote hunting lodges, and in distant Alpine castles. Now, having avoided them for so long, he found it nearly impossible to face his ministers, his court, or his subjects. Every political setback made him recoil from affairs of state, every infringement against the throne seemed a deliberate humiliation, every personal failure and impure thought drove him further inward. As the modern world became increasingly distasteful, unfriendly, less receptive to his own dreams of chivalrous knights and art and beauty, Ludwig simply avoided reality. Further and further, he drove himself into a world of isolation.
---
“You’re doing it wrong.”
“What are you talking about? I’m doing exactly like you told me.”
“No, no, no, Web. You’re supposed to do it like..this. See?”
“That’s what I’m doing!”
“No, that’s not coming out right.”
The others are watching in barely-concealed amusement as Joe, with his usual insistence, tries to teach you how to blow a ‘proper’ smoke ring. So far, you’ve managed about three or four rings you consider to be acceptable, but Joe obviously has higher standards.
“It’s gotta be perfect. Rounded. Like a gal’s titties.”
Luz snickers. “C’mon, Lieb…cut the professor some slack. S’not like our boy Webster here’s seen a lot of those.”
You growl, “Shut it Luz,” but the little man merely smirks in response.
“You listenin’ to me here? S’gotta be perfect. Try again,” Liebgott tells you.
You’re ready to let the subject rest and concede that you’ll probably never, ever blow the ‘perfect’ smoke ring, but you indulge him nonetheless. Putting the cigarette between your lips, inhaling just enough and not too much. Letting the smoke circulate in the mouth for a while, then parting your lips into just the right shape and letting the smoke out with the push of your tongue. A roughly circular shape emerges, wafting away briefly before dissolving into the clear Alpine air.
“No, no, that’s not it!”
“Joe, just forget about it, okay?”
The words are barely out of your lips when he suddenly takes hold of your chin and grips your jaw tightly.
“Joe, whadda…”
“Like this,” Joe says firmly as his fingers push and tug at your flesh, forcing your mouth into the shape he deems to be the right one. “See? You weren’t doing it right all this time.”
Fuck it, Joe. Not here.
“Ahhright, I ged it. Lemme go, please?”
“Jesus Christ, Liebgott…” Bull drawls through the cigar clenched firmly in his teeth. “Be careful. Wouldn’t wanna mess up that pretty boy face.”
You feel yourself flushing red, but Joe merely laughs as he lets you go, leaving you flexing and rubbing your sore chin. “Oh, give the man some credit, Bull…Webster here’s a right tough guy!” he flings an arm around your shoulder and squeezes a little too hard, right at the spot where he damn well knows he broke your skin with his teeth last night. “Aren’t ya, Web?”
You can only smile nervously, hiding a grimace behind your bitten tongue. The others around you, those who’ve taken to notice your little exchange, simply laugh at what they see as nothing more than good-natured ribbing. You and Joe exchange glances, his knowing and furtive, yours slightly shocked and disjointed. There’s a theme developing here-you’re the one who needs to know, but nowadays it seems like he’s the only one who actually does. Talk about life being unfair. It’s more than just the twinge in your shoulder, the bruises on your hips, or the scratches down your back. Like the leg wound nobody bothers to acknowledge, they’ve all faded into the background, their presence serving only as reminders as to what it is you’ve gotten yourself into, so willingly and thoughtlessly.
It’s not about the wound.
It’s about Joe. It always has been. Your dreams, your questions, your drinking, and good God, even your damn books. It all loops back to him somehow, like the secret you never even knew you had. But Joe isn’t a secret. At least, he’s not yours. He’s his own secret, like little complicated knots where undoing one means tying entirely new loops into another. He’s not there to be figured out, and you’re not the one to do it. It’s quite the other way around.
---
Women. Beautiful, smiling, blonde and blue-eyed women. This must be Heaven, some of the men say, standing up and ambling over to the side of the truck, careful not to topple over the crates of liquor because okay, having women to look at is great, but having booze to drink trumps it all. You stand up with everyone else and look over the side, smiling as your friends whistle and shout jubilantly at the sun-kissed frauleins who wave back from the green fields they’ve just been working on. Malarkey is beside himself with joy. “The war’s over!” he exclaims loudly, and hoots of approval go up around him. The truck turns a moment later, lurching rather violently as it does so, and you all scramble for a grip on the rails, some hovering a protectively over the liquor. Under any other circumstance you’d laugh, but at the moment you’re just trying to keep your feet under you. You start to fall back a little and there’s hand reaching out to steady you, holding firmly at your waist.
