(Untitled)

[niceofyoutoask]

Carwood Lipton was unsettled.
He eyed the bookshelf, and the variety of titles displayed, and his mouth set in a thin line of irritation.

It wasn’t so much that the bookcase was eager to provide him with titles like United States Army Logistics: The Normandy Invasion, 1944 and Manufacturing Systems Engineering: A Unified Approach to Manufacturing

Comments

[remnantofjoseph]

It isn't unusual to come across people staring at the shelves like that, though Joe tries to take everything they give him in stride. Half the time, what the shelf probably finds ironic or stinging turns out to be useful (articles on the future of prosthesis), or disturbing enough that all he can do is laugh (articles from the future on amputee fetishists). Mostly, he's learned not to be picky about what he reads, pulling books on everything from origami to oceanography just to pass the time.

Coming up beside Lipton with more of a limp than a walk, today, Joe eyes the current shuffle of spines with muted interest, muttering a rough greeting. "I've got some books back at the house, if people picking apart everything we did ain't what you're into."

[niceofyoutoask]

Lipton turned slightly to give Joe a welcoming nod as he came to stand beside him. "Yeah," He said after a moment of further perusal of the offered booktitles. "That'd be good, thanks."

There was something about the idea of reading a book about the war that made Lipton's skin crawl. It might be that he never finished living through it (as he was assured that he did), or just that he was far too involved in the subject to be able to read about it objectively. He knew that they had won, and that was enough for now. He didn't want to know what historians sixty years in the future had deemed right or wrong, didn't want to know what retrospective opinion was.

As for reading the industry books, well... He'd been a machinest's apprentice before the war, and of all the things at home he wanted to be reminded about, work wasn't particularly one of them.

"How'd you manage to find some actually worth reading?"

[remnantofjoseph]

"Combination of not giving a shit and not having hangups about my job," he shoots back, giving Lipton a cursory amount of shit.

Under his own hands and gaze, the shelf likes to shuffle in plenty about the Bulge, with auspicious and inviting titles about roads to Hell; but it's just as likely weave in journals on polio or questionable magazines full of barely dressed men. Better, then, that he not stick around and end up with one in his hands. Pivoting on his good leg, he rolls one shoulder and jerks his head toward the door, walking toward it. "Honestly, half the things are shit Gene found. He likes this place and it likes him right back, I guess."

[niceofyoutoask]

Lipton shook his head good-naturedly, amused and expecting nothing less from Joe Toye. He'd had it coming.

It wasn't hard to turn his back on the bookshelf, having had enough of it for one day, if not a month. Besides, it wasn't as if going without something to read was the biggest sacrifice he'd ever made.

He followed Joe towards the door, starting to get used to the other man's uneven gait. "How's it like you?"

[remnantofjoseph]

It isn't the sort of unintentionally loaded question he's used to getting from his company, by now, but Joe still finds it hard to answer. Least of all because the island isn't exactly an open book. He's happy as he ever is, he has to admit, but between certain film reels and waking up a woman, he isn't sure how much that counts.

But isn't he just the type to give everyone he loves their fair amount of shit? "It likes to fuck with me, I guess is how I'd put it. For all I know, it's pulling my goddamn pigtails."

[niceofyoutoask]

"This island? You're probably right on it being sweet on you."

Lipton had no idea how much the island did or didn't like him. He hadn't been here long enough for any of the really goddamn weird stuff to have affected him personally. He wasn't keen on experiencing any of it, but was sure it was probably inevitable.

He wanted to ask how Toye and Roe having their own place was working out, but couldn't think of a way to ask that didn't seem like it was infringing on their privacy. He'd never spoken to either of them about the fact that they were together, but after walking in on Webster and Liebgott kissing like it was going out of fashion, it wasn't as much of a surprise as it might have been. It had shocked the hell out of him at the time, that any of the boys might be into that sort of thing, but what it had come down to was that he cared about Easy more than he did about who they slept with. So he didn't mention it, knowing they'd know by the fact he treated them like he always did that he didn't hold it against them.

[remnantofjoseph]

"Well, that raises the count to two," he says with a snort, not quite meeting Lipton's gaze after the words tumble out. He honestly doesn't know what the boys who weren't around for that fateful breakfast know. That he and Gene live together isn't a secret, but they haven't spread word around, and it's not like anybody's asking him if they can pass it on. At this point, he doesn't really care, as long as he never has to have another fight like the ones he had with Bill.

[niceofyoutoask]

"Not a bad count, Joe." Lipton teased with a smile. "Some guys don't even have one, and you lucky S.O.B. have two." It'd been more of a read-between-the-lines situation that had led to Lipton realizing that Joe and Roe were together than anything else. God knew the boys could gossip like there was no tomorrow, espeically about sweethearts, but they'd been suspiciously silent about what Joe and Roe had gotten up to on the romance front, even as they told him all about Babe and Luz's conquests, and the female 'friends' of the rest. Once he'd discovered the reason for the silence on Webster and Liebgott, and heard that Toye and Roe had moved in together, two and two had been put together to get homosexual relationship.

Lipton was observant and genuinely cared about the men he'd served with, but he knew that didn't mean he had a right to intrude on their personal lives, especially this far from the E.T.O. But there was curiousness, and concern, and, well, friendship.