#don Malarkey angst

[ithinkabouttzu]

Hi there! I was wondering if I could request some of your amazing headcanons? How would Easy Company react to you telling them that you can't have kids/can't have a family with them? Totally okay if you don't feel comfortable with it. Thank you either way, and have a great day! 😁♥️

Easy co. reacting to you not wanting/not being able to have children.

A/n: Hi! Thank you so much for your request my love! I’m so sorry this took so long to write, but i hope you enjoy! 💝

genre: angsty, comfort to fluff!

warnings: TW: Infertility, sadness, depression, relationship difficulties, swearing.

description: Some of the men reacting to their s/o (you) not being able or not wanting to have kids.

taglist: @executethyself35 @linhkhanhcps @1waveshortofashipwreck @grumpy-liebgott @barbeygirl @samwinchesterslostshoe @ronsenthal @sweetxvanixlla @mstiemountainhop (If you want to be on this list, let me know!! :))

BoB masterlist

Dick Winters: When you break the news to him, the first thing he’s doing is making sure you are okay. It probably took a lot to tell him, especially if you and he both wanted kids. “Well, are you alright?” He might feel a little sad at first but he quickly changes his perspective on it. As long as you aren’t saddened by it then he isn’t either. Besides he knows there are probably tons of little ones in the adoption system that could use an amazing home like yours and his.

Lewis Nixon: “That’s all right, doll.” When you tell him he's very soft and understanding around you. It doesn’t bother him one bit that you can’t have kids. If you really wanted them though, he would comfort you for as long as you needed. If kids weren’t something you really wanted anyway he would still make sure and ask if you were alright. He tries his best to make some positive of the situation by saying stuff like, “Well at least we won’t be having to change blowout diapers or swim in college debt anytime soon.”

Carwood Lipton: “Oh honey, I'm sorry.” The first thing he’s doing when you tell him the news is wrapping you up in a big warm hug. Whether you wanted kids or not, he's going to be comforting you and making sure that you are okay no matter what. He would be a little sad just because he would love to have family with you, but he knows IVF and surrogacy are options also, plus adoption. If you didn’t want kids at all he would 100% support your decision, he just wants you to be happy.

Joe Toye: When you let him know that you aren’t able to have kids, he’s honestly crushed. He would never tell you that or show that to you, but he dreams of having a family with you. (Mans literally forgot adoption was a thing) He wants to console you by gifting you a bunch of things or taking you on lots or dates, just to take your mind off of it. He loves you so much, having kids doesn’t even really matter when it comes down to it. As long as he’s your man, he’s happy.

Joe Liebgott: He knows if he’s sad about the news, you would be sad too, even more than he was. “It’s alright sweet thing. I’ll always be here for you.” If you really wanted kids he would remind you that you guys still could have a perfect little family together, surrogacy or adoption are both great options. He reminds you over and over again that there was nothing you or could change about it and you are completely perfect the way you are.

Bill Guarnere: In his way of thinking, he would rather have his significant other and no kids, than kids and no significant other. He would hate to ever lose you in any way. So when you tell him that you can’t have kids it doesn’t affect your relationship with him a whole lot. As long as you are okay with it, then he is okay with it too. If you were saddened by it he would hold you and tell you everythings gonna be okay, “We’re gonna figure this out honey, don’t worry.”

George Luz: He wraps you up in a big hug when you tell him. This sweet baby doesn’t even really understand the details of it all, but he knows that he’s gonna love you matter what, kids or not. He would choose you over and over again even if kids were off the table. If children was something you wanted I think he would kinda be like nix, saying stuff like, “Well at least we won’t have to stay up all night with screaming and dirty diapers?” He tries to make everything as positive as possible. He’s gonna love you no matter what.

Bull Randleman: “Well how do you feel about all this?” He kinda bases his emotions on what you’re feeling at the moment and if you’re okay with no kids or if you aren’t. He would feel sad only a little at first but then he realizes you guys could always adopt and isn’t really sad after that. He is the sweetest guy ever about the whole thing. He just wants to hold you and promise you that everything will and is going to be okay. “It’s all gonna work itself just out, don’t worry about you and me sweetheart.”

Eugene Roe: Gene is kinda similar to Winters in this case. In his way of thinking, he took vows to love you and be there for you no matter what. He would never think of you any differently. He just wants to make sure you are alright about the whole thing. “I’m sorry. Cheri. Is there anything I can do?” If you are sad he will do just about anything to make you feel better, he loves you so much.

Floyd Talbert: “It’s okay Angel, everything is gonna be okay.” I think when you tell him he wouldn’t be sad or anything, mostly just surprised. He wants to make sure you aren’t sad about it before he says or does anything else. He would try to cheer you up on the situation if you were sad about it, reminding you adoption is always a good option and just you and him would be perfect as it is now. I could see him surprising you with a nice vacation somewhere to cheer you up.

Skip Muck: He doesn’t say anything really, just because he fears he might fuck something up if he does. The look on his face explains everything for you. You can tell he’s sad, sad for you and him. That’s during the initial reaction, if you still wanted kids though, he would love to adopt with you or start some sort of surrogacy. If you didn’t want a family at all he would be crushed at first but he would move on eventually.

Don Malarkey: If you and him were having fertility issues, he would feel like it’s his fault the entire time, he just wants to give you that perfect little family you guys have always dreamed of. It’s easy to say that when he finds out about you not being able to have/don’t want to have children he would just feel terrible about the whole thing. If you didn’t want kids he would feel like maybe he pressured you somehow about it and would also feel terrible about that. He’s totally encouraging and caring of you though.

Shifty Powers: “Don’t worry about it all right now, we’re still young, we've got our whole lives to figure this stuff out.” He’s so validating during the whole process of baby stuff. Constantly telling you not to worry about it, if it's meant to be that you guys have children, then let it be. If it isn’t, then it just isn’t. But whatever decision you make, he's going to support you 100%.

Babe Heffron: He’s silent. So fucking silent. “So what do you want to do now, honey?” He wants you to decide any further options as far as children go, whether you want to adopt, or not have any kids at all, it’s completely up to you. He would sit there and rub your back softly, whispering soft words of affirmations to you (and himself too) if you were sad about the situation. “It’s gonna be okay, it will all workout doll.”

Ronald Speirs: He’s a bit like Gene here. He promised you to be there “In sickness and in health” and he’s completely sticking to that. You’re his girl/boy, nothing comes between that. If you had felt saddened by the situation he would offer to buy you comfort food, or take you out on a nice date, anything to get it off of your mind. “It’s alright honey. We’re gonna be a-okay.” He’s so soft and patient with you during this time, it’s sweet enough to make you cry.

Johnny Martin: “Oh sweetheart, don’t be sad. We will figure this all out.” He might be just a tad bit snappy at times, but when you tell him the news he is as gentle as a sheep. He will stay there with you, hold your hand softly and take care of you for as long as need be. It absolutely breaks his heart to see you sad and he wants to do anything to make you feel better.

Skinny Sisk: He looks like a sad puppy dog when you tell him the news. He feels sad for you mostly. If you had wanted to be a parent he would hug you so tight and tell you how sorry he is about all of this. He would try taking you out and do all sorts of things to cheer you up (even if that meant making himself look like an absolute fool). He’s the most supportive s/o ever so it just makes your guys’ relationship stronger in the end.

David Webster: He doesn’t really even know what to think about the whole situation. All he knows is that he needs to be there by your side and support you through it all. If you do get really saddened by it, I think he would try and read to you to help make you feel better. Just hearing his soft voice tumble through the words is enough to make you feel better than you were before.

Chuck Grant: He gives you the most “I'm sorry” look ever. He doesn’t say a word to you, just takes you in and holds you close, making sure to plant soft little kisses on your head while you let out all of your emotions. “We’re gonna get through this baby, you and me together.” He keeps close to you for the next couple of weeks, watching you almost like a hawk because he just wants to take care of you and make sure you are okay.

Buck Compton: “I'm so sorry sweet girl/boy. Is there anything I can do?” He doesn’t even really care for kids at the moment, just making sure you are okay is his top priority. If you had wanted kids, he would keep apologizing to you over and over about how sorry he was. He would give you some of his famous bear hugs when you’re feeling sad about it. If you didn’t want kids or a family he would be understanding of it, bc I mean kids are a LOT of work.

Thank you again for your request and support! If you enjoyed this, please like or reblog if you can! Love you all! 🥹🤍

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Fire On Fire: Chapter 13

(Ch. 12) ... (Ch. 1)

Gallery II Tag List Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: Operation Market Garden is underway and American intelligence operatives, now commanded by the British SOE, have their own battles to fight. Sometimes painful situations demand painful sacrifices.

May or may not feature a Smol cameo...👀

WARNINGS: Death, Angst, Violence against women

A/N: Sorry this took so long; I tried to do the thing where I wait & release a chapter once I'm ahead but I'm way too impulsive for that so here lol 💀💖

Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @mccall-muffin @emmythespacecowgirl @bellewintersroe @holdingforgeneralhugs

Contemporary: September 17th, 1944. Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Alix was just finishing up what would be her tenth interrogation of the day when she heard what sounded like singing in the streets outside the hotel they were using as a home base.

She cocked her head and looked over to Andries, the sniper standing beside her, with curiosity in her eyes.

He only shrugged.

"We are happy to be liberated," he said simply before aiming a glare at the man they had backed up against the room's wall.

"Most of us anyway." 

The collaborator shook his head, quailing under the teenager's stern gaze.

"I am innocent!" he babbled, his heavily Dutch-accented French coming out barely comprehensible due to his nerves. "What you accuse me of, I would never...You have the wrong man!" 

"You're telling me you're not…" Alix checked the coded list of targets she'd kept stashed inside her fake Passport.

"Maurits Van Der Waal? Because if you're not, then there must be somebody else out there who looks just like you and lives at your address selling out your Jewish neighbors to the SS." 

“N-No, I am Maurits,” the man stammered, rocking back and forth on his heels “But I…I never help the SS, never.” 

“You were seen, you idiot,” Andries snapped harshly, pulling several photographs out of the pocket of his dark green coat and thrusting them into Van Der Waal’s shaking hands. 

The collaborator inspected the photos silently, all the blood draining from his face as he realized he’d been caught.

Alix’s dark eyes narrowed as she watched the middle-aged collaborator blubbering excuses pathetically before her, her anger simmering in her stomach. 

This rat would get a quick death, she thought bitterly. A mercy he didn’t deserve. 

The thirty Jewish families he had sold out to the SS would not be so lucky.

“How much are they paying you, Maurits?” she demanded, cocking the gun with a click. “How much is a human life worth to you?” 

“815 Guilder each, by the looks of it," the blond boy, Diederik, answered for him from the corner desk.

He held up a notepad full of decoded messages for them to see and read off, "All of them made out to a...Mr. Maurits Van Der Waal, imagine that." 

"Those aren't mine!" Van Der Waal lied lamely, practically bleating through his tears like a goat. "I'm innocent!"

"Tragic," Alix remarked dryly. "Anyway, please face the wall now."  

"And if…if I don't?" he sniveled pathetically, a note of hope raising his words. "Will you free me?"

A hope Alix would crush like an insect under her heel.

“If you don’t face the wall, then I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

"Well that went well!" Andries commented moments later, as Alix wordlessly knelt to retrieve items from the pockets of the tenth collaborator, who now lay dead on the floor. 

Oh yeah, she wanted to snap. Just fucking splendid.

There was a fine line between doing one’s duty and reveling in it, and for the Dutch Resistance, that line seemed to be blurring more and more by the hour. 

When she had finished collecting the necessary supplies from the dead man's pockets, one of the younger fighters, a small redheaded boy named Piers, joined Andries in dragging the body over to the corner with the other nine corpses.

Alix didn't know how the Resistance was disposing of the bodies but some things were better left unknown so she didn't ask. There were more pressing matters anyway.

The radio on the desk in front of Diederik crackled to life and he pressed the headset harder against his ear as he strained to hear. 

Alix could tell by his concentration-scrunched face that the connection was poor but the boy appeared to still recognize the voice on the other end of the line. 

He quickly jotted down some notes before turning to Alix, who had crossed the room to meet him. 

"It's Kristof," he responded, tearing a page from his notepad and handing her the coded address he'd just taken down. "The SOE says it's time." 

Alix nodded her assent. Nix and Van Kooijk were on the other side of town and she would have to meet them on her way.

The trick would be finding them in the crowds.

Checking herself for blood in the mirror one last time, she smoothed the invisible wrinkles from her skirt before slipping her gun and handheld radio into her purse and quietly exiting the room.

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

Stepping out of the hotel and into the street was like being suddenly thrust into a carnival. Jubilant whoops filled the air and streams of bright ticker-tape rained down like flurries of rainbow-colored snow but Alix didn't have time to enjoy the celebration. 

She was doing her best to wade through the ever-growing crush of people but she was being jostled from all sides like a toy boat on ocean waves as civilians and soldiers alike rushed to participate in the festivities. 

Keeping a white-knuckle grip on her purse, Alix managed to shuffle her way further into the crowd, passing scores of troopers from Dog and Fox company on her way. 

Seeing the almost frantic urgency with which the Dutch townspeople were greeting servicemembers, the young agent was suddenly grateful to be in civilian clothes because she didn't need that kind of attention right now. 

She needed to find her handler and her contact so she could complete her mission. Nixon had her bottle of Prussic Acid in his pocket because he didn’t trust her to carry it– “It’s liquid cyanide for Christ’s sake!”--  so she would need to retrieve it before locating her target. 

As she tried to blend in with the crowd, slipping in behind a cluster of ANC nurses, Alix couldn’t help but study them with a twinge of envy. She wore the same Red Cross armband as they did when she was in uniform, carried the same aid bag slung over her shoulder. 

But instead of tourniquets, she carried garrote wire and guns. Instead of syringes, she carried knives. Instead of administering medicine, she would be administering poison.

The women walking next to her got to save lives; all Alix did was take them. 

As if somehow reading her thoughts, the freckle-faced nurse to her left gave her a kindhearted smile and in her bright, toothy grin Alix was pretty sure she saw a glimpse of her friend Don shining through.

The spy returned the smile, the fleeting reminder of her own humanity equipping her with the necessary resolve to continue her journey. 

She had work to do.

 Gathering the dark polka-dotted material of her skirt in her hands and trying not to break an ankle on the cobblestones, Alix squeezed by the nurses and pressed on ahead. 

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━∆∆━━━∆∆

But by the time she reached the edge of the herd, the joy-filled singing had transformed into something else. Nightmarish, broken screams, jeers, and a grief-stricken wailing that made Alix's stomach twist echoed off the cobblestones. For a moment, she froze, almost unable to fully comprehend the hellish scenes of chaos unfolding in front of her. 

The townspeople were brutal, seizing local women from the crowd and hurling them to their knees in the center of the circle. Some looked to be no older than their late teens, bawling as they were stripped to their slips in front of the merciless horde, the roaring of the mob only increasing in intensity as swastikas were daubed onto their foreheads with ink-like tar. 

Alix couldn't understand Dutch but she could understand body language and every microexpression on the citizens' faces screamed disgust and hatred. 

The women were sobbing, red-faced and quaking with fear as they were yanked by their hair to older women manning clippers like weapons, who would shear them and shove them away afterwards with an almost sanctimonious revulsion.

