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bofbfanatics · 8 days ago

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Winner Of The June Bofb

Fanatics Writer Comp

@ihearteugeneroe ❤︎❤︎❤︎

Poll Prompt ➣ What Was Never Said.

Required Pairing ➣ Any.

Required Quote ➣ “How was I supposed to know I’d never see you again.”

Word Count ➣ 1k-5k

Possibility • Webgott

by blood and by me, i’ll fall when you leave

There is a thick and heavy silence that follows David Webster like a dog, incessant in its whining for attention. He never minded the quiet all that much until Joseph Liebgott had made it his mission to abolish it at any chance possible. And now, stuck in Europe with too few credits to return home, he has no choice but to stand at a wooden dock and prepare himself for the goodbye he knew was coming for weeks. That doesn’t make it any easier.

“Fucking finally, can’t wait to get out of here,” the gravelly voice beside him mutters. He ignores the undertone of sadness; if he lingers on it for too long, Web will convince himself to write weekly letters when he was told to do all but that.

“I’m jealous, truly.” His reply is hollow, adjacent to the gnawing tug in his chest.

“Oh, I bet. You’d love to get out of anything.” Liebgott gives him a sidelong glare that challenges him to keep going with that thought, a silent dare. David is too exhausted to feed into it, a rare occurrence.

He hums in a simple, muted agreement. Joe stands with his army duffel slung heavily over his shoulder, posture suffering as a result, and staring out into the ocean. Web isn’t sure whether he should absorb the man for as long as time allows or chastise himself to make it hurt less in the long run. He settles on glancing up from his own feet in small bursts of courage yet refuses to meet eyes. The sunrise creeps above the horizon and casts a golden and beautiful light on the two of them. Joe looks breathtaking, angelic with his clean-pressed uniform and steel-cut eyes. David’s heart pounds in his ribcage while his throat itches, fingers instantly digging into his pocket for cigarettes.

Offering one to Liebgott, he grabs one for himself and sparks it with his metal Zippo before starting up the other man's. A harsh inhale of smoke relaxes his nerves as he mulls over what to say. The atypical lack of conversation became rapidly unnerving; Joe must not be able to find anything to say either. That is especially concerning since he is always the one physically unable to let the peace persist too long.

“So… The Pacific, huh?” He predictably comments around the smoke dangling between his lips. Liebgott doesn’t look at him when he speaks.

“Yup, seems like it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll end before I’m supposed to ship out.” Web doesn’t bother masking the gloom between his words. Joe winces.

“Hopefully,” he mumbles. David peeks at him, and there’s that line between thin eyebrows, always appearing when something displeases him to the right degree. He wishes that he could read his mind for the millionth time.

Conversation dies again while they inhale tobacco side-by-side in joint bitterness, admiring the slow rise of the burning sun. Or rather, cursing it, in David’s case. The war should be finished by this point. The Nazi’s were defeated, why couldn’t the Japanese give it up? Such a suicidal enemy deeply disturbed him, all for an immensely worthless cause. A sigh rattles out from him before it can be suppressed, while Joe turns to examine him with a frown. Something akin to pity glimmers behind the dark oak of his irises and he loathes it, rolling his bright cerulean in reply. Liebgott huffs under his breath before he flicks the butt end of his cigarette into the swirling ocean water. David grimaces before punching him in his thin arm with only half-strength.

“Asshole. Some fish could eat that and die, you know.” He can’t help hissing out, hardly restraining himself from jumping in to grab the clump of ash and paper. All he’s met with is a smug grin and a shrug of nonchalance.

“Okay? Easy dinner for a bird when it floats to the top. Survival of the fittest.” Joe replies and studies Web openly in that uncaring way he adopted since they began this strange relationship. If only he could convince himself to hate it.

“God, I can’t wait to be free from your idiotic ways of thinking,” David scoffs out before thinking better of it. The consequence hits him in the face when Liebgott visibly sours and shifts a step away.