“Easy there, Web…” the familiar voice says against your ear. “I got you, buddy…”
I got you, buddy…
And of course, with perfect timing he tightens his arm across your waist and rubs against you slowly from behind, knowing how little it takes to make your cheeks flush and your heart beat faster.
Dammit, Joe…
“Looks like Austria’s gonna be a helluva fun place, huh?”
Whose fun, you’re tempted to ask. But you don’t-it affects nothing. The only thing you’re left to do is stand there with him pressed against your back, taking advantage of the others’ preoccupation with the new and exciting sights, and you feel him grinding up against you in a manner which leaves you no room to wonder about his intentions. Again, too easy. A part of you is sick at this, at your own futility when it comes to dealing with him, the way your body responds to his touch without your mind’s consent. At the same time, there’s the resigned understanding that you crossed the line a long while back and like hell is he ever gonna let you try and step back. No, Webster. Make your bed and lie in it. Why complain, at least you’ll have company. So what’s a few more nicks, scratches and bruises? They’ve all had plenty. It’s you who’s too clean, too unmessed, it’s you who weren’t there when they were freezing and dying and losing their minds. Look around you, it’s beautiful. And don’t think you can’t lose your mind in a place like this. Ludwig did.
I got you, buddy…
He always has.
If you weren’t sure before, if his behavior and drunkenness made you uncertain of where you stood, now you know it as clearly as you perceive the day in the Alpine sunlight. You love him. It will no doubt be your undoing, but you love him.
~TBC~
Author : valmontheights
Rating : R
Warning : Dubious consent, mentions of alcohol abuse
Pairing : Joe Liebgott/David Kenyon Webster
Disclaimer : “Band of Brothers” is a property of HBO, and while the series itself is based on the true story of Easy Company, this story is purely a work of fiction, based on the fictionalized movieverse with no disrespect intended towards the actual people and events on which it is based.
Jesus Christ, they got me!
You’re on the dirt before you know it, sprawled on your back, limbs stuck out at awkward angles as your right leg shoots up with pain and numbness at the same time. The very next thing that enters your mind is whether or not you’re going to lose that leg, a deformity you never realized until that point that you detest beyond death itself. That’s ego talking, the vanity that comes in the same package as being born a man, and as your blood seeps to the wet earth underneath you the mortars fall suddenly silent, the screams of men killing and dying abruptly ends, and you never felt more alone or scared in all your life. It’s worse than a leg wound ought to feel. You flail your arms ineffectually, brushing only grass and the stock of your dropped rifle.
There you are at the bottom of the ditch, staring up at a cloudless grey sky, the world having shrunken in around you, and that’s when he appears. Helmet-first, stepping up onto the top of the dike without any hurry, and at first you can’t recognize his face against the sun. Then the smile materializes, flashing white teeth against dirt-specked skin, and a crimson stain blossoming from a hastily-wrapped bandage around his neck. You make out the shape of his prominent nose, the dark, thin-browed eyes, the narrowing line of his jaw. He’s still smiling, and for once it’s not the condescending smirk you’ve grown to associate with him but something else entirely, thin-lipped, like unwanted affection tempered with knowing. It’s disturbing to behold, especially being directed at you.
Joe?
He lifts his right hand-within it is clasped a gun, sure-gripped, and you can still see the smoke wafting off the muzzle. It’s pointing at you now, and you stare back as if expecting some sort of explanation, an obscure metaphor, because this is not how you remember it.
Joe?
He doesn’t move his mouth to speak, but you hear his words inside your head.
I got you, buddy…
---
Eyes flying open, everything around you shrouded in darkness, you’re forced to shut them again as the pain begins wracking your head. Goddamn gin. Hands buried to the roots of your hair, you turn on the mattress and try to wait it out, your movements limited by the naked arm heavily draped over your torso. He stirs, one dark eye cracked half-open as you rub your temples.
“What is it?” he asks lazily.
“Nothing…” you say. “Just a bad dream.”
“Hmmm…” he sounds thoroughly unconcerned. “About what?”
You sigh and roll over onto your stomach, burrowing your pounding head into the pillow. On the floor, you spot at least two empty bottles lying haphazardly, their contents no doubt spilt into your gut. “Nothing. Just go back to sleep.”
At first you think he’s let the matter drop, but mere seconds later his arm returns, slithering up your back, fingers awake as it searches out your shoulderblade. “C’mon, Web…tell me.”