As the victims were being hauled to their feet, Alix managed to force her eyes away from the mob, searching the faces around her frantically as the harsh burn of rage began to sear her stomach.

Why was no one stopping this?

Even with her training, Alix knew she would never be able to take on a crowd this large by herself. She would need backup.

Where was Joe? Where were Skip and Don? Where the hell was the Resistance?

More and more women were being dragged into the fray and two tall, skinny teenagers shoved their way past Alix, forcing a terrified girl in a salmon-colored dress into the circle with them.

Her bloodshot hazel eyes were wide, tears streaming down her reddened face as the fabric was violently torn from her body. 

For a brief second, she met Alix’s horrified gaze before thrusting a hand out in a desperate plea for the agent’s help.

Feeling a violent jolt of grief in her stomach, Alix strained as far forward as she could to reach the girl’s hand but she was too late. 

The boy in the burgundy sweater pivoted, wrenching the girl’s arm away and holding her still as they began shearing her head and that’s when Alix saw it.

The boys were wearing orange armbands. 

This was the Resistance. 

Sickened and infuriated, Alix lunged toward the center of the circle, ready to rip the frightened girl from their grasp, when she felt a calloused hand clutching her upper arm.

Whipping her head around, she met the worried glance of Lieutenant Nixon, whose painfully tight grip on her bicep was the only thing keeping her from launching herself into the fray.

"Niccolò, let go or I swear to God, I’ll break your fucking hand." 

It wasn’t an empty threat this time and her handler knew it too, but even so, he didn't flinch. 

“The mission, Adelina,” he hissed, tightening his hold on her arm. "Do you want to blow our cover?"

Alix was practically seeing red.

Women were being mercilessly brutalized in the street and all Nix was worried about was their stupid fucking mission?!

But before she could reply, John Van Kooijk emerged from behind them, wearing his usual expression of thinly-veiled smugness. 

“Problem?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow, and Alix narrowed her eyes.

“Oh there’s about to be,” she snarled.

The words had barely left her mouth when the agent felt Nixon’s fingers clamp down even harder on her bicep, strengthening his hold in case she decided to try something.

“Be civil to our friend, Lina,” her handler cautioned and Alix snorted with derision, swiveling her head back to meet his eyes. 

“Given that my first instinct was to throttle our ‘friend’, I think I’m being perfectly fucking civil right now.”

Turning back to the Resistance leader, Alix gestured with her free hand to the chaos unfolding before them.

“Now, care to explain what the Hell is going on?”

The Dutchman was seemingly unfazed. 

"They are collaborators," he stated with a careless shrug. "It is what they have earned." 

"What exactly did they do?" Alix demanded, her French coming out rapid-fire in her fury. "Who did they betray?"

"They slept with the enemy," was the vague reply. "This is merciful. We could have had them shot for that." 

"This is mercy?"  Alix barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. "No, this is a bullshit attempt at retaliation."

Her nostrils were flaring with rage and one fist was balled when she spoke next, the boiling inside her building like a volcano seconds from erupting.

"And for the record, taking your misplaced anger out on people who have no say sounds an awful lot like the enemy we're supposed to be fighting." 

"You interrogated and executed ten men only hours ago, yes?" The Resistance leader eyed her skeptically. "But now the Sparrow has a conscience?"  

"It was quick,” Alix retorted defensively. “I wasn't torturing people!"

"Neither are we!" Van Kooijk seemed genuinely perplexed at her objections. "This is justice!" 

"No, this is vengeance," Alix countered, yanking her arm out of Nixon's cautioning grasp.

"And I want none of it! Go find yourselves a new attack-dog because I'm done."

With that, she pushed past them, storming off ahead but Nixon followed her, keeping himself chained to her right side as they walked so he could deliberately block her from the circle. 

"Simmer down, will you?" Nixon had switched from French to Italian effortlessly but even still, his words carried an unusually sharp edge that only served to fan the flames of Alix’s rage further.

“Simmer down, are you fucking kidding me?” Alix was bristling with indignation now but she fought to keep her face impartial and her voice steely calm to avoid arousing suspicion.

“After that? After what they were doing to those girls?” 

A small gaggle of civilians passed them by, heading in the direction that the pair had just come from.

Noticing their glances, Nixon faked a laugh as though she’d just said something funny, as though they were merely two friends taking a stroll and not two intelligence operatives seconds away from a fistfight.

Alix played along, painting on a fake smile and nonchalantly lighting up a cigarette, her stride never faltering.

They were both in civilian clothing– Nix in his boxy khaki overcoat that concealed his uniform and Alix in her dark sweater and spotted skirt – so it didn’t take long for the eyes of the Dutch citizens to stray from them as they continued on their journey.

“Just focus on the mission, alright?” Nix commanded out of the corner of his mouth.

"Fuck the mission,” Alix returned quietly. “I'm not doing any favors for people who torture women for fun."

"Oh for Christ’s sake, Adelina, I don't like it either," Nixon sighed in exasperation once the Dutch citizens were out of earshot.

"But if you blow our cover trying to stop this shit, then you can’t take care of Kruger, and more people are going to get hurt. And it won't just be collaborators like this time, it'll be our assets too, other operatives, innocent civilians, maybe troopers too. Is that what you want?" 

"Of course it isn’t," Alix snapped as she felt the sudden weight of the prepped cyanide vials being covertly dropped into her purse. "I’m still planning on finishing the mission. I'm just not working with those assholes to do it." 

Lieutenant Nixon frowned. 

He could already tell where this was going.

"No,” he stated firmly, cutting Alix off before she had even clarified.

“You’re not refusing backup on this one. Any other target, maybe, but not with an SS Lieutenant, not on my watch.”

“Niccolò,” Alix scolded, the clacking of her saddle shoes on the pavement accenting her words. “I’ll be fine. The man’s got trench fever, for Christ’s sake. He might be dead before I even get there.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Nixon argued. “You could be acting on faulty intel. There’s a leak in the SOE, remember?” 

“That’s the risk we take with every mission. It’s never stopped us before.”

“The stakes were never this high before,” Nixon contended, massaging his temple. “The Wehrmacht is one thing but this is the goddamn SS. At least let me send Andries to Oosterbeek with you, just in case. One sniper and I’ll let it go, alright?”

Alix scowled. 

“I said No,” she maintained testily after a short drag from her cigarette.  “So you can save your breath. I don’t want anything to do with them after what the fuck we just saw. Either I go in alone or I don’t go at all.” 

“Putain de merde, Adelina, will you fucking listen?” Realizing his tone had risen slightly, he took a deep breath before lowering his voice again. “You may be willing to gamble with your life but I'm not. I’ll be with the Brits and the 101st so I won’t be on comms and if something happens–” 

“If something happens, I’ll take care of it myself,” Alix finished for him with a puff of smoke. “You told HQ I was more than capable, remember?” 

“I knew I’d regret saying that,” Nixon muttered with a shake of his head. "I just didn't think it'd be so goddamn soon."

“Besides,” Alix reminded him with a reassuring, sisterly bump to the shoulder.

“Everyone knows Kruger’s an arrogant alcoholic who thinks he’s God’s gift to women. It should be a piece of cake to get him alone and finish the job. I'll be back in no time."

“Still,” Nixon grimaced. “He’s an SS officer. He was trained for adverse situations and if he gets the upper hand at any point, you’re done.” 

“Which is why I won’t let him,” Alix assured bracingly. “The man’s not superhuman. He’s already sick, probably drunk, and once he drinks the Prussic Acid, he’s toast. No backup needed.” 

Nixon let out a small huff of displeasure and as he glanced at his watch, his frown only deepened.

Both he and Alix knew he didn’t have time to argue. He still needed to ditch his coat somewhere, coordinate with Winters and rejoin Van Kooijk’s group before the Airborne offensive could truly begin.

“Fine,” he grunted with a shake of his head. “But if you get yourself killed, Liebgott, Muck, Malarkey and I are splitting the 10 Grand. Not that I need it.” 

Alix cocked an eyebrow. 

“I don’t remember designating you as a beneficiary. The others, yes, but not you.”

“Well I think I deserve to be too,” Nixon remarked wryly and hooked her into a light headlock, mussing up her hair with his knuckles.

“As compensation for putting up with your bullshit for 2 years. I already have one pain-in-the-ass sister, I never asked for another!”

Alix gave him a smack on the arm and he released her with a gentle push in the opposite direction.

“Now get a move-on, will you, before your mark leaves the country.” 

“Yeah, sure thing,” Alix commented with an eyeroll. “Just don’t go getting your hopes up on that payout, alright Gi-”

The younger agent cut herself off abruptly, the realization of her mistake briefly punching the breath out of her. Her smile slipped and she saw Nixon’s bushy eyebrows raise in surprise. But if he recognized the name from her file, he chose not to comment on it.

There was a second of silence as a mutual understanding seemed to pass between the two. There was nothing either of them could do about the dangers of the situation.

All they could do was trust each other: trust that he had prepared her enough for anything she might face and trust that at least some of the SOE's intel was good.

Her life would depend on it.

"Hey, any words of wisdom you'd like to impart before you go, oh great teacher?" Alix inquired jokingly as she tried to keep her mind off the very real possibility that she could be walking into an elaborate trap with no backup.

Lieutenant Nixon mulled the question over for a moment before responding, "You’d better not end up dead or I’ll kill you myself. Clear?” 

“Careful, Nico,” Alix deadpanned, shortening his codename just to irk him. “I think you were almost nice for a second.” 

Nixon snorted. 

"Don’t get used to it,” he snarked. “Someone has to keep you humble.” 

With that, her case officer reluctantly stepped off into an alleyway, leaving Alix to continue the rest of her journey alone. 

Reaching the Post Office, the spy made her way to the employee side entrance, where according to plan, a slightly-rusted bicycle was waiting for her, propped up invitingly against the building.

And partially tucked underneath the back wheel was a faded orange hair ribbon, subtly designating the bike as belonging to a Resistance member. Easing it away from the wall, she gingerly placed her purse in the basket, arranging it with the utmost care so she could avoid any cyanide leaking onto her designer heels or her gun.

Taking one final breath to settle the uneasy feeling plaguing her, Alix bid a silent goodbye to Eindhoven and began the long ride to the SS headquarters in Oosterbeek.

[she-wolf09231982]

Joe Liebgott

“You Nervous?”

Summary: You thought your relationship with Liebgott was complicated…until it wasn’t and it led to an unexpected evening of overwhelming emotions and sexual tension.

A/N: One shot, Mature audience, JoeLoebgottx!FemMedic, WW2, Female Pronouns, Cursing/Swearing, Derogatory Slurs, Womanizing Comments, Military and Medical Terminology, Inappropriate Nicknames, HBO Band of Brothers References, Mentions/Descriptions of Injuries, Weaponry, Smoking. Angst/Conflict, Smut, FOREVER FLUFF

This piece was at the request of @awaterfalls ❤️ hope you like it Nat!