“Yeah, tell me about it. I feel the same way.” Webster rocks forward and backward on his feet while Joe’s reply soaks in. This is going all wrong; he begins to hate himself over that fact. The right words always came at the wrong time and the wrong words at the right time. It must be some sort of eternal punishment for a wrongdoing he is unfamiliar with. Actually, this very wrongdoing could be kicking dirt around right next to him.

“Glad it’s mutual.” He curses himself with a lack of readable expression. Liebgott must see some shift though, because his frown deepens significantly, but Web ignores any sort of implication it may have. There is no choice besides survival, and he must accomplish this without Joe. He cannot forget the importance of that very fact.

Joe will return to San Francisco, marry a beautiful Jewish woman, have children, and forget about the odd fling he had with some nobody in the Army during his years at war when he got desperate. David may rot away on an island in the Pacific or perhaps return to Harvard, pursue some pre-war dreams he hardly has for himself, and pretend that he didn’t fall in love at the worst time with the wrong person. No matter what happens to him, Liebgott will follow him for eternity. Try as he might to claw his way to an escape, he may never know true peace of mind again.

When he peers over at the brunette, all he sees is a war-hardened and stunning individual, perfect with his dirty hands and soft lips. He needs to touch him, to remind them this isn’t quite over yet, even when it certainly is. Webster’s chest aches when his fingers fall short and run back to his pockets in fear, where Joe stares at him as if he had just twisted his arm in the opposite direction.

Don’t go, he nearly whispers, I can’t live without you. Blood fills his dry mouth when teeth gnaw open his inner cheek. Joe, I need you. Please don’t leave me. David’s eyes begin to water and he takes a sharp, quick breath to stabilize. I’m scared. Just stay with me. I love you more than anything.

Liebgott holds out his empty hand with a sorrowful avoidance of eye contact. Like he understood perfectly well what Web had been thinking, when their palms slide against each other, his handshake is firm and warm. They stay holding each other’s clammy hands for too long, dropping when a chattering group of men approaches to board the ship.

“I’ll catch you later, Web.” His voice thickens with an emotion that can’t be placed. Web’s heart attempts to crawl out of his chest to its true owner, unsuccessful in the endeavor.

“Yeah. Goodbye, Lieb.” Full of sorrow, the three words are weightless as they leave his mouth. He’d do anything for one more kiss, one more minute, one more anything. A loud honk of the boat horn nearly startles him, but signals they’ve begun boarding, so Joe finally turns away. It’ll be the last time he sees his face in a long, indiscernible amount of time. Months, years, decades. Perhaps ever, if he gets sent back into war to face enemies that sacrifice themselves willingly.

The thin outline of his back under their uniform shrinks while David doesn’t tear his eyes away. Fear, desperation, and grief bubble up in his gut and grow into a pounding headache. He tears in half with wobbly knees and refrains from calling out the remaining weights in his mind.

I miss you already, mein liebling. Maybe in another life, the world will not be so cruel to us.

If Joe had known this would be his last chance to ever look David in those begging eyes, maybe it could’ve gone differently. Maybe they would share a hug, even a selfish kiss if they got lucky. But he didn’t. The last shreds of intimacy were shared in a dank hotel room in the German countryside. Joe didn’t know that he went missing out in the sea until those unanswered letters stopped flooding his mailbox. And David would never know how intensely he haunted Liebgott, a ghost from his past that never extinguished. It wasn’t his fault that he got too scared to answer those letters, afraid of what feelings mutual contact would conjure. Now, he had nothing. No Webster to send him countless sentences littered with dying hope of meeting again, nothing to pathetically hold onto. Just thinly scribbled words with half-hidden meanings. Poems he didn’t quite fully understand. All from a lover who no longer exists and hardly had in the past couple years.

So tell me

When you hear my heart stop

You’re the only one who knows

Tell me when you hear my silence

There’s a possibility

I wouldn’t know

Forever thinking of you, David Kenyon Webster

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