“I’d rather not.”
He makes a disgruntled sort of noise and easily slides himself on top of you, his weight on your back pushing you further down into the thick mattress, thank the Krauts and their comforts. “Tell me.”
You exhale once, softly, and curl your fingers into the sheets. “Holland. I dreamt of the crossroads…and getting shot.” What else could you have said?
“Jesus,” he snorts against your bare neck. “And here I thought it was something really awful.”
Fingers scrawling unseen designs on your back, seeking out the places in your flesh where he knows he’s marked you. A bitemark on your shoulder, a red scratch of fingernails just below your nape, a deepening bruise near your hip where he held you just a little too tight. You allow him this misled indulgence, this belief that it was all necessary, that nothing else could’ve bound you to him the way he wants. In truth, you’re starting to believe that it would’ve required no more than a few words from him to reach the same outcome. But Joe doesn’t care about results. He’s all about process, about drawing out those small, significant moments until he’s sure that neither of you will ever forget it, and if that’s considered overkill then so be it. No half-measures, no second-guessing.
“Y’know, Alley came back to us with thirty-something holes in his body because all of that damn shrapnel he took,” he drones on. “Never said fuck about dreaming of it.”
“Did you ever ask him?”
“Oh yeah,” he says triumphantly. “Says he sleeps like a stone these days.”
“Then it’s not about the wound,” you mutter. “It’s something else.”
It’s about you, Joe.
“There you go again,” he says. “Dreams are dreams, professor. You have ‘em, you forget ‘em.”
Can’t do that with you. You can’t do that with me, neither.
He licks a spot at the base of your neck and you shudder, headache momentarily forgotten. This is pathetic-you’re making this so easy for him, molding yourself into what he wants you to become. Resistance never entered your mind-why fool around with the concept of injured pride when in truth you want this just as much as he does?
“How many…” you say throatily. “How many bottles did we go through?”
How many times did you fuck me?
“Shit. Can’t remember,” he drawls. Don’t care. “Plenty more where they came from, though.” This ain’t over.
Sighing, you rub your cheek against the pillow. “I know…”
Being with Joe this way takes care of many things-it alleviates your guilt, even if it doesn’t elevate you to any better place in his eyes. It answers your own thirst for touch, for attention, moments when you feel that you exist solely to absorb the pain. You’ve known since that night in Landsberg, since the spot of your blood flecking his palm, that things between the two of you would never be the same. Is it bigger, smaller, better, worse? You don’t know. You won’t know until it’s over and past you, which it must be someday, but not now. Please God not now. In the present, he answers your quiet prayer with a hand sliding underneath your body, which you lift slightly off the mattress cooperatively, allowing him free roam of your belly, which he caresses with a maddening pretense at tenderness you know won’t last, then his hand plunges down and finds its real target.
“Joe…” Stop.
“Shhhh…” he breezes softly in your ear. “Let me.” Make me.
Is there a word for this? Lurking in one of the yellowing pages of some obscure book hidden in a dusty alcove somewhere you haven’t found? If so demanded, can you explain it to anyone? Do you understand it yourself? It’s like a curse you carry, the price paid for the gift of your capable mind. You have to explain everything. You have to know why things are the way they are, lest the question preys on your mind until you have nothing left but an empty shell filled with madness. Joe doesn’t have this problem. He can live without knowing. He can live with the simple act of doing, unbothered by reason. Consequence he might think of, in one of his increasingly rare moments of sobriety and calm, but not cause. Joe already has his own cause for going to war, for killing Krauts left and right long after the rifles have been laid down. He needs no cause to fuck you raw. He only needs you to lie there and let him, and you do. Does he think of you when he does it, or does he think of merely himself and his own lust? Or does he think of the ghosts of hollow men, lying dead by the hundreds, beyond being assuaged by any form of liberation your great army can deliver? You can only imagine what it did to Joe, but what it did to you was shatter the illusion that you could make things right. These people, killed without reason save for the blood that ran through their veins, untermensch, denied the right to exist. What hope did you have of alleviating their sorrow, when you could barely look them in the eyes?