*These stories may not fall entirely in accordance with the TV series timeline. I do not know the real soldiers the actors portray in this series, so please understand I show no disrespect. Some or most of historical events and character interactions in my fanfics are fabricated purely for the sake of the enjoyment of fiction*

~~~~~~~

You weren’t the type to take being treated like a doormat. You were raised to find your place amongst others regardless of gender. You earned your respect because you did your job and you did it well, not because you were pretty and the guys wanted to bed you.

It was heavily frowned upon that women be on the front lines alongside men, but when nurses and medics started to get caught in the crossfire, they resorted to allowing females to do just about everything men did to fill the gaps. You had been assigned to Easy Company right after Toccoa, and most of them were less than receptive to say the least.

Eugene Roe was grateful to have an extra set of hands. Don Malarkey, Skip Muck, and George Luz were very taken with your sense of humor so they warmed up to you rather quickly. Joe Toye, Bill Guarnere, and Babe took some time, but when you tackled Bill to avoid getting blown up by enemy artillery, their demeanor towards you made a complete 360.

Easy accepted you as one of their own…except for one: Joseph Liebgott. He was the most ornery son of a bitch you ever met. He always found a reason to trash talk you, or find fault in anything you did. All because you were a ‘broad,’ as he referred to you. The guys tried to defend you but his opinion never changed about you.

You learned to just avoid him unless he needed medical attention. He did alright not getting hurt up until you guys posted in Schoonderlogt, Holland in October 1944. He had been on patrol late one night and returned with an angry gash on the right side of his neck. One of the other patrolmen they brought back, Alley, had been hit by German gunfire and needed immediate attention.

They set Alley onto a table for when Doc got there

"Boyle, get Doc." Winters instructed then looked at Liebgott, "Where?"

"Crossroads." Liebgott replied. You notice he took a dressing and pressed it against his neck.

"Well, if it wasn't for your loud mouth-" he started to accuse Joe.

"-Hey, you know what? Back off!" Liebgott shot back as Roe pushed through the gaggle.

"Get the boots off, elevate...Lieb use the sulfur... Doc directed but noticed Joe’s neck.

“Lieb, go see Y/L/N and get that checked out.” Doc added.

“Yeah, no thanks, Doc, I’m good.” Liebgott said all too quickly with disdain.

“Joe, I wasn’t askin’ ya. It needs to be cleaned and dressed properly, it can get infected then you’ll have a bigger problem to deal with that will take you off the line. Go. I ain’t got enough hands to help ya.” Doc said sternly.

Liebgott released an irritable huff before pushing through the group to find where you were.

You had already grabbed gauze, dressings and sanitizing fluid when you heard Doc scold Joe about getting his neck looked at. He sat on a bale of straw waiting for you to tend to him. You spread out the supplies and examine his neck wound. You reach out to gently move his head to the left to get more light on it and he dodged your touch.

“What the fuck are you doin’?” He asked harshly.

“I was moving your head where I had more light on the wound. Why are you so squirrely?” You ask.

“Oh, I don’t know, because I just got shot at by a bunch of fuckin’ Krauts!” He replied sarcastically as he glared at you.

“Ok well then let’s get this fixed, shall we?” You returned with as much calmness in your voice as you could muster.

You press the cloth with the antiseptic onto his laceration and he pulled back upon feeling the sting.

“Ack! THAT HURT!” He barked.

“If you’d hold still, it wouldn’t hurt as much!!”You bit back.

You were over his childish behavior towards you.

“Just get it over with.” He grumbled, finally maintaining his composure.

You made your hands busy on his neck, wrapping the dressing like a scarf around his neck after you cleaned it. Thank goodness you didn’t need to stitch it, that would’ve been hell for both of you with his attitude.

“There. You’re good.”

“Fantastic.” He replied without a thank you.

He stood up and trudged off to join the rest of Easy for the return to Crossroads to reclaim the position. The patrol had been gone all night into the following morning, but they had eventually took victory. That evening, Winters allowed the men an evening of enjoyment at a local pub in the town to boost morale.

The men had worn their dress uniforms, each looking handsome and ready to mingle with the local women and vice versa. You hadn’t dressed up since graduating Toccoa and even then, you hadn’t been with Easy Company then, so this would be the first time they ever saw you in dress uniform,

“Hey! Get a load of this!” Toye called out to the guys when you breezed through the front door.

Liebgott standing at the bar looked over his shoulder upon feeling the cold air on the back of his neck. His jaw dropped when his eyes landed on you. He scanned your figure from head to toe.

Hair clean and perfumed pulled back into a neat fashionable bun and a face with fresh make-up and painted lips. And those gams (legs) emerging from the pencil skirt and heels and of course a clean white medic brassard displaying the Red Cross around the left bicep. You almost had the entire room at a complete standstill when you walked in.

“…Woah.” Joe whispered to himself, unaware that Talbert was near by.

“Not bad, eh, Lieb?” Tab teased.

He grimaced at Floyd and turned back to the bar to drink his beer.

The night was filled with laughter, darts, dancing, and liquor. Most of Easy had at least one dance around the room with you to favorites like Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and The Andrew Sisters. You had just finished a dance with Toye sometime around midnight when a soldier from Dog Company had approached you.

“May I have this dance?” He asked politely with a slight bow.

Joe, standing with Buck, Luz, Babe, and Toye, watched with intensity from the dart boards.

“Maybe the next song.” You reply kindly, having just sat down for the first time in an hour.

“Come on, doll, ain’t no time like the present, right?” He insisted yanking you be the arm to the dance floor.

Liebgott’s clenched jaw and furrowed eye brows caught the attention of Toye.

“Hey, uh, you ok there, Lieb?”

Joe looked at Toye inquisitively.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, you look a little…pissed.” Toye said plainly.

“Well, I ain’t.” Joe retorted.

He looked back at the dance floor to see where you were but was suddenly concerned he couldn’t find you right away. He saw the unknown soldier had taken you to the bar to get you a drink.

He handed you a pint and insisted you drink the whole thing.

“You said you could drink me under the table, so prove it!” He said.

“Fine, just this once.” You accepted.

You started to chug the pint, but when you started to lower the glass before it was empty, the soldier tilted the bottom up so you’d keep drinking. You finished and propped the glass open side down on the surface of the bar.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to my-“ you started before the soldier grabbed your upper arm.

“Oh we ain’t done here, honey.” He declared.

You tried to pull yourself out of his grasp but he pulled you in by the waist to hold you close.

“Get your meat hooks off of me.” You warned through clenched teeth.

“Or what?” He mocked.

“Or you’ll have half of Easy raining down on you.”

You hear a gravelly voice behind the brute soldier. He turned and there stood Joe Liebgott squaring up to him. Behind him Toye, Malarkey, Guarnere, and Luz.

“Come on, guys, there’s enough ladies here to go around, why can’t I have a little fun with this one?”

“Because she don’t wanna have fun with you.” Joe shot back, “Let her go.”

The soldier released your arm, as Liebgott gently tugged you behind him by your wrist.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening.” Liebgott said to him as they all walked with you to the dart boards.

Suddenly you feel Joe’s hand on the small of your back, guiding you to a more secluded spot in the back of the pub.

“What the fuck is the matter with you??” He sneered at you, positioning you against the wall to talk to you.

“Excuse me?”

“You fuckin’ heard me. Why would you put yourself in a position like that? That guy could’ve walked out with you easily with as much as you drank tonight.” He lectured.

“How do you know how much I’ve been drinking? And what business is it of yours who I’m interacting with anyway?” You returned crossing your arms.

Joe took in a deep breath through his nose as his anger started to elevate in his chest.

“If I wasn’t watching out for you, you would’ve gotten yourself into some real shit.”

He leaned in placing a hand against the wall you leaned on. His face hovering centimeters from your own. You feel his breath on your face, and notice his pupils blown out from what you thought was hate and detestation for you.

His eyes undressed you from your red lips down to your fitted blouse then looked into your eyes. Your breathe started to hasten, causing your chest to heave.

“You nervous?” Joe questioned.

Your breath caught in your throat.

“-no.” You breathed.

He moved closer to you, pinning you against the wall as your chests touched. Your arms relaxed to your sides as your nails dug into the brick behind you. You were, indeed, very nervous. And he knew it.

The scowl Joe had slowly curled into a mischievous grin.

“I think you are.” He whispered confidently as his hand cupped your cheek.

Your eyelashes fluttered, “Wh-what are you doing?” You managed to ask.

His thumb stroked your cheek, “Admiring the view.”

You released an exhale after holding your breath for almost 5 minutes.

“I thought you hated me?”

He brushed his nose against yours, “No. As a matter of fact, I always liked ya.”

“Then why-“

Before you could finish your sentence, he closed the gap between you, locking onto your lips like it was his dying wish.

You snake your arms carefully around his neck as he pulled you into him by your waist. You slack your jaw open to allow his tongue to run along your lips. You nip his bottom lip playfully causing his hips to thrust into you.

You yanked at his jacket, pulling him into you again to feel his hard on against you. He groaned into your mouth.

“What are you doin’ doll?” He asked with a devilish grin.

“I really don’t know but-“ you pull him in again, bringing his earlobe gently between your teeth then whisper, “we can’t stop now.”

“Let’s get outta here.” Joe suggested ushering you out the back door.

~~~~~~~

You snuck off to one of the abandoned homes down the street from where you were and barely got through the door before you were undoing his belt. You kicked of your shoes into darkness then made your way up a flight of stairs leaving pieces of your uniforms trailing the steps as you ascended.

When you were down to your slip and him down to his briefs, you scamper off to an open bedroom hoping he’d chase you…which he did. You kneeled on the bed waiting for him to come to you. He approached standing at the bedside.

You seductively crawled over to the edge of the bed and suckled a trail of kisses from his collar bone all the way down the waistband of his underwear. Joe inhaled deeply through is nostrils as he closed his eyes in ecstasy. You nip and licked at the sensitive area above his pubic line.

“Quit teasin’.” Joe purred.

“Or what?” You ask looking up at him through your lashes.

A joker like smile appeared across his face as he swiftly pushed you onto you back then crawled over you, caging you between his arms.

“You’re asked for it, sweeheart.” He proclaimed before locking onto your mouth again.

His hardened cock grinding into you, you wrap your legs around his waist to feel as much of his friction as possible. He pulls back and began pulling your slip over your head then sat back on his heels to remove his underwear.

He gaped at you laying in front of him. He ran his hand from your stomach up to one breast, groping it then repeating on the other. He hovered over you, enveloping one of your peaked nipples in his mouth. His tongue swirling over the tip while sucking had you writing beneath him. Sensing your pleasure he switched to the other, taking the tip between his teeth.

“Please, Lieb.” You beg.

“Joe.” He corrected.

You look at him.

“I want to hear you scream my name a hundred times before the end of the night.” He growled.

You beam at him, “Please, Joe.”

He palmed himself, pumping a few times before he lined himself up with your drenched opening. He glazed his tip with your wetness, groaning at the amount of saturation.

“I really did a number on you, didn’t I?” He goaded.

All you could do was smile coyly.

He pushed into you deliciously slow. You whimper, both of you feeling every bit of your tightness around him. He embraced you instinctively until he bottomed out. He pulled back gradually, then snapped his hips forward against you with a grunt.

“Jesus Christ, Y/F/N.”

“Please, Joe.” You implore quietly in his ear.

This triggers him as he begins spearing into you roughly. He sits up, propping your legs up where he can hold you around the thighs as he drives into, hitting that perfect spot so deep inside. You push against the headboard to steady yourself onto his dick, feeling that tightening feeling in your stomach as he chased your orgasm.

He watched your face expressions purposefully, feeding off how they changed as he switched up his pace.

“Joe…” you’d moan, spurring him on to go harder.

“Yeah, sweetheart, say it again.”

“My God, Joe…”

He brought his fingers to your clit, using your slick to vigorously rub the vulnerable bud as he continued to plunge in and out of you. He loved watching you get overstimulated as you try to paw at him to pull him back into kiss.

“Right there, Joe…keep goin’.” You lament.

“Yeah? Let it go, baby.” He leered as he railed into you at a heart stopping rate.

“Oh…my GOD, JOE!” You wailed as you dig your nails into his shoulders.

He kept his pace, making sure you ride out your high until the guttural noises that emitted from him as his hips started to stutter and his load coated your insides.

He remained on top of you and inside of you, holding you like a life line with sweat dripping from everywhere. Both of you breathing in sync, each of you trying to steady your heart rates.

After a moment, you decided to break the silence.

“That was…wow.”

Joe chuckled then rolled off of you as he positioned your head on his chest.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, sweetheart.”

~~~~~~~

[inglourious-imagines]

practically begging for some george luz w/ enemies to lovers. everyone always writes amazing friends to lovers but there’s sm potential w e2l !!! love ur writing btw xx

Jokes on You (George Luz x Fem!Reader)

Requested by: anon

Summary: George Luz is a funny guy, there is absolutely no denying that. He likes making jokes, and he likes it even more when people laugh at them. So what happens when there comes a person who makes just as good jokes as George? Or maybe even better? Some enemies to lovers for y’all.

Taglist: @alienoresimagines @teenmagazines @meteora-fc @eugenesmorphine @band-of-brothers-cz @real-fans @not-john-watsons-blog @tealaquinn @ok-roemanov @mrseasycompany @punkgeekchic @wexhappyxfew @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant @rayofshanshine @mavysnavy @easynix @georgeluzwarmhugs @easy-company-tradition @immrsronaldspeirs @snafus-peckuh @curraheewestandalone @warrior-healer @justamadgirlinabox @happyveday @order-of-river-phoenix @whoahersheybars @nixoninc

Warnings: like two swear words, angst in the form of Bastogne

A/N: I so suck at endings.

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Cracking jokes and making people laugh is George’s thing and his only, that’s how it’s always been. He is the funny guy in the group, that’s how he likes to define himself, the funny one. But to define is to limit and George has made the mistake of limiting himself to clinging to one particular personality trait, humour.

And then Y/N came along; about four months into the boot camp Y/N got reassigned from Dog Company to Easy Company for reasons no one knew, except for Lewis Nixon perhaps. George did not start hating her per say right from the moment he met her, but ever since she beat him to the joke when watching his favourite movie he’s strongly despised her. From then on, the feelings only got stronger; she’s always making the whole Company laugh, some of the jokes even on his account which George does not like one bit, hell she even managed to make Blithe chuckle that one day after D-Day.

Y/N had no idea what she triggered by her naturally jokester nature until she had to face a very pissed off George after she blabbed some joke about some actress and then a very pissed off George is the only kind of George she has had the privilege of meeting. The woman has pondered greatly about what she could have possibly done to anger the man so, but nothing came to mind and she soon gave up. George continued and stubbornly continues to be rude to her so she should only repay his “kindness”.

After Carentan, the word of Operation Market Garden is in the air and the Allies are particularly optimistic. Easy is in the pub, celebrating its successes in the war, while some reinforcements are trying to mingle. Y/N is watching it all from behind, the old breed not wanting to socialize with the newbies at all and sometimes the situations can get truly hilarious.

Somehow, in a few minutes, she finds herself behind a table with Luz, Malarkey, Muck and other three reinforcements who are just drinking up George’s story about his valour in Normandy. Her lips itch upwards from now and then, George’s drunkenness making it all the more amusing. Y/N can tell the new guys are impressed and somewhat terrified as well and one of them puts a pin on it when he asks Luz, “And what rank are you?”

The table sits in silence for a moment, for absolutely no one expected such question, not even the other reinforcements, then Malarkey and Muck burst out laughing, almost tipping over their beers.

Y/N chuckles, reaches over, and pats the guy’s arm. “Oh c’mon, it is Private!”

That absolutely finishes off Don and Skip, Skip eventually falls off his chair, the reinforcements are now laughing too; the mood slightly more friendly and at ease than before. Not for everyone though.

George is red to his ears, as he frowns. “The joke wasn’t that good. And it’s not even true.”

Donald is hiccupping now but manages to answer, “A- a bit c- corny, yes, but f-fucking b-brilliant.”

***

At this point the Company is divided into two parts only, one part bets on the two of them killing each other and the other parts bets on them fucking; which it will be is truly in the stars for George and Y/N are face to face again, both of them red in the cheeks from all the anger, both of them shouting some incoherent insults, and as Penkala has put it, “See? Honestly I can really see both happening. They will either kill each other or fuck, there is absolutely nothing in between.”

But then Market Garden happens, an underestimated operation, that leaves behind too many dead than it should and when all of Easy is boarded on trucks, retreating, the company is two people short.

Bull Randleman and Y/N Y/L/N.

The officers discuss what can be done, and despite all of the men wanting to go and save the two of the best soldiers in the company, they know they can’t. And exactly that is making George Luz lose his mind. He can’t really understand why he is so restless, anxious, and downright terrified throughout the whole night; he tosses and turns, he is not able to bring himself to close his eyes.

But then in the morning he sees Y/N on the jeep next to Bull and suddenly he feels like he could fly and go to Berlin and kill Hitler, just so he could see the carefree smile on her face.

It clicks in him just then, and Malarkey pats his shoulder. “So, you’ve finally figured it out, huh?”

George turns to him, confused. “What?”

Malarkey laughs, shaking his head, and says, “Don’t play dumb with me, you idiot, I saw it just now.”

As much as George would like to answer his friend, he truly has no idea what he is talking about, and when that dawns on Donald, he offers George a sympathetic smile.

“Okay, let me put your thoughts to words, ‘cause you’re such an oblivious idiot that you probably wouldn’t figure it out by the time this motherfucking war is over,” Malarkey continues, “you don’t hate her, do you, not really.”

It is not even a question, more of a statement, and George really wants to protest, more than anything, because it is ridiculous, right?

***

The plan to be home by Christmas isn’t really working out for the Allies but the soldiers of Easy Company have already forgotten about those false hopes, they aren’t the ones to be bothered with when you freeze your ass off in a foxhole in the middle of a forest where the trees blow up every now and then and the place becomes a tornado.

Y/N shares a foxhole with Muck and Penkala, the trio trying to lighten up their gloomy moods with laughter. But even Y/N is running out of jokes now, so when doc Roe runs up to them, asking for scissors, she’s more than happy to go look for them with him too, the need to stretch her stiff and frozen body overpowering her whole self.

She’s just a couple of meters away from her foxhole when another German artillery attack comes and the whole forest becomes a hurricane of explosions, splinters, and blood. The soldier throws herself to the ground, crawling her way, slowly, back to her foxhole, Muck and Penkala shouting something at her she can’t hear, encouraging her to hurry up.

Dirt is everywhere, she barely can see, she covers her ears and head with her hands as another hit comes; she continues right after the explosion, crawling, crawling, crawling.

Muck and Penkala are still shouting at her, she is getting closer; Y/N can hear another artillery attack coming but this time she doesn’t stop proceeding, she knows she has to get into the foxhole soon, so she keeps on pushing.

The explosion comes. Everything goes white for a moment. The pressure wave makes her stop moving, and she is forced to close her eyes and cover her head with her hands.

She opens her eyes. There is nothing.

Seconds ago, there were two people, now there is nothing, nothing left, not a single trace that there have ever human beings stood.

Y/N can’t bring herself to move, she stares blankly into the space before her, her limbs are stiff. But then some arms grab her body, she can hear someone shouting at her.

3 seconds. That’s all it takes her to get back. She holds on to George’s arms as they run together to another foxhole, jumping right in. He immediately brings her into his body, she wraps her arms around his torso instinctively, holding onto him so tight, her head resting on his chest. George shields her body from everything outside and when the bombing finally stops, they don’t let go of each other for another few moments.

It isn’t until a few years after the war and they are married to each other, when they finally talk about what happened that day in the forest of Bois Jacques, not a day sooner. Ever since then, their relationship has been changed, both very much aware of it, neither of them brave enough to bring it up just yet.

It is in Haguenau, where they finally share a conversation. George finds her on her own, behind some building, hiding behind some sacks, looking at the river. He throws a Hershey bar into her lap and when she looks up in confusion, he offers her a warm tired smile.

“What did I do to deserve the affection of the one and only George Luz?” she tries to crack up a joke and chuckles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. George knows Y/N is exhausted beyond words.

He sits down next to her, as he opens his mouth to say something, but he rethinks it in the last second and nothing comes out. They sit out there for a few minutes, sharing the silence and strangely enough, it feels nice. George finally does not feel the need to talk all the time, the need to prove himself funny or worthy of other people’s attention.

“Have you ever been to Rhode Island?” he suddenly blurts out, surprising himself and her at the choice of the question.

Y/N smiles, doesn’t ask why or what. “No, never.”

“Then come with me.”

This time she asks what.

“After the war I mean, come home after the war with me.”

“But- but, you-“ she stutters, her cheeks slightly red, “but you hate me.”

George chuckles at that and looks at her. She has bags under her eyes that are a bit bloodshot (she hasn’t slept much in the last few days), her hair is dirty from dirt and sweat, her face has several scratches and marks, his eyes finds the most visible one just below her left cheekbone (he recalls that day in Carentan when a piece of shrapnel hit her and the wound looked way worse then it actually was for she had blood all over her left side of face, freaking out silently has never been so hard – he hadn’t known at that time what will come). He has never seen anything to maddeningly and purely beautiful as her.

“I thought I did, a very long time ago,” he says, “but actually I never did. I don’t hate you. How could I?”

Y/N looks at him and through all the pain, horror, and grief, she feels peace. It surprises her.

And so she responds, “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I will come home with you. How could I not?”

[b00ks1ut]

It’s All About Trust

Joe Liebgott X Fem!Reader

Warnings: Angst, war, fluff (an attempt anyway I think), swearing, Briefly mention of reader being a medic, reader has a shit ton of siblings (relatable), not that many physical descriptions if any, mentions of death, normal Band of Brothers stuff

Sorry if this is bad. I’ve never written any BoB fanfiction and really have like hardly any writing experience at all so hopefully this isn’t horrible. Please give me feed back if you want. Thank you! Also sorry for the ending. It’s kinda abrupt but it’s the best I could get lol

Bois Jacques is hell. A very very cold hell. Nothing could truly combat the cold that seeps into everyone around me. Not even the plainish slop they feed us in an attempt at food. Or in the current case, cold, hard “pancakes”, or that’s what Domingus says they are.

Don pokes at his and calls after our ever so kind cook, “Joe these smell like my armpit!”

“At least your armpit is warm.” Skip grumbles from Malarkey’s side as he holds his pancake up for emphasis.

“You want syrup with that?” Domingus sasses back to him.

“Joe, be honest, what’s in these things anyway?” Don asks the retreating man.

“Nothing you won’t eat, Malarkey.” He replies.

“I won’t eat Malarkey.” Spina shoots back quickly causing us all grouped up to let out a chorus of laughs.

Julian brings back the topic of Babe and Spina’s run in with a German on their search for 3rd Battalion. “Hey, maybe Hinkle would like your share, huh?”

This happens to hit my funny bone and I let out a snort leading to the rest of the men’s laughter to only further increase until Peacock comes around looking for Dike.

“Try battalion CP, sir.” I tell the man. The rest of us wait for him to walk away on his hunt for the company CO before we break our into giggles again.

“Try Paris.” Skip laughs.

“Try Hinkle.” Malarkey adds, only increasing our laughter and before I know it tears are pricking my eyes.

Spina begins his less than great German impression and I have to leave before I piss myself laughing.

I seem to run into a brick wall in my way back to my foxhole, tears of laughter still stinging my eyes.

“Sorry ‘bout that (y/n/n).” A deep southern voice speaks from above me.

I take a look and send a smile at the blonde who’s got me held by the shoulders.

“You’re all good Bull, no harm done.” I tell him as I step out of his hold. “Sorry about that.”

“No harm done.” He repeats before walking away with a smile sent to me.

I continue to make my way back to my temporary home of a frozen foxhole. I look down to find none other than Joseph Liebgott.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the rageful Jew. I don’t think it’s any specific thing that made me so drawn to him but rather his whole entire being.

On the other hand he’s never shown any direct attraction to me. Sure nearly all the men of Easy have sent me a glance at least once but I don’t blame them, I’m one of the few women they’ve interacted with past a single night in around 2 years. But past a glance none of the boys have soberly tried anything.

Especially Joe. He’s not unfriendly to me but he’s never really gone out of his way to interact with me. Not until now.

He’s sitting alone in my foxhole, hands tucked under his armpits, gun leaning in the dirt next to him, and his eyes intensely trained on the line.

“Joe? Did you get lost?” I ask him with a small laugh.

“Uh?” He looks up at me and gives me a small smile. “Not lost, just looking for someone to talk to.”

“Luz’s hole is like 2 over that way.” I told him pointing in the direction of the jester’s own hiding place.

“Well good thing I wasn’t looking for George then, yeah?” He says with his trademark smirk. “I can leave if you’d like me to, though.”

"You're fine, but can I ask a question?" I asked as I began the short descent into the frozen foxhole.

"Shoot away (y/l/n)." The Californian told me, looking back at the line across the cold, white field.

"Why are you talking to me? I'm don't mean to be rude but you've never put any effort into having any interaction with me." I asked sitting across from him and stuffing my frozen hands into my jacket pockets.

"I'm just trying to be friendly. No time better than the present, right? Do you have a problem with that? I can leave if you need me to." Joe had begun to get a little defensive but that's hardly surprising when he'll jump at a chance to be upset, whether isn’t reasonable or not.

"Why now? There's hardly a point in making friends when fucking Babe and Spina barely just ran from a Kraut fucking foxhole so excuse my confusion at your extremely sudden olive branch when we're all about to be sent home either on a stretcher or in an enveloped as a piece of shitty metal with our names stamped into it!" I grabbed my dog tags and shook them for emphasis. It took all of my self control to not start yelling or crying, but I could feel the sting of unshed tears at my eyes. "We're all going to be blown to kingdom come by all of this damned artillery." I whisperd.

"Hey. That's not true. We've made it this far but look at us. Sitting in this frozen hell hole and you're alive, I'm alive, and so is Bull and George, Don, Babe, Doc, Skip, Penkala, Perco, and Buck and Lip." He began listing some of the guys we had been with for so long. "I know it's scary and there's not a single thing I can promise you to make anything seem ok, because I'm scared and I have no clue what's going to happen even 10 seconds from now but one thing I can tell you that might make you feel slightly better is that you've made it this far. You made it through Sobel's shitty personalty, Normandy, Carentan, and I know that if you have made it this far without a scratch then what can take you down? You’re what, one of nine kids back at home, you managed to talk and work your way into the airborne and then continue to be an absolute badass throughout boot camp and combat!” He took a break to really look at me and I took that as an opportunity to defend myself and my feelings.

“I’m really flattered but don’t you think I’ve been too lucky? I’ve come so far with nothing more than a bruise and I’m sure the next thing you know I’ll be blown to pieces! I don’t know why I thought I could do this, Joe! I’m fucking terrified and there’s no where to go!” I can feel the tears beginning to well in my eyes and in a sorry attempt to stop them I look to the sky. “I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore.”

“Hey, you can’t go thinking like that. You’re going to make it out of here alive. I need you to believe that because trust me when I say that you are the toughest damned woman I’ve ever met in my life.” He scooted closer to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side.

The tears couldn’t be held any longer and the dam broke, salty waves rolling down the sides of face into my hair line. A sob escaped my lips before I could muffle it with a fist that had been stuffed between my lips only seconds too late.

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry, (y/n), we’re all feeling it, you’re the only one brave enough to let anyone see it.”

I let out a scoff. ‘Brave’ is not the right word to use. “I’m pathetic. I’m sitting here crying, doing nothing to help anyone around me who has it worse. I’m a a medic for fuck’s sake, I shouldn’t be crying when I routinely see how bad I could have it.”

Joe had only pulled me closer and wrapped his other arm around me, essentially cradling my shaking form. “Don’t you see? That’s what makes you so brave, (y/n). You see all these men in so much pain and put yourself in harms way to make sure they get patched up and safe. You are completely allowed to be overwhelmed and scared and cold and any other feeling a person can have. Not one man here would blame you for being upset right now. They know that as long as you are safe so are they, because when shit goes down you’re always there to help us.” He was talking so softly and so gently that I couldn’t help but cry harder.

“Oh fuck.” I muttered , wiping at my eyes. “I’m sorry Joe.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for Doll.” He gave me an affectionate pat. “Just know that you are such a light in the dark here, and not one of the men in these woods would judge you right now.”

I gave him a weak smile and sniffed, wiping at my eyes and nose. “Thank you, Joe, really. I’m forever grateful.”

“Oh don’t mention it, just don’t go telling anyone that I give out cuddles, I can’t have my reputation ruined like that.” Joe snickered with his smirk and a pat to my side.

“Your secret is safe with me as long as you don’t go telling people I cry.” I tittered and wrapped my arm around his neck.