Disillusion. Dissolution. Now there’s a word. Dissolve. Becoming liquid and shapeless. You’re reminded of the snow melting into the Moder river seen from the wrought-iron balconies of Haguenau. It slushed and frothed, clinging feebly to the banks before being swept along with the water and the coming of spring. Now it’s you who’s dissolving, underneath Joe, into him, for him, with him. If this is about give and take, then who’s giving and who’s taking? Do either of you care? He’s grunting, moving in and out of you, mouthing coarse ”David”s into your ear as if to imply something you don’t already know. You move with him, not because it hurts less that way but because it feels so much better, whatever twisted definition of ‘better’ resides in your mind now. Your name on his lips, soiled and dirtied, and fuck if you’ve ever been as turned on as you are now. Boundaries inevitably bend and expand, like a fault of learning, a price of knowing. It’s complicated enough without Joe being there, because with him you tend to abandon reason altogether. Something in him has changed you, somewhere between sardonic smiles and shared cigarettes and his endless mocking, drawing vague shapes behind your eyes.
“David…”
He has a husky voice, throaty, words spoken from a deep rumble in his chest. It’s a small comfort for you, knowing that he doesn’t dream himself into a different bed with a different person. It’s you he wants, you he takes. His hand finds yours and soon your fingers are laced together, tight and bent at the knuckles, anchoring your bodies together as he leverages himself for the home stretch. You’ve already lost yourself into his hand moments ago, whimpering unintelligible words into muffling cotton. Come on, Joe. And why the word come? It implies arrival, followed immediately by leaving. An abrupt end. Climax. Except climax implies satisfaction, and that isn’t always the case. He rakes his teeth down your neck as the moment approaches, and bruises your hand in his grip when it happens. Exhausted, he rolls off you with only half the grace of the reverse gesture not ten minutes ago. Even so you still feel the weight of him on your body, the heat, the aching, the newly-vacated place in your body where everything is still throbbing from aftershocks. The mattress shifts and now it’s his back pressing against your side, thank you very much, all done for tonight and let’s do this again sometime.
Yeah, Joe. Let’s.
You wonder if you’ll dream of him again this time. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll smile down at you from the dike and you’ll be able to smile back. Maybe you’ll feel relief and not terror, and maybe this time you’ll know it’s him before you even see him. Or maybe the skies will open up and rain will come down on you both, washing the blood and dirt away. And there you’ll be, staring at the barrel of the gun in his hand, no longer questioning his presence there and relieved of your need for things to make sense. It’ll be no more than a lapse, a detour to a place where a soldier’s mind shouldn’t go, but you’re even less of a soldier now than you were before you signed up, just a man in a worn uniform that no longer fits his body, glory no longer a promise to you but merely a word, and not a favored one at that. With that in mind, maybe you’ll dream of words instead, see them fade in and fade out in dizzying succession, as you search for the right one to define what goes on between David Kenyon Webster and Joseph Liebgott.
You think too much.
Of course you do. It’s the only thing left to you now.
---
Space on the deuce-and-a-half was tight, most of it taken up by crates upon crates of Goering’s liquor, some bottles lodged firmly in gritty yet jubilant hands. Spoils of war. The rightful reward for an army that conquered the very heart of evil. Is that true, and do you believe it? You’re squeezed in between Malarkey and Liebgott, your pack shoved under the seat, full of your Berchtesgaden loot as the convoy trundles into Austria. The men are singing, smoking, chatting, enjoying the sights. The war is over, and surrounded by these beautiful green hills and snow-capped mountains, it’s not hard to believe. The sunlight stroking your face makes you almost forget about the soreness of your body, the pain in your every joint, the ache visited upon you by the simple act of sitting down. Beside you, the culprit is grinning as he fishes in his pocket for a pack of Luckies. You return the smile half-heartedly and ask for a cigarette, which he generously supplies. He also lights it for you, a hand expertly shading the fire from the wind, fingers scraping your cheek. You pull back, your murmured thanks greeted with his signature wink as you wonder about the moment that just passed, the brief touch, the concession to human kindness you’ve often witnessed in him. Does it mean anything to him at all? Because fuck it, Webster, you’re the one with the big ideas and big words in your head, you’re the one whose need to know often leaves you blindsided by the things that really matter.
You’re full of shit, you know that?
Maybe. Or maybe you’re just full of dreams.