“Your secret is safe with me, (y/n).”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

“It’s all about trust. I trust you, you trust me; that’s how this has to work, yeah?” I was nearly bumping noses with him and if I wanted to I could just lean in a little and kiss him. The thought quickly crosses my mind but part of me knows better.

“I trust you, Joseph Liebgott.” I meant it, with more of my heart than I thought was still there.

[yeahcurrahhe-e]

𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐄𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄

𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐓

〚 𝐃. 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐘 〛

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ➛ language

𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓 ➛ anonymous: can i request angst prompt ten, “because i care about you, okay?., with don malarkey from band of brothers? thank you!

SHE TASTED METAL IN HER MOUTH — blood? — she didn’t quite know in her delirium.

One moment, she’d been scrambling in a crawl with George Luz as artillery smothered their surroundings, splintering trees left and right in their path. In the blowing chaos, they’d heard Skip and Penkala beckoning them to the safety of their foxhole — come on! — their hands, scarred from frostbite and cuticles bound with dirt, had been extending across the snow like lifelines. Until the whir of a direct whistled through the bitter air of snowflakes, and disintegrated the two men before them into pieces; not even flesh, truly, just ash in the icy dirt. In the sound of the explosion, had come a horrendous echo as if it were the anguished cry of God. She had only been a few inches ahead of George, her hand grazing the icy fingertips of Penkala when the direct whirred itself into their foxhole, imploding with a force that tossed her back like a rag doll into the snow.

Lying in the snow, her glazed eyes beared witness to the simmering aftermath of the ambush, the stray flares akin to fireworks on the Fourth of July. Her brothers were feverish admirers of the explosive arrays of color, often tinkering with methods of how they could make the explosions more remarkable, boundless in their spectacle of light in the starry sky. She’d set off a fair share of their concoctions and the adrenaline that surged in her veins with each crackle, whistle, and ignition was addictive. She’d be laughing boundlessly with them in the projected, kaleidoscopic light, a few ashes of their creations intermingling with her pigtails and their tousles of short hair.

However, she wasn’t laughing now.

Her throat was throbbing, her body vigored with a heat she hadn’t felt in her months in Bastogne. Her stiff and aching back was cradled subtly in the grinds of snow — a fine mixture of blood, her own and other wounded soldiers, splatters across the pristine, crystal white. Her legs throbbed with oozing burns on skin that had been exposed by shrapnel from the explosion, twitching with her strained endeavors to claw away to safety before another deluge opened the heavens into another hell. She wanted to crawl over this slush and blood, over the spent shells and the branches, yet the cold was seeping into her wounds and the furnace of anguish was dizzying.

The pain overwhelmed a portion of her brain, as if draining every ounce of energy from her exhausted body. It was as if some invisible flame were held against the pallid goosebumps of her skin whenever a radiance of adrenaline graced her weary nerves, and she’d shakily toss herself onto her side to acquire an inch towards salvation — yet, she wondered if there was such. Skip and Penkala had been in their foxhole, a sanctuary from the daily deluges of death, and they’d still been obliterated where they stood. Throw salvation into the shitter when it came to war.

Abruptly, there was a pressure encompassing her forearm, it being the trembling hands of George as his distressed expression wavered into the bleared snowfall, his disheveled brown hair askew in his face as wind bustled it about, “You gotta get up!”

Y/N hastily shook her head, bracing her callus hands against his forearm as he bolstered her upper half from the bloodied and arid dirt, “It fucking hurts.” She peered at him through cold-bitten eyelashes as if he had three-heads. Don’t make me.

“I know, I know, but,” he commenced with a flurry of smoky breath through his gritted teeth, a distant explosion rattling the ground beneath them, “Goddammit. We need to get you help, okay? You ain’t bleeding too much…” His frenzied, wide eyes gave a once over to her uniform with a confirming, relieved nod to himself, hastily yet tenderly continuing to ease her up.

She gasped through gritted teeth at the impressive surge of agony trembling her petite frame as he hauled her up with an arm about her waist, urging shuffles through the powdery snow with their rawed feet. Just leave me, George!

“Medic! Medic!” George clamored with a trickle of cracks from his scratchy throat, as he essentially maneuvered both the weights of themselves and their gear through the churns of snow.

Y/N dubiously leaned meager stretches of strength into her feet yet cowered as if her foot met a flame rather than ice — she was a paratrooper….yet couldn’t even fucking walk on her own, muster the strength to do so. She had been banged up by a few shreds of shrapnel in Normandy, walked the entire night with a makeshift tourniquet while following a few other lost Easy soldiers, one being her boyfriend, Donald Malarkey. Her glazed eyes impossibly widened as George’s demands for a medic blurred in her hearing; both of his best friends were dead. And it was only fitting, devastatingly so, that she’d be the one to tell him.

“Luz! What happened?!” Eugene Roe’s lanky figure came hurtling over a mound of frosty dirt, hand securing his helmet atop his head as it quavered with his hasty steps. In the hazy smoke of the deluge’s aftermath, it had been rather difficult to depict just where the medic had come bounding from — however, that’s how it always seemed with the young man; he’d come when he was needed, and one may often ponder on just how he’d get there.

“She was near one of the directs when it exploded!” George panted incredibly fast as if his system was ramshackled with gradually increasing grief, now that the adrenaline had washed away. Roe bounded up to the pair of them, easing an arm to replace George’s as the man’s lip vaguely quivered, “Skip and Penkala….their foxhole got hit. They’re…they’re gone.”

“You go get yourself some rest, Luz, okay? Lip said we’re alright for now,” Roe solemnly managed, cracking a meager smile across his chapped lips, regarding how George gazed around the snowy wasteland with a distant glint in his swollen brown eyes.

He eventually bowed his head before patting Y/N’s shoulder, the tremble of his hand radiating through the cloth of her jacket, “Take good care of her, eh?”

“‘Course,” his voice was scratchy, his pink nose twitching with a cough shackling his body as George dubiously trudged away through the snow, his hand fumbling for his cigarettes in his pouch. 

“You sick, Gene?” Y/N murmured in attempt to alleviate the nauseating pain from her misery and wounds, the pair of them hobbling through the snow towards Eugene and Spina’s foxhole.

“Nah, just the cold — Louisiana ain’t never this cold, I ain’t used to it,” he shrugged whilst tweaked the place of his hand on the curve of her torso, peering towards her from beneath the contour of his helmet, “You shouldn’t be worrying about me, ma’am, anyway. You’re the one who is injured.”

Y/N mustered a nerve to smile — ma’am, Eugene Roe was undoubtedly and to a fault, a gentleman — and, yes, she was above him in rank, but he was a year her senior, nearly a foot taller than her. Such an endearment was uncanny to her.

“Someone’s gotta look after you, too, Eugene,” she asserted, tone wandering with haze from morphine she hadn’t noticed he injected. And, he just nodded away slightly at her words as they approached the foxhole, Spina mounting the crumbling dirt of it to aid them the distance to it.

—

THE NEWS OF THE direct hitting Skip and Penkala’s foxhole fell upon Donald Malarkey before she secured the opportunity to do so herself; George Luz had come numbly lumbering into a foxhole where Malarkey nursed a wrinkled cigarette between his teeth whilst he prepared food. Luz had mumbled lowly of how Y/N and him had been scrambling in a crawl towards the foxhole in seek of safety from the ambush of artillery, how Skip and Penkala had been yearning in grasp towards them — screaming their names through the descent of fiery hell — and how a direct whistled from above, landed in the abyss of the dirt, and exploded, shattering the two men to ashy pieces. How Y/N had been just mere inches ahead in the snowy distance, yet was injured by shrapnel and ripples of heat that would’ve — should have — blistered his own skin.

And Luz wasn’t shocked when the redhead blundered out from the foxhole almost breathlessly, flicking away his smoldering cigarette to the frigid earth. Luz snuffed it out haphazardly with the tip of his boot as he kindled his own fresh cigarette from his rumpled pack, shakily inhaling the toxic, invisible poisons to his aching lungs.

Donald Malarkey trudged with anchors in his tired muscles through the snow towards Roe’s foxhole. He heaved his beanie over the greasy tousle of his crimson hair, noticing how his fingers quivered from gradual shock rather than the bitter air. Muck and Penkala were dead. Y/N was injured…to what extent he didn’t know.

“Roe!” He snapped through the evening briskness as he caught glimpse of the silhouette of the medic bustling towards his foxhole, hands nestled beneath his armpits to absorb the scarce warmth of his body heat.

“Malarkey,” Roe nodded curtly in acknowledgement, peering his glossy eyes out from beneath the rim of his helmet, “‘ya hurt?”

Don briskly shook his head, nearly too belligerently, “I heard Y/N got hit — she here?”

The shadow of a helmet swayed in the vanishing daylight within the foxhole, as if the individual had perked at the mention — rather aggressive — of the female paratrooper. He didn’t stall for Roe’s agitated response, striding the dainty distance to the fringe of the foxhole, face as red as his hair.

Y/N was knelt against the curve of arid dirt, a cloth bandage cinched around her thigh with blemishes of blood dotting its white canvas, the diminishing daylight grazing vaguely over the dirt and lacerations on the highs of her cheekbones and the crook of her forehead. Hell. She looked as if she had been ravaged by hellhounds, drained of morality by Hades himself. She was far cries away from the spitfire woman that defied stereotypes years ago in Toccoa.

“You found me,” she murmured bluntly, pale fingers picking apart the resemblance of food in her K-Ration, dropping away the shreds in distaste.

“You could’ve been killed, Y/N,” he hissed bitterly, stooping to the icy circumference of the foxhole, boots crackling the wintry concoction beneath them,“And it seems like you don’t give two fucks that you almost were obliterated.”

Her anxious fingers halted in a hasty reaction, almost cramping at the abrupt cease of movement in their frigid tendons. And she laughed. It was a sputter of cynicism and miff that bubbled from her chapped lips as she fluidly pushed herself to her feet, the K-Ration tumbling aside. Her balance was thwarted by the anguished blasts of soreness in her leg, a hand clenching the grassy edge of the foxhole to bolster her achy figure upwards.

“That’s because I saw two of my best friends get shot to hell right in front of me,” she callously asserted, her knuckles thronging with white as the pressure upon the edge swirled in her frustration, “When I should’ve been, too!”

The aghast and bewilderment that irked the dullness on his face made her aware that her choked up words had opened a Pandora’s Box. The one small comment had stirred the hurricane in the both of them and their blazing eyes strung in a tightrope in the biting air. Their steady breaths canopied in front of their faces as they glowered at each other.

“You could’ve at least found me and told me you got hurt,” he chastised, a clipped reprimanding that had her feeling more so a red-handed child rather than a soldier.

“Ah,” she clicked her tongue, jabbing it fleetingly against the concave of her cheek as to contemplate her wit-drawn remark, “So, you could’ve berated me sooner?”

Her eclipse of his concern had the flush of his cheeks once more rivaling the shade of his hair — wisps of crimson against pallid complexion, distinct from those caused by the whip of arctic air.

“Because I care about you, okay?!” His true desire was to have his tone be a verbal clobber — beckon the self-preservation to her mind through some marvel — yet had to settle for a searing and acrimonious murmur in the girdle of a noise mandate.

Y/N was emotionally far past his counsel, composure shot by the regret and irritation she festered and allowed to strengthen with each moment done.

“Anybody would be fucking grateful they were alive,” she muttered, her throat aching with the pinch of a cry, “But that’s not me — if I was to be grateful to be alive, I wouldn’t be a true soldier. There are so many others who deserve to be alive instead…be here instead, go home instead….” Y/N cleared her throat of the swirls of temptation to break down crying, sniffing her pinkened nose whilst shaking her head, “And I know you feel the same so don’t even dare reprimand me, Malarkey.”

The irate snap of his surname radiated just how pissed she was presently with him, how her fury rolled off her in tidal waves, a furnace in the Bastogne frigid damnation. And he opened his mouth but never uttered a syllable. She was right. Of course — she was notorious for her tendency to be right. He’d be a foolish man to conceal the survivor’s guilt that gnawed at the linings of his stomach each day, each moment a fatality was broadcasted across the company. It was a torment that sliced deeper within his conscious, sharp knives carving out his morality with each dead body he saw, each name he heard from the casualties report.

A paper-like pressure on his clenched fist roused him to reality, away from his mind that gnawed with too many emotions to start processing. Her scarred, ivory hand encompassed his larger palm, a bustle of trembling erupting in their clasp as she peered into the dead look molded into his eyes — eyes that she was accustomed to seeing depths of youth and warmth within. Neither was nowhere to be seen.

“Don,” she beckoned, shifting her weight from the burning twinge on her injured leg, crinkles of a wince on the corners of her eyes. She gulped away the discomfort — ruminating on how she wasn’t keen on being the recipient of such obstinate attitude, “Come on … look at me.”

He collapsed the kneel bolstering him, a whoosh into the crinkled snow while glimpsing at her, the pain she subdued with the scraps of strength in her drained soul and body, the juxtaposing earnestness of her eyes. She wrenched his hand subtly, beckoning wordlessly for him to get into the foxhole for, God forbid, another deluge of artillery hail down on them. Numbly, he sank into the depth of the foxhole, resembling more of a ghost from a horror story than a breathing human being.

“Your leg,” Don muttered bluntly, beady eyes upon the haphazardly wrapped bandage encompassing her thigh, gaze moving along the crimson splotches that didn’t vanish in the evening gleam.

“Just a few minor burns,” Y/N shrugged, casting a sidelong glimpse up towards him as he crouched against the icy sludge, “Roe says they’ll be healing in a week or so.”

He shakily nodded whilst propelling his eyes impossibly fast from her, staring at the crevices of ravaged dirt before him, a habit many Easy soldiers developed in the dragging hours they were pinned in their foxholes. And even though things were rather precarious between the pair of them, she still plucked the clenched hand from atop his thigh, thumb absentmindedly trialing over his split knuckles.

“You should get some sleep,” she asserted, well aware he was a constant subduer of slumber, preferring to smoke through his cigarette packs and penning letters to his mother back home during the night, “Can’t keep yourself alive if you’ve got one eye shut.” She was acutely aware of such since she would offhandedly stay awake with him, chuckling beneath a tarp about childhood shenanigans and aiding the penmanship of his letters.

His eyes were opaque with slumber when they glanced towards her — nearly cynical — as if wondering just why she’d say such, fathom how she thought he could sleep right now.

“You first,” he dared yet she knew from the subtle grin that cracked a spiderweb of content on his face, that she had shattered even a fraction of his woe — Donald Malarkey couldn’t settle with being swamped with morose, that just wasn’t the ginger’s ways. Even war couldn’t hinder that.

His chapped fingertips skimmed gingerly on the rosy ample of her cheek once a comfortable silence glutted the cold, heaps of exhaustion flushing into her own eyes at the familiarity of his touch — the subtle warmth of it on her rawly bitter skin. His thumb brushed her bottom lip rather fleetingly, openly admiring her for a slim second before the crumbling of snow indicated someone approaching, and his hand fell away.

“You both sleep,” Roe’s voice beckoned lowly from the brink of the foxhole, as he tapped the bow of his boot against the rear of both of their helmets. His voice was muffled vaguely by the cigarette that bobbed at the corner of his mouth, “I’ll wake ‘ya in an hour.”

“Thanks, Gene,” Y/N nodded faintly back his way as he trudged through the snowfall towards an intact tree trunk.

Her head felt nearly embedded with surges of lead as it settled onto Don’s shoulder, her eyes swollen with anchors of weariness from sleepless nights and the allure to release into slumber swelled by him stroking her the hair that bustled from beneath her helmet. Whilst he shut his eyes, lips shifted to the icy ivory of her cheek in a delicate kiss, her shoulders composing away from their tension at the warmth blossoming across her cheek from the contact.

And for the first time in weeks, they soundly slept.

[latibvles]

DON’T KEEP ME WAITING.

hello my dear @mccall-muffin !! I was your Secret Santa :) Have this Malarkey fic with some small hurt/comfort & unconditional love xx

PAIRING: Malarkey x Reader

GENRE: Fluff, angst if you squint

SUMMARY: He’s not the same after Bastogne and he knows it — you know it too, even if he didn’t realize it.

He always thought hell was meant to be this fiery pit millions of miles down. That’s what his mother taught him, anyway. But after Bastogne, Don figures he’d take the fiery pit over a frozen shell-ridden wasteland any day. He’d nearly shot himself in the foot just to catch a break.

He hadn’t, though, and sometimes that small victory was one of the few things he had to fall back on.

He still wasn’t sure if getting out of the patrol was a proper victory or not yet.

Of course, part of him was grateful to be out of it. He rarely got to sit anything out, ever. He’d been on the frontline of every single Operation since Normandy and he never complained, never made a stink about it. He kept moving because there was a job to do, and there were people counting on him. Buck, Guarnere, Toye, Penkala, Skip, you.

It was almost insane how that list became shorter and shorter with their time in Bastogne. But he quickly learned that war was insane — just as much as he was for jumping out of a perfectly good airplane nearly a year ago.

He stares at the battered wall across from his bunk, fists clenching and unclenching meticulously. You weren’t on the patrol either, and for that he was thankful. More than thankful, actually. He’d already said goodbye to too many people — some without them ever hearing it. The thought of potentially losing you? Over a prisoner snatch no less? That might be enough for Don to actually shoot himself in the foot.

Which was probably a little selfish, given that this entire time, you’ve been so graciously holding out a hand for him to take and he’s been expertly avoiding it. And he knows he shouldn’t — because you’d sit and you’d listen and maybe things would be lifted off of his shoulders, if only for a couple moments. But then where would they go? Straight onto your shoulders — and he couldn’t do that to you in good conscience.

“Don!”

He snaps his gaze, looks towards the door. Speak of the devil, and they shall appear. You stand there in the doorway, brows furrowed and worry evident on your features.

He watches as your lips pull into a frown and your brows furrow. “You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?” Don shakes his head, picking at the skin of his fingers as he turns to look at you.

“Spaced out. Sorry about that,” he mutters. You reach out and take one of his hands, grabbing it and giving it a squeeze. He cracks a smile at that. At any moment he could be blown up or shot or meet his demise in a number of ways — and here you were, worrying about his fingers. “Run it by me again?”

“Winters is letting Jones go on the patrol. Vest, too,” for a moment, a wave of dread washes over him, but as if sensing it, you continue. “Martin’s leading the patrol, not Jones,” And as quickly as that dread arrived, it dissipates with your words, and Don can’t help but crack a smile at that. You haven’t let go of his hand yet. “...I think that’s the most I’ve seen you smile in the past three weeks.”

“Really? I’ve uh… I’ve smiled plenty.”

“Mm. No, not like this,” You bump your shoulder with his, he sways a little bit in response, and the small chuckle you let out makes him smile a little wider. “You don’t look like you’re about to puke into your helmet or anything. And you’re not being short for once.”

He doesn’t miss the sincerity in your tone, the way your fingers curl around his hand a little tighter. He’s been tethered to you for a while now — but something about the action feels… more tangible this way. He’d wanted to stick by your side for a while now. This felt like you granting permission for him to do so. But he doesn’t say that.

“You noticed all that? I didn’t…”

“Realize? I didn’t think you did,” He tracks your gaze as it shifts towards the window, covered in dust from the artillery that shakes Hageneu during the day, before it goes back to his face. “The rest of us did though. The guys didn’t… know what to do. I just figured it’d be best to wait until you came back or let me in or…”

You trail off and Don finds some type of courage to shift the hold so he’s properly lacing your fingers with his own. Your hands are warm and rough like his, the scars are similar but not exact, like the wear and tear on your ODs, the tired look in your eye. Cut from similar cloth, but not the exact same — and maybe he feels a little silly for not acknowledging that no matter how hard he tried, his burdens would always be yours.

That’s been your way since Toccoa and he doesn’t know when he forgot that, when he tricked himself into thinking that would somehow change now, when you knew that he would probably need it most.

“Must think I’m pretty rude, keeping a lady waiting, huh?”

“The absolute rudest, just what would your mother say?” At that, he chuckles, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand, looking down at how neatly they’re intertwined. Like two pieces of a puzzle.

“Smack me upside the head with the morning paper, and push me to take you out to dinner to make up for it,” and then, looking up at you, “But hot broth and spuds aren’t much of a dinner, so we might have to take a rain check on that one.”

You laugh and his heart does a flip at the sound. He could stay here all day, if given the chance — sitting on this paper thin mattress and looking at you like he’s back in Oregon sitting with a girl on the bleachers at a football game. All he can do is stare, smiling in a way that he knows is likely silly-looking, clinging to that sound. You settle for a moment, shaking your head, the smile ever present.

“Careful, I might actually take you up on it.” You state, looking at him. For a moment, Don bites his lip. And maybe it’s that he no longer reeks of artillery fire because of the shower, or maybe it’s the relief that he isn’t going on the patrol. Maybe it’s because if Toye and Guarnere and Muck were here, they’d be egging him on and telling him to open his mouth.

“Don’t think that’d be such a bad thing. A… A date, when we’re stateside. I know a pretty good restaurant.” He can feel his cheeks flush as he says it, but you don’t react to what he says for a moment, until you raise a brow at him.

“Are you asking me to go home with you, Don?” He doesn’t say anything, but he nods his head. You let out a sharp exhale through the nose, your eyes crinkling at the corners. “Alright then, pick me up at seven and don’t leave me waiting.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, but… in the meantime…” he finds himself leaning towards you — and maybe it’s his own impulse, but he presses his lips to yours in a firm kiss, his hand squeezing yours. And when you kiss him back with that same certainty, all he can do is smile and pull you in closer.

[lewis-winters]

“Slow down!” For the fic title game

a little one shot detailing how Don Malarkey and Alton More stole a motorcycle and its sidecar!! could be a cute gen friendship fic that has hints of angst when you sneak in allusions to how alton more later dies after the war, in a car accident.

send me a made-up fic title and i'll tell you what i would write to go with it

[rogue-durin-16]

SMILE FOR ME (III/III)

Summary: a young promising war photographer is sent to document the Airborne's first missions on french soil, where she inevitably meets Easy Company, and Don Malarkey becomes immediately smitten by her. Lucky him, France wouldn't be the only place in which their paths would cross.

Pairing: Don Malarkey x Photographer!Reader

Genre: angst-fluff

Tags:

Band Of Brothers: @sparkyluz @chubbypotatoepie @clumsy-wonderland

Permanent taglist: @elia-the-bibliophile @randomparanoid @karlthecat15722 @thebutchersdaughtersblog @amourtentiaa @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @comfort-reads

Warnings: warfare, blood, wounds, death, language

A/N: This multipart was so fun to write for some reason even the angsty part I'm so sorry for that. Enjoy this Malarkey content my darlings, I've got more of it coming your way <3

Part I

Part II

Rogue-durin-16 masterlist

Such a terrifying sight; not because of the cold, not because of the phantasmagoric, stripped-of-life landscape we could barely see in the dark, but because of the trail of soldiers carrying themselves out of the woods the best they could.

"Holy shit..." I instinctively pushed Y/n behind me, as if the defeated men who were pulling back would hurt her in any way.

As if she hadn't just come back from there.

"Y/l/n." Winters approached us. The photographer's left hand squeezed my bicep while the other one found shelter in my own, interlacing her frozen fingers with mine. "I know you're supposed to come in with us, but I want you to pull back."

"But I—"

"Take a picture of us entering, then pull back with these men." He insisted in a commanding, yet comforting tone. "I'll have you being sent here once this is secured." Y/n was about to complain again when Winters added something in a lower voice that made my blood run cold. "We can't have you dying, nor soldiers dying for you." The Captain's eyes flickered to me and swiftly came back to the photographer with brows raised. "Pull back."

"... Alright, sir." Y/n gave in, her own gaze stealing a concerned, almost guilty glance at my form while giving Winters a halfhearted nod. "I'm really sorry." She whispered, turning to face me once Winters was gone to speak to Colonel Sink.

"It's for the best, this doesn't look... Ideal." I reassured her, peeking at the trail of defeated soldiers walking by us. Guarnere and Babe had had the brilliant idea of taking away their ammunition, something I, too, should be doing. I pondered my options. "Shit— hold on," I turned away from Y/n, joining my friends for a moment. "Toye! Grab me some ammo!" Joe yelled back an affirmative response, and I walked back to the war photographer, pulling her away from the crowd in order to gain some privacy. "Do you know what we're walking into?"

She hesitated before giving me a nod, but she didn't explain what she knew about the dangers of the Ardennes. I don't think I would have wanted to know, anyway.

"If I don't see you again," I began in a whisper, feeling the blush creeping up my neck all the way to my cheeks. "Just know you're the most incredible gal I've met," my mouth practically vomited the words, feeling as if I was running out of time to say it. "and that when I feel blue, I always think of your smile— and that I'm always wishing to see you somewhere with your camera, even if we don't really get to talk— and—"

Cupping my face with both of her cold hands, she brought me in for a soft peck, which I barely had time to return.

"You're the sweetest soul, Don." She murmured, her own face heated up, rubbing my cheek with her thumb before letting her hands fall on her camera. "Please be careful."

"I'll try my best." I responded, bracing myself, since the cold weather threatened to leave me lifeless even before diving into the woods.

"You better do." She warned me, taking off her scarf to wrap it around my neck. I didn't complain— I craved warmth, and the piece of clothing had her scent. "Now go." She stepped back and raised her camera. "I gotta take a fuckin' photo."

I waved her goodbye before joining the fellas; Skip, Penkala and Toye, who had grabbed me some ammo, awaited for me with knowing grins. I didn't scold them, my heart was still pounding fast, and a beam of my own had been imprinted on my face, so I just allowed them to tease me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

READER'S P.O.V.

"You organize things here and I'm gonna go for... Help." Luz impersonation of their CO made all of us wheeze.

"What a fuckin' character." I commented, leaning on Don, whose arm was wrapped around my middle, pressing me to his side.

He had been keeping me close since I had arrived on the January 27th, but specially after we had witnessed the German artillery blowing up Bill Guarnere's and Joe Toye's legs.

That scene would forever haunt me, specially after having to take pictures of it. It was like being back to the VIII Corps in the beginning of December— there was one difference, though; the men of the Airborne, specially the ones from E company, had grown on me.

Don's serious voice brought me back to reality. "You alright?"

"Yeah, just cold." I gifted him an effortless smile, tilting his helmet down so it would cover his eyesight.

"You guys are disgusting." Skip gagged, making me laugh while Don put his helmet back in place with a lovey-dovey grin.

"Yeah, moving out, fellas." Penkala agreed, tugging Muck's coat to get him to walk away with him. "Don't wanna throw up."

"Ignore them." Don spoke, raising his gloved hand to move away a strand of hair that had escaped my wool hat. "They're jealous, whiny bastards."

"Way to talk about your friends."

"They know I love them like brothers."

"Bet they—"

And just like that, in the blink of an eye, the peaceful, cold night turned into a shelled hell.

"WITH ME! WITH ME C'MON!" Don ran to the nearest foxhole, pulling me along with full force.

Luckily, we jumped into it just in time; an explosive landed on the ground behind us the moment we were getting coverage from the cold ground.

Not so luckily, a piece of shrapnel reached my face just as I was diving in.

"FUCK!"

"Y/N!"

"I'M FI— SHIT!" Another piece of artillery landing near us triggered Malarkey to pull me to his chest, arms wrapped tight around me as we held our breaths.

The wound I had just gotten either wasn't all that bad, or the adrenaline levels of my body were so high that it didn't hurt.

It only took a couple more seconds for the attack to be over, but they felt endless.

"Okay." I whispered, reluctantly pulling away from Malarkey. "Everything alright?"

"No?" He sat upright, taking off his gloves to pull the hat off me and carefully move my hair out of the way. "You need a medic— MEDIC!"

"That bad?" I questioned, unconsciously taking my own hand to the side of my head, where I was starting to feel a stinging pain and the warm blood running down my neck and cheek.

"Well, depends." Don tilted his head to the side, putting my hand away and digging in his pocket for something. "Bad as in a regular context? Probably. Bad for a round of Kraut artillery?" He shook his head no, pulling out a packet of sulfa powder. "Could be worse."

"Do I still have both ears?" I joked, figuring that was where the worst pain was focused.

"Well," Don grimaced, making my lay down to sprink the sulfanilamide on the side of my face. "Let's just say half of one is somewhere over this foxhole."

"Shit..."

"It's okay, you're okay. It's not that bad." He reassured me, taking my hand in his and giving it a firm squeeze. "Where the fuck's Roe?" The Technical Sergeant, now on his knees besides me, peeped over the foxhole. "MEDIC!" I heard fast footsteps hitting the ground near us right before Eugene jumped in with his bag. "She got hit by shrapnel." Malarkey explained while the medic pulled me up, checking the side of my face before pulling a bandage from the equipment. "She gotta be pulled back."

"Okay, Y/n," once the wound was covered, Eugene held my chin, moving my head side to side in order to thoroughly check the rest of my face. "Can you hear?" I nodded. "You're good, we'll get you out of here." He then turned to the man who still held my hand. "Malarkey."

"Yes, Doc?"

There was an instant of ominous silence, in which the medic seemed to ponder how to break the news, until he decided it was best to get it out with straightforwardness.

"Muck and Penkala's foxhole took a direct hit." Malarkey's hold on my hand tightened into a grip. "There's... There's almost nothing left." I knew Don was struck by astonishment, because so was I. "Do you wanna... go see it?"

The boy took a moment, as life left his gaze and body, and then denied with his head, hand falling limply on the ground, away from mine.

"I'm gonna be right back." Eugene assured Malarkey, giving his arm a squeeze. "Luz will come see you in a minute. I'm gonna go take her back to CP."

Still struck by the surreal, heart wrenching news, I myself couldn't say anything while the medic pulled me up on my feet; I could only stare down at Don, whose eyes were following my movements closely, grief setting in them as I got out of the foxhole.

As Roe rushed me away from the position, I took an overall view of the place, and found George Luz, kneeled on the ground, looking down inside a foxhole at merely twenty yards away from ours.

"I'm gonna ask you to do me a favor." The medic whispered, signalling a jeep to stop by so I could climb on it. "Stay off the line for a while." Before I could ask the reason, Roe explained it. "If you come back here and get hit, we lose Malarkey." He spoke slowly and intently, helping me sit down. "We can't lose Malarkey."

I nodded understandingly, looking down at my camera, which seemed to be in better condition than I was at that very moment.

Hopefully, the little shrapnel incident would be enough to keep me off the battlefield— I just wished I could take Don with me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I tried not to sprint to the building where I had been told E company was left to lounge in, and instead slowly but surely planted my feet on the Nazi German ground.

It was the first time since Bastogne that I would be seeing Easy; I had just arrived to the Eagle's nest to take pictures when Nixon pulled me aside to announce the good news.

"Do you wanna break it to them?"

"I— yes! Yes, I'd love to."

Breathing in and clutching with one hand the strap of my backpack, I pushed the gate open. I was instantly met with the soldiers who I had grown fond of, in much better condition than I had left them.

"Do my eyes deceive me?" Luz, who stood facing towards the door, beamed at me, a cigarette hanging on his lips. "Malarkey!" He shouted, turning and jogging into another room while the rest of the boys shot a look at the door, first confused, then in shock.

"Hey fellas!" I waved my hand at them with a smile as I strolled in their direction. "Holding up pretty good, huh?"

There was a chaotic, excited wave of greetings while they all left their little circle to surround me, much like that first time I had made contact with them back in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.

"How the hell did ya get here?" Perconte questioned.

"They indulged me." I informed them with a chuckle, placing my bag on top of a very out-of-place coffee table near me.

"What're you doin' here?" Liebgott asked.

"I'm the designated bearer of good news." My statement, along with my coy grin, triggered a new roaring of anticipation and eagerness amongst the men. "Calm down, boys! Why dontcha get me everyone here so I can—"

"Y/n?"

Just like Muck and Penkala had first dragged Don to my presence almost a year earlier in Normandy, Luz was now managing to sneak the ginger into the center of the ruckus that had just formed.

"Don!" My amused smile grew into a simper at his dumbfounded little laugh. "You sure cleaned up good."

There was a cue of whistles at Don's sheepishness and at my words; I didn't mind it, nor did he, but I had to fight the urge to leap forward into his arms, and I knew he was suffering from the same need.

"So? What is it?" Someone behind me inquired expectant.

"The German Army surrendered." I announced, as loud as possible for everyone to hear my words, though my eyes never left Don's.

Confused, incredulous whispers flooded the vast room, growing louder and louder until they became cheers of happiness.

"Happy VE Day." I spoke, this time to Don only.

The twinkle of joy in his eyes that had been dulled by the horrors of war seemed to shine just as bright as that first time we had met when he pulled my hand to bring me towards him.

With his arms wrapped tight around my waist and my own enclosing his neck, he swept me off my feet, tearing a surprised squeal out of me.

Once he put me down again, we shared a brief look remaining in each other's embrace before he closed the gap between our faces.

Having been so long expected, it felt like the most natural thing in the world when his mouth met mine.

It had nothing to do with the rushed peck I had gifted him before we parted ways at the entrance of the Ardennes; this was a deep, joyful, reciprocated kiss, charged with so much love and relief that it made time stop and our tummies flutter.

As Don slowly retrieved his lips from mine, the chaos around us started to slip back into my ears. "Happy VE Day, Y/n." He whispered, resting his forehead against mine while I dragged my hands all the way from his back to his chest, not without brushing his cheeks first.

"Get a room!"

"Shut up, Alton!" Don yelled, halfheartedly pulling away from me, though keeping his hands on my hips. "I'm tryna have a moment here."