---
In 1867, King Ludwig II of Bavaria was twenty-one years old. His first three years on the throne had been marked with troubles: the scandal of his friendship with the flamboyant composer Richard Wagner, Bavaria’s humiliating defeat in the Seven Weeks’ War, and the mounting scrutiny of Ludwig’s own personal life. Concerned rumblings grew over Ludwig’s dislike of his capital, Munich, his dereliction of his royal duties, and his fondness for the escapism of theater. Many hoped that he would soon marry and settle down, devoting himself to the business of ruling and producing an heir, but there had never been any real gossip connecting Ludwig to a feminine interest or, indeed, even the slightest public hint that he was susceptible to feminine charms. Not only was Ludwig plagued with doubts about his own sexuality, but he also suffered from an abnormal degree of self-conscious dignity. As sovereign, he carefully hid his emotions from prying eyes behind an impenetrable reserve. This shyness extended even to his own family: He never forgot that he was king, and could not break down the emotional barriers which separated the romantic, ritualistic and regal from the harsher realities of the world. He found it nearly impossible to honestly share his own feelings or emotions, or treat his relatives as equal.
Ludwig was in love with ideals, not people. He would become enraptured with someone-a performer on stage, a nobleman, a peasant, or someone who inspired in him the thought of pure beauty and grace he so adored, and would shower them with gifts, praise and favors. In forming these relationships, he would often work himself into feverish devotion, writing page after page of letters directed towards his objects of affection filled with florid sentiments. His obsessive, almost overwhelming love was total, and in return he expected the same kind of complete devotion, body and soul. This was the love Ludwig saw idealized in Wagner’s operas and old Teutonic legends, love that was pure and chivalrous and true, the love of an age long gone. Inevitably, none of his acquaintances managed to live up to such expectations, levied upon them by a dreamer King lost in the ideas of yesterday. Whenever that happened, Ludwig would become disillusioned and cut that person off from his life completely, often to the extent of having them expelled from his capital. He could not understand that someone he loved might harbor similar feelings for someone else other than him, and the merest hint of betrayal-real or imagined-was enough to alienate even the most intimate of friends from his affections.
The failure of his engagement to Princess Sophie, younger sister of Empress Elizabeth of Austria, his favourite cousin, had a profound effect on Ludwig. Increasingly, he came to regard the crown as a burden and sought to relieve himself of its bonds through his own fantasies. His disastrous attempt at marriage left him with no doubt as to where his desires truly lay, and his answer to all of it-the duties, the ceremonies, the private feelings-was to fell into a world where there were no doubts, where he faced no dilemma. Since such a world did not exist in reality, Ludwig created his own, living a closeted, eccentric existence. His dislike of strangers, pervasive shyness, and growing disillusion caused Ludwig to purposely isolate himself from his court. His disenchantment with life had led him to misanthropic despair. He felt that no one understood him, and he in turn disliked and distrusted the world. No matter how much he tried, Ludwig could not bring himself to face the harsher realities of the nineteenth-century or his own personal desires.
With each passing week and month, each reception and court ball canceled, each public appearance delayed, and each military review postponed, it became harder and harder for Ludwig to resume his ceremonial duties as sovereign. He had purposely isolated himself in the gilded rooms of the Munich Residenz, in remote hunting lodges, and in distant Alpine castles. Now, having avoided them for so long, he found it nearly impossible to face his ministers, his court, or his subjects. Every political setback made him recoil from affairs of state, every infringement against the throne seemed a deliberate humiliation, every personal failure and impure thought drove him further inward. As the modern world became increasingly distasteful, unfriendly, less receptive to his own dreams of chivalrous knights and art and beauty, Ludwig simply avoided reality. Further and further, he drove himself into a world of isolation.
---
“You’re doing it wrong.”
“What are you talking about? I’m doing exactly like you told me.”
“No, no, no, Web. You’re supposed to do it like..this. See?”
“That’s what I’m doing!”
“No, that’s not coming out right.”
The others are watching in barely-concealed amusement as Joe, with his usual insistence, tries to teach you how to blow a ‘proper’ smoke ring. So far, you’ve managed about three or four rings you consider to be acceptable, but Joe obviously has higher standards.
“It’s gotta be perfect. Rounded. Like a gal’s titties.”
Luz snickers. “C’mon, Lieb…cut the professor some slack. S’not like our boy Webster here’s seen a lot of those.”
You growl, “Shut it Luz,” but the little man merely smirks in response.
“You listenin’ to me here? S’gotta be perfect. Try again,” Liebgott tells you.
You’re ready to let the subject rest and concede that you’ll probably never, ever blow the ‘perfect’ smoke ring, but you indulge him nonetheless. Putting the cigarette between your lips, inhaling just enough and not too much. Letting the smoke circulate in the mouth for a while, then parting your lips into just the right shape and letting the smoke out with the push of your tongue. A roughly circular shape emerges, wafting away briefly before dissolving into the clear Alpine air.