"Have a moment IN A ROOM!"

"Luz I'm gonna—"

"Oh— Don!" His head snapped back at me, eyebrows raised and lips slightly parted as he awaited for my words. "I almost forgot— I got somethin' for ya." I pulled away from him to grab my backpack from the table. "Come." He obeyed, following my lead to another room. "Y'know, while I was away," I opened the bag, grabbing a folder from it and pulling it out. "I went to the states to work on my pictures and— well I thought..."

I cleared my throat, reaching for that one photograph. Was it a good idea? We would soon find out.

I stole a glance at Don, whose brows were knitted now, gaze fixed on my hands while they pulled the picture out.

"I thought you'd want this." I murmured, handing it to him. His shaky hands took the most careful hold on it; he took his time to examine the three protagonists of the photograph, beaming at the camera with the French landscape behind them. He surely wouldn't recognize himself —not entirely, anyway— but the two boys with him, those he would recognize.

His lower lip quivered, the back of his hand swiftly wiping the tears from his eyes before they were shed. Once he removed the picture from his face, I stepped towards him, tentatively snaking my arms around him once more.

He quickly embraced me too, pulling my flush against him with one arm, his face buried in the crook of my neck.

"Thank you." He whispered in a squeak. I rubbed his back letting him vent the sorrow in silence for a moment.

Just as we were pulling away, a handful of men crowded together at the entrance of the empty room, calling for me. "Y/n, you have to take a picture!"

"I sure do!" I responded with a smile, shooting them a look before briefly returning my attention to Don, who was successfully putting himself together. "You gotta be in it." I stated, walking back to my bag to grab the camera. "Boys, come in here!" I animatedly urged the soldiers, who were fast to take the cue.

I led the one besides me to join his comrades, giving his arm a comforting squeeze and placing a chaste kiss on his cheek before stepping back.

"Alright, fellas!"

I checked everyone was well situated before letting my gaze fall intently on Don, who stared at me in adoration, inevitably making my face turn a shade of pink.

"Smile for me!"

Click!

[stillbandofbrothersthirsty]

Hii! May I request Heartbeat by Childish Gambino + love at first sight with Malarkey? Thank you❤️❤️

Yesss this song was MADE for my angsty soul! Malarkey and this song...phew, the angst. Thanks the request doll! <3

Who would have thought such a beautiful beginning would lead to such a painful end?

It had been love at first sight. You had caught his eye from across the room and it only took a matter of seconds for you to fall for that boyish smile. He fell in love with your laugh and you became obsessed with counting the freckles on his arms.

You had been different people back then. So full of hope, so full of potential, and so goddamn naive.

Your previous innocence seemed like a joke in the post-war world. You had to laugh at the memory of your childlike professions of love. How stupid they seemed now as you sat on the edge of his bed, pulling on your stockings and hating yourself. You had shared another midnight rendezvous without any intention or hope of reconciliation. After all, you had another man waiting for you and Don was nothing more than a ghost.

You used to consider yourself a good person. But something about him made you lose all rationality. Maybe you could have used your history as justification for your debauchery, but you both knew there was nothing romantic about your situation now. The war had broken Don and he had taken you down with him.

The last time you had truly felt anything was when his break-up letter arrived from Foy. It was the end of the world as you knew it, in the worst of ways. You had heard the news of Skip Muck, Alex Penkala, and Buck Compton from down the grapevine. You wrote to Don nearly every day with any desperate phrase of comfort you could conceive. He gave no response until he decided to end it. At the time, you couldn’t fathom how hollow his friends’ deaths had left him. You couldn’t comprehend how hurt people, hurt people. You had been a fool to think that you would be an exception in the depth of his pain.

Don could hardly look at you when he returned to the states. Part of you had hoped he would beg for you back but of course not, he had made his choice.

Besides, you had moved on. He had broken up with you after all. It was fully within your rights to date someone else; and at first, you were determined to respect your new relationship. But there was no avoiding Don. Every time you saw him your broken heart mourned for what you once had. You were a moth to his lamp if moths were self-sabotaging and lamps glowed dark.

You would be lying if you said you made every effort to resist Don. You would also be lying if you said you were trying to help him. It was clear to both of you that your relationship was beyond repair. And yet, you continued to go back to him time and time again. He had gone from the love of your life to your dirtiest secret.

You would like to say you resisted when he walked past with a scowl at the bar. You really shouldn’t care, especially when you were sitting beside your boyfriend who was ambitious and impressive and everything Don wasn’t. But you hated to think he was upset with you, especially when he had kissed you so sweetly the night before. But this was the cycle neither of you could escape. You were a reminder of everything he lost but couldn't bring himself to say goodbye to. It drove you crazy to see him with his new girlfriend. Surely she didn't make him happy?

At least the feeling seemed mutual. “Still with him?” Don couldn’t resist asking when you approach the bar. He always seemed to be there when your glass was empty. “Let me buy you a drink.” It wasn't a question.

“No, thank you,” you say. But your heart rate picks up just being closer to him. Though you’re looking straight ahead you can sense his amber eyes on you. He’s close enough that you can feel his warm breath on your cheek; it’s intoxicating. You try to remind yourself of how he’s treated you since Foy. From the breakup letter to the harsh words accusing you of not understanding his pain. You never pretended to understand his pain, all you wanted was to work through it together. He never gave you the chance.

“I can’t believe you’re with him,” he chuckles sardonically into his drink.

You can't help but look over at the girl he was with. She was nothing like you, is that what he liked now?

“He’s nice.” Your defense is weak, but that’s because you’re not sold on him either. You had love once, this wasn’t it.

And then he’s pushing the hair back behind your ear like he once did. And you notice the familiar patches of freckles around his wrist; the same ones you would run your thumb over before he ever left for Europe. You forget the glare he gave you when you first arrived at the bar because you can see that smile you fell in love with hidden behind the dark gold of his irises.

The next thing you know you’re lying to your boyfriend about feeling sick. You insist you get can home safely by yourself. Little does he know you’re not going home. Or maybe he is suspicious, but you don’t care, not when Don is waiting in the dark around the corner to take you back to his place.

And then he’s kissing you. And part of you wants to cry, you can feel the tears building but they’re never going to fall. You feel too numb to do anything except drag your lips across his familiar skin. You relish in the feeling of his bare skin against yours. In the darkness, you can almost imagine you’re touching the Don you once knew.

You knew what you were doing was wrong but you had made the accompanying guilt your friend. It was the price to pay to revisit the memory of true love that had been robbed by the evils of war.

[ithinkabouttzu]

Easy co.’s reaction to their s/o getting injured

genre! angst; romance

warnings! cursing, anxiety, mentions of blood and death, mentions of war, and sad themes.

description! The easy co. boys reaction to you being injured. (no disrespect to any real vets.)

a/n: I made this pretty vague so you can imagine it however you like 😭 but for each persons I feel like it gets progressively longer. Anyways have fun reading!!

taglist: @executethyself35 @linhkhanhcps @1waveshortofashipwreck @grumpy-liebgott @barbeygirl @samwinchesterslostshoe @ronsparky @sweetxvanixlla (sorry i’ve been forgetting to put the taglist friends!! If you want to be on this list, let me know!! :))

(gn! reader)

Dick winters: He would be so worried. His mind wouldn’t be on anything else at the moment other than your well-being. He feels like a bad boyfriend because he wasn’t there to protect you :( He gets so nervous and would try his best to be by your side the entire time that you’re getting well.

Lewis Nixon: He freaks out when he finds out that you got hurt. He rushes to wherever you are and demands to see you. When he does finally see you he’s so gentle and soft. He holds your hand and reminds you over and over again that he will always be there for you.

Carwood Lipton: He somehow feels like it’s his fault. There was nothing he could have possibly done to prevent it, but he feels like a crappy boyfriend for it, he apologizes to you multiple times. Because he thinks he should have been there for you.

Joe Toye:He gets so mad. He’s ready to go out and hunt whoever hurt you. He will honestly go out looking for a fight. When he sees you he gets even angrier though because who could do that to you? He’s hard on himself because he thinks he should have been there to protect you.

Joe Liebgott :When he hears that you got hurt he goes out to find you immediately. He doesn’t care if he gets in trouble or not, you are his first priority. He’s definitely pissed but would never show that you, mostly at himself and the person that got you hurt. But he makes sure not to make his feelings show and tend by your side.

Bill Guarnere: He would be completely irate, but instead of going out and trying to find the fucker that hurt you he would check to make sure you were okay and stable first. “I’ll get him doll. Don’t worry” He would most likely be irritable around the guys for the rest of the day or longer because of it.

George Luz: He’s so so worried. He can’t think about anything else but you. He would hope and pray that you’re okay until he can finally see you. When he does he holds your hand to his chest and rubs your hand softly. Telling you over and over again that everything will be okay.

Bull Randleman: He gets so protective. He would find you almost immediately and wouldn’t leave you out of his sight for a second. He’s so patient and caring while you’re in such a vulnerable state. “Trust me. I’ll never let someone do that to you again, darling. I promise.”

Floyd Talbert: He freaks out immediately, the tough guy act would be completely gone when he sees you get hurt. He doesn’t care about anything at the moment other than you and your safety. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not leaving.” He stays so close to you until you get better.

Eugene Roe: He gets there almost immediately and when he sees you he stops. He’s completely frozen for a second because he hates seeing you in such pain. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise.” He prays in his head the entire time while he fixes you up and hopes that you’ll make it through.

Skip Muck: He gets so serious when they tell him that you got hurt. He wants to know everything that happened to you. How it happened and if you would be okay, he would ask roe relentlessly until he got the answer he wanted. When you finally get better enough to see him he’s so sweet and gentle with you.

Don Malarkey : He wants to go find whoever hurt you but he also knows that he needs to be with you in the moment. He gets so so worried and the other guys would have to reassure him that you’re gonna be okay. He swears he can’t lose you. He can’t bear to do anything until he gets the “yes” that you’re okay.

Shifty Powers: When they tell him that you’ve been hurt, you were already taken away before he could see you. He would just sit by himself in silence. Not talking to anyone or engaging in conversation like he usually does. His spark would be gone until they let him know that you were gonna be alright.

Babe Heffron: His reaction would be a mixture of emotions, he would seem very angry and stressed when he finds out that you’re hurt. He feels like a horrible boyfriend because he thinks he could have protected you from being hurt. On the inside, he’s scared and terrified that you won’t make it back to him.

Frank Perconte: He needs to know where you are immediately once the guys let him know that you’ve been hurt. He feels sick to his stomach when they tell him something bad happened to you. He wish he could just take away your pain and you be happy and healthy. He wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep until he knew you were back to normal.

Ronald Speirs: He gets furious. One because he should have been there with you when it happened, and secondly because he believes that it could’ve been prevented if one of the other men were looking out for you. Until you get back from the hospital he would sink himself into paper work to pass time, waiting until he could see you again.

Chuck Grant: He doesn’t care for all of the details, he just needs to know if you’re okay or not. He honestly wishes that it was him getting hurt instead of you. He hopes that you will be okay and he really wishes that you won’t be in the hospital for too long. He would miss you too much :(

Johnny Martin: He honestly just gets pissed at the world. You’re the least deserving to get hurt and now you’re the one who is in such bad condition . He wishes he could do something to make you feel better. He feels like a bad s/o because he can’t immediately take the pain away from you.

Skinny Sisk: He would be in total shock. It never occurred to him that there was a possibility you could get hurt, his plans of you and him making it out perfectly fine vanished from his mind. If he does get the chance to see you he will promise to do anything to help you get better, and to be there for you no matter what.

David Webster : He thinks it’s a horrible joke when the guys tell him that you were hurt and now in the hospital. He’s in denial for a while. Still shocked that you got hurt when you were just talking to him moments ago. He tries to find a way to see you even if he gets in trouble.

Buck Compton: It breaks his heart when he sees you like that, fear would creep up into his mind and overwhelm him until he knew that you were going to be alright. He genuinely thought he lost you for a second and feels so much more protective over you afterwards.

If you enjoyed this, make sure to like or reblog!! Have a wonderful day friends! :))

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Fire On Fire: Chapter 2

(Ch. 1)

Gallery II Taglist Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: Alix & her 2 best friends get ready to go out on the town for the first time in awhile, which inadvertently brings back a bittersweet memory from a month prior. The young agent tries to figure out how to cope with Lieb's mixed signals and the pain of wanting someone she can only have in one way. WARNINGS: Smut (18+) & Angst

Contemporary: June 3rd, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

In an uncharacteristic act of generosity– which Alix firmly suspected was a product of Winters’ conversation with him earlier –

Lieutenant Nixon had grudgingly allowed her to take the rest of the day off from training so long as she promised to review the necessary Intel for the millionth time before the next day "just in case", so Alix grabbed some food at the mess by herself and headed back into the village. 

She'd take care of all that later.

It was a short but enjoyable walk back to the neat row of houses where she was billeted and the slight chill of the English autumn air made her smile. The smokey, overcast sky; the cool breeze rustling through the tree leaves; and the aroma of fresh food wafting from nearby restaurants all reminded her of being back home in Philly.

Arriving at the rustic terraced cottage where she had been staying, she opened the door and was greeted by the sweet sound of silence.

The pleasant elderly couple she was staying with had departed for Wales unexpectedly earlier in the week due to a death in the family, which left Alix with the house to herself for the remainder of her time in Aldbourne, not that she minded.

On the contrary, the tranquility was a pleasant change from the cacophony of the training ground where she spent most of her time.

Examining her manicured nails at the kitchen table, she realized she’d badly chipped one, probably during training. She frowned. 

Her best friends had invited her out to the pubs for one last hurrah at around 8 o’clock and she would not be going anywhere with chipped nail polish.

Dashing upstairs to the guest room she slept in, Alix snatched the burgundy polish off her bedside table and scampered back downstairs to the kitchen table, just in time to see the front door burst open. 

Her best friend, Skip Muck, bounded inside like an unleashed Golden Retriever with her other best friend, Don Malarkey, right on his heels, the slight breeze slamming the door shut behind him.

"Damn Pyro, your first free night in a month!” Skip exclaimed, taking his usual perch on the kitchen counter. “So where are we going? I vote The Crown!” 

“Sure, come on in, make yourselves at home,” Alix deadpanned, the ghost of a smirk crossing her lips as Malarkey half-fell into the nearest chair. 

“I don’t ever want to see another practice round again,” he griped, leaning over to loosen his boot laces. “Next ones we fire are gonna be the real thing.” 

Alix grimaced, remembering how unusually paranoid Nixon had been that day. He wouldn’t say when but she suspected they’d be making the big jump really soon.

“They just might be, Malark. But you didn’t hear it from me, capisce?” 

“I guessed as much,” Skip interjected as he played with the rosary he always carried in his pocket. “Ol’ Blackbeard wouldn’t give you the night off unless the end of the world was pretty much here.” 

Alix laughed and shook up the bottle of dark red nail polish.

“Ain’t that the truth, Skipper. But as for where we go, I think last time we went to the Blue Boar, right Don?”

 

“We did but we can’t go back there again.”

“Why not?”

Malarkey rubbed the back of his neck, cringing. “I might owe one of the bartenders some money from poker…” 

“Wait who?” Suddenly, it dawned on her. “Oh God, Malark, not the big guy with the tattoo..?” 

“That’s the one.” 

Alix shook her head in amusement.

“Well, how much did you lose? I can probably spot you.”

“Trust me, you don’t wanna do that,” Malarkey replied dejectedly. “Let’s just say this: Skip already gave me his last paycheck and it's not even half enough. The guy was a real card-shark. He cleaned me out so many times, I lost count.” 

“And where was I when this was happening?” Alix questioned. “How'd I miss all that?” 

Malarkey glanced over at Skip and the pair started snickering. 

“You were…otherwise occupied,” Don managed to choke out before bursting into laughter again. 

“With what?”

“With a certain T/5,” Skip teased, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

Shit. Alix felt her face getting hot, a scarlet blush creeping up her cheeks at the memory. Had it really been that obvious?

╔══ • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • ══╗