“No, no, that’s not it!”
“Joe, just forget about it, okay?”
The words are barely out of your lips when he suddenly takes hold of your chin and grips your jaw tightly.
“Joe, whadda…”
“Like this,” Joe says firmly as his fingers push and tug at your flesh, forcing your mouth into the shape he deems to be the right one. “See? You weren’t doing it right all this time.”
Fuck it, Joe. Not here.
“Ahhright, I ged it. Lemme go, please?”
“Jesus Christ, Liebgott…” Bull drawls through the cigar clenched firmly in his teeth. “Be careful. Wouldn’t wanna mess up that pretty boy face.”
You feel yourself flushing red, but Joe merely laughs as he lets you go, leaving you flexing and rubbing your sore chin. “Oh, give the man some credit, Bull…Webster here’s a right tough guy!” he flings an arm around your shoulder and squeezes a little too hard, right at the spot where he damn well knows he broke your skin with his teeth last night. “Aren’t ya, Web?”
You can only smile nervously, hiding a grimace behind your bitten tongue. The others around you, those who’ve taken to notice your little exchange, simply laugh at what they see as nothing more than good-natured ribbing. You and Joe exchange glances, his knowing and furtive, yours slightly shocked and disjointed. There’s a theme developing here-you’re the one who needs to know, but nowadays it seems like he’s the only one who actually does. Talk about life being unfair. It’s more than just the twinge in your shoulder, the bruises on your hips, or the scratches down your back. Like the leg wound nobody bothers to acknowledge, they’ve all faded into the background, their presence serving only as reminders as to what it is you’ve gotten yourself into, so willingly and thoughtlessly.
It’s not about the wound.
It’s about Joe. It always has been. Your dreams, your questions, your drinking, and good God, even your damn books. It all loops back to him somehow, like the secret you never even knew you had. But Joe isn’t a secret. At least, he’s not yours. He’s his own secret, like little complicated knots where undoing one means tying entirely new loops into another. He’s not there to be figured out, and you’re not the one to do it. It’s quite the other way around.
---
Women. Beautiful, smiling, blonde and blue-eyed women. This must be Heaven, some of the men say, standing up and ambling over to the side of the truck, careful not to topple over the crates of liquor because okay, having women to look at is great, but having booze to drink trumps it all. You stand up with everyone else and look over the side, smiling as your friends whistle and shout jubilantly at the sun-kissed frauleins who wave back from the green fields they’ve just been working on. Malarkey is beside himself with joy. “The war’s over!” he exclaims loudly, and hoots of approval go up around him. The truck turns a moment later, lurching rather violently as it does so, and you all scramble for a grip on the rails, some hovering a protectively over the liquor. Under any other circumstance you’d laugh, but at the moment you’re just trying to keep your feet under you. You start to fall back a little and there’s hand reaching out to steady you, holding firmly at your waist.
“Easy there, Web…” the familiar voice says against your ear. “I got you, buddy…”
I got you, buddy…
And of course, with perfect timing he tightens his arm across your waist and rubs against you slowly from behind, knowing how little it takes to make your cheeks flush and your heart beat faster.
Dammit, Joe…
“Looks like Austria’s gonna be a helluva fun place, huh?”
Whose fun, you’re tempted to ask. But you don’t-it affects nothing. The only thing you’re left to do is stand there with him pressed against your back, taking advantage of the others’ preoccupation with the new and exciting sights, and you feel him grinding up against you in a manner which leaves you no room to wonder about his intentions. Again, too easy. A part of you is sick at this, at your own futility when it comes to dealing with him, the way your body responds to his touch without your mind’s consent. At the same time, there’s the resigned understanding that you crossed the line a long while back and like hell is he ever gonna let you try and step back. No, Webster. Make your bed and lie in it. Why complain, at least you’ll have company. So what’s a few more nicks, scratches and bruises? They’ve all had plenty. It’s you who’s too clean, too unmessed, it’s you who weren’t there when they were freezing and dying and losing their minds. Look around you, it’s beautiful. And don’t think you can’t lose your mind in a place like this. Ludwig did.
I got you, buddy…
He always has.
If you weren’t sure before, if his behavior and drunkenness made you uncertain of where you stood, now you know it as clearly as you perceive the day in the Alpine sunlight. You love him. It will no doubt be your undoing, but you love him.
~TBC~