A month earlier: May 3rd, 1944. Aldbourne, England. 

“Alright, let the record show that neither Faye nor I ever said I was a good dancer,” Skip joked over the last notes of Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

“Yeah, I daresay my bruised shins will attest to that,” Alix laughed as the pair made their way back to their table. “I think I took more of a beating the last few songs than I ever did in training!” 

The blond man waved a hand dismissively. “Lies, all lies.”

 “Skipper, I swear, if you kick her during the reception half as much as you just kicked me now, poor Faye will bleed right through her wedding dress!”

Muck rolled his eyes dramatically and slapped a hand to his chest like he’d been shot.

“Pyro, you wound me!”

“Who’s wounded?” Malarkey piped up as he approached the table, arms loaded down with drinks.

“Both of us,” Alix quipped. “Muck’s pride and my legs!”

“Well, I think I got something that’s gonna make you both feel better!” 

The freckle-faced PFC set the glasses down on the table hurriedly before taking his own seat in between his two best friends.

A Cheshire Cat grin plastered itself across his face. 

Skip took a sip of his beer and gave the man on his left an inquisitive look. 

“Don, buddy,” he started slowly from Malarkey’s right side. “Is there something you wanna share with the class?”

         Malarkey didn’t answer. He fished around in his pockets for a moment before pulling out two large stacks of cash and slapping them down onto the table proudly. 

“Feast your eyes, kiddies,” he announced. “Drinks are on me tonight!”

Alix choked on her gin and tonic. 

“Christ Mal, did you win the lotto?!” 

“Might as well have! Just call me the king of craps!” 

“No,” Skip stated firmly, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I am not jinxing this for all of us.”

Malarkey and Skip had started bickering good-naturedly and Alix was about to chime in when she happened to glance over to the bar and was met with a familiar set of warm, copper-brown eyes and her mind went momentarily blank.

Joe Liebgott, a T/5 with Easy Company, was leaning on the bar with his left hand, swirling a nearly-empty glass of what looked to be Scotch on the rocks in his right, and eyeing her with an unabashed hunger that made her knees weak. 

God, he was handsome. 

 Somewhere in the back of her mind, Alix knew she was staring but she couldn’t help it. She flashed him a nervous smile and he winked at her before turning to pay his tab, causing her stomach to erupt with butterflies.

Damn him. 

Alix felt her face growing hot. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Malarkey leaving the table, probably heading to double his winnings. She was sure Skip was saying something –-whether to her or the people at the table next to them, she wasn’t sure– but she was too flustered to pay attention.

This wasn’t fair. She could have any other man in the room eating from the palm of her hand but this California cabbie was making her blush like a nervous schoolgirl!  

The young agent tried to fight the urge to look over where Joe was standing again but she couldn’t help it. She glanced over, just in time to meet his eyes a second time.

He returned her smile and jerked his head slightly towards the door as if to say, “You wanna get outta here?” 

Alix stood up so fast to follow him that she nearly upset her chair.

"Hey Skip, I'm gonna um.. run home real quick and grab another pack of smokes, okay?”

"Wait, let me go grab Don, I think he might have-"

 

"NO– I mean, no, no, it's fine" she corrected too quickly. "I'll be right back." 

"Okay.." Skip said, looking skeptical. "Want me to come with? Don't want you getting lost or something." 

"Thanks but I'll be okay, Skipper, I promise." 

"Alright but if you're not back in an hour, me and Mal are coming after you. Faye'd kill me if I lost our maid of honor before the wedding.” 

Alix gave her friend a grateful smile and grabbed her purse before hurrying after Liebgott, who’d already disappeared outside somewhere. 

Stepping out into the brisk evening air, she paused a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim streetlights. The glowing ember of a cigarette a few feet ahead by a nearby bench caught her eye. She couldn't see his face but despite the coat he was wearing, she could tell the smoker was lean and wiry, his thick chestnut-colored hair slicked back.

Even from behind, she'd recognize Joe Liebgott anywhere.

"Hey there, flyboy," she said cheekily and Joe turned his head. Even in the dim light of the street lamps, she could see that adorable lopsided grin of his. He put out his cigarette and stood to greet her.

"Hey, Ziskeit, how ya been?" Joe's tone was warm and inviting, so unlike the rebellious, devil-may-care attitude he put on around the rest of the company and Alix was suddenly grateful it was nighttime because she could feel her face turning bright pink at the nickname.

He'd never told her what it meant but the sound of it ignited delicious, giddy sparks in her stomach.

Joe looked her up and down, clearly admiring the way her black silk dress complemented her curvaceous figure, and Alix said a silent thank you to her friend, Lavinia, for making her buy it.

“Goddamn doll, you clean up pretty good, y'know that?" 

He was about to say more when approaching voices from a few feet away made him freeze.

“Shit, I think that’s Popeye and Tab.” 

With that, Joe grabbed her hand and yanked her into a dark alleyway next to the building with him, pressing Alix back against the cool brick wall.

He motioned for her to be quiet and they waited, each listening carefully as the nearby voices faded into the distance. She could feel both their hearts racing as his chest pressed against hers and she looked up at him with wide, doe eyes, to find he was already looking back at her. 

“How long do you have?” she whispered. 

“Till my buddies come back?” He paused for a second to think. “Maybe 40 minutes, an hour tops. You?”

“Same here.” 

Joe’s  warm, caramel-colored eyes drifted between her eyes and her lips and Alix caught her breath. Their faces were so close together, his lips lingering just inches from hers. She was aching to kiss him with every fiber of her being but she forced herself to wait. She didn't want to somehow screw this up.

As if he could read her mind, Joe smirked. “Guess we should make it count then, huh Zees?”

Alix hummed softly in agreement and that was all Joe needed to hear. Closing the distance between them, he crashed his lips to hers. They were warm and soft and Alix responded immediately, kissing him back with all the urgency that had been boiling up in her since she’d first seen him.

“God, I missed you,” Joe groaned breathlessly in between passionate kisses and Alix smiled against his lips, tangling a hand in his hair. 

“I missed you too, tesoro.”

Joe cupped her face gently with calloused hands and Alix felt warmth blossoming in her chest as Joe deepened the kisses, the sweet cinnamon bite of Scotch hitting her tongue. She tossed her purse somewhere, too focused on Joe to care where.

Just for that moment, he was hers and she was his. Nothing else mattered.

Their kisses became sloppier and more desperate as Joe fumbled to remove his coat, dropping it on the ground behind him. Alix tugged him back to her by his tie and she tilted her head back, soft sighs of pleasure turning into needy whines as he went from grazing kisses down her jaw to nipping at her neck, making her shiver. 

The rich, intoxicating smell of Joe’s cologne mixed with cigarette smoke was dizzying and Alix felt her breath hitch as Joe’s hands made their way up to the ample swell of her chest. 

“Have I mentioned how much I fuckin’ love these?” he asked, giving her breasts a light squeeze and she moaned softly. 

“Only every time we hook up,” Alix teased. “But feel free to tell me again.”

She felt him smile against her skin and he gave her neck a punishing bite.

“Fuckin’ smartass.”

Joe’s hands moved down her waist, leaving a trail of goosebumps on her skin, but Alix took his hand and impatiently guided it under her skirt. 

Unsure, he cocked an eyebrow at her and paused, letting his rough fingertips rest tantalizingly just above the waistband of her panties.

“You gonna stay quiet for me, doll?”

Alix nodded, trying desperately to summon a shred of self-control and he rewarded her with a kiss on the forehead and an “Atta girl” before dipping one finger and then another past the soaked lace and into her wet core. 

She let out a small sigh, leaning her head back against the cool brick wall, her eyes fluttering shut as she savored the feeling of his fingers inside her. 

Despite having hooked up with Alix only twice before that night, Joe seemed to instinctively know just what she needed because he began to trace feather-light circles on her clit, sending jolts of electricity through her entire body.

She gasped and bit her lip, fighting the urge to cry out as he began pumping his fingers in and out of her with a fervor while somehow still maintaining the perfect pressure on her clit.

He worked her faster and faster, his brow furrowing with concentration as the absolutely pornographic noises from her dripping sex spurred him on.

Alix forced herself to open her eyes, watching him, trying to burn every detail into her memory.

She didn’t know how long it would be until she’d get to see him again.

The day after every hookup, it was as though nothing had happened between them. Joe went back to his friends and Alix went back to her training, the pair basically avoiding each other. Alix began to feel like she was being toyed with but she still eagerly came back for more every time.

She was starting to think she was some sort of masochist. 

Alix felt her knees buckle beneath her as he applied just a touch more pressure to her heat and Joe leaned forward even more, pressing her against the wall harder so she didn’t fall. She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him as he curled and scissored his fingers expertly inside her.

“Oh...Oh God," she whimpered, burying her face in his shoulder to muffle her cries. She could no longer fight it and she laced her fingers through his hair.

The feeling of pleasure building up within her was almost unbearably good, like fire pooling in her abdomen, and she writhed under his touch. 

“Fuck, Joey, I’m so close.”

She didn’t even have to look at him to know he was grinning that lopsided grin of his, loving the way only he could make this fierce, capable agent crumble beneath him.

 

Joe increased his pace just slightly, rubbing her sweet spot with such intensity that she couldn’t help but moan his name, tugging on his hair desperately as she came undone.

Time seemed to slow as her orgasm rippled through her. Pleasure washed over her whole body and her vision went white as she was overcome with bliss.

She didn’t know how long it lasted but to Joe’s credit, he never stopped, nimbly working her down from her high so she wouldn’t collapse.

Her chest was heaving and she leaned on him as she willed her quivering legs to cooperate. 

Joe wrapped an arm around her to keep her upright and she felt her heart flutter in her chest.

For a brief second, she imagined a world where they were going steady, where there was no war and no rules against fraternization, where he was holding her not as a basic courtesy but because he loved her.

A world where tomorrow, they wouldn’t act like strangers again until the next time one of them needed release.

But sadly, that wasn’t the world they lived in.

“How was it, Zees?” Joe asked, breaking her out of her reverie, and Alix gave him a wild-eyed look as she struggled to catch her breath. Was he fishing for a compliment or did he really not know how mind-blowing that was?

“It…It was fine,” she panted, deciding to play it cool despite having been practically begging and mewling his name just minutes earlier. 

“Listen, Ziskeit, I-” Joe started but he was interrupted by very loud, somewhat intoxicated voices calling their names from the street. 

Joe swore under his breath and wiped his hands quickly before reaching over to grab his coat off the ground. 

“Guess that’s our cue, huh?” 

 Alix shrugged with a small, sad smile, smoothing her dress and watching Joe trying in vain to tame his hair.

“I suppose so.”

Joe handed her purse over to her and Alix pulled out her compact, inspecting her smudged makeup and the faint purple love bite just below her ear. 

Re-buttoning his coat, the T/5 took a deep breath, clearly sorting through what to tell his friends about where he’d disappeared to for an hour and why he’d returned so obviously disheveled.

He started to walk away but hesitated a few feet away, turning back to gaze at her one last time.

“Hey Zees?” 

The young agent looked over at him with wide eyes. “Yeah?” 

A look she didn’t recognize crossed his face briefly. It looked almost…pained. Apologetic, maybe a little hopeful? Or was she just imagining it?

An uncomfortable silence hung in the chilly air between them, each silently willing the other to speak, before Joe shook his head.

“Nevermind. Forget it.”

And just like that, he was gone again.

╚══  • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 • 🖤🖤 •  ══╝

Contemporary: June 3rd, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

"I know what it looked like a month ago, but it wasn't like that," Alix lied, speaking half to the vanity mirror over her dresser and half to her friends behind her. "Joe and I were just talking."

Don stopped adjusting his tie just long enough to loudly cough "Fraternizer" into his hand with a shit-eating grin before innocently resuming his task as though nothing had happened.

Alix put the finishing touches on her makeup before seizing a hair clip and lobbing it at her friend, who burst into laughter as it bounced harmlessly off his shoulder and onto the floor.

Hearing the clatter, Muck poked his head out of the bathroom door. Brandishing his hair comb like a sword, he pointed it at both of them, his amber eyes glittering with barely-suppressed laughter.

"So help me God, I will separate you two if you don't behave!"

Don stuck his tongue out at Alix and she rolled her eyes jokingly, biting back a smile as she went to appraise her outfit.

Cherry red was a good choice, she mused, doing a little twirl in front of the mirror so she could enjoy the way the dress billowed out. She'd worn it for a pin-up modeling gig awhile back and it still fit like a glove, accentuating her curvaceous figure without looking cheap.

The plunging sweetheart neckline allowed plenty of room for Alix's most treasured possession: her grandmother's delicate gold cross necklace, which she'd brought over from Italy when she was a girl. Alix wasn't religious anymore but even so, she never took it off.

"Hey Pyro," Skip called as he exited the bathroom, plopping down next to Malarkey in the adjacent room.

"If we do happen to run into your man Romeo tonight, please for the love of all things holy, make sure you lovebirds have a condom, just in case you start feeling the urge to 'talk' again or something."

"Yes, Mother," Alix teased and Skip put up his hands in mock surrender.

"Hey, I'm just saying, we don't need any little rugrats running around, m'kay? I got my hands full with you two shmucks as it is!"

∆∆━━━━∆∆━━━━━∆∆━━━━∆∆

[musicnoots]

All Roads Lead Me Back To You

Donald Malarkey/Reader

Prompt “You’re yawning again” requested by anon

A/N: comfort with soft!malarkey. love without conditions. 3.2k.

Synopsis: You and Don reconnect after he comes home from the war.

Tags: @gottapenny @dustyjjumpwings @those-dusty-jump-wings @floydtab @wexhappyxfew @meteora-fc @majwinters @dumpofdumblings @rayleighshughes @bandofmarvels @medievalfangirl @curraheev @junojelli @yeahcurrahee @not-john-watsons-blog @alienoresimagines @inglourious-imagines @david-weepster @evelyn-shelby

“You’re yawning again.”

His voice sounds foreign, it feels different. 

Don’s home. Three years later than he promised you back in 1942, he showed up at your doorstep with nothing but his dress greens on and a familiar smile plastered on his face. 

He looks different—he looks older, somehow. You wonder if his eyes had always been this dark, or if his hair always had a tinge of brown rather than the red you grew up with. He smells a bit different, too, compared to the familiar scent of seawater and fresh linen you’ve grown used to, he now smells of burning wood and faintly of cigarettes. He’s grown, you admit, from the boy next door who loved to gift you flowers when the sun glittered golden, to a hero adored by many. 

You remember your most cherished memories on the rooftop of Don’s childhood home, hot summer nights spent watching the younger kids ride their bikes past the streetlight and back, imitating the horns from the boats that reside in the port just mere miles away, enjoying a nice glass of cola together. Oftentimes, you would have stayed there until his father came to crash the party and send you home, but on nights where you and Don were lucky enough to stay until the sun rose again, you’d lay in each other’s arms and listened to the birds chirp the music of Ravel and Satie. On the rooftop where you laid your head on his lap when times were simpler. It became a place where you’d fallen in love with him, another home, though, you wonder if home wasn’t a place but rather the people you love.

This time, you sit upon the tiles of the roof for the first time since Don left in a desperate attempt to make up for lost time.

“Huh?” Your croak. You’re starting to fall asleep on your arms, knees pulled up to your chest. The younger kids down the block, now several years older, have gone in for the night, and you don’t exactly know what time it is.

He rubs your shoulder, the other hand holding a half drunk bottle of Coca Cola and one in yours to match. “You’re yawning, Y/N.”

You’d been cooped up on the rooftop, telling him everything that had happened since he left for the army. Did he ever watch all those new Rita Hayworth films? Did his mom ever tell him about how little Molly dropped out of high school? Did he know that you visited his parents while he was away and every time they asked if you heard from him, you’d always tell them no because he barely ever wrote back to you?

“Y/N,” he repeats again, and this time you look up. He’s still as handsome as when he left all those years ago—red hair, blue eyes, and a kind mouth that knew when to get smart. “Look at me,” he cups your cheek and brings you to face him, “did you get more beautiful while I was gone?”

“God, shut up,” you scoff, lightly punching his shoulder as he laughed. There was the Donald Malarkey you knew growing up. “I swear you may look like a man, Don, but I know there’s a twelve year old hiding in your brain somewhere.”

“And you really haven’t changed a bit, Y/N. Not one bit. You’re still my best friend, you know that?”

“Oh, so you haven’t replaced me.”

“Replaced?” he laughs. “I’ve met a lot of weird and strange men in the paratroopers, but no one has ever come close to you, Y/N, and I swear on my mom by that.”

You roll your eyes, smiling a bit. “Sure.”

“I mean it!” he exclaimed. “They used to ask me: Malark, you got a girl back home? and I would always tell them Nah, but I got myself a Y/N. And I think that’s better than any girl waiting for their handsome G.I.”

The smile lingers on your lips for a little while longer. You’re sitting right next to him, practically attached to the hip, but it feels like nothing has changed since he left. He talks to you as if he didn’t just pack up his bags and left for three years to fight a war—you guess there’s a part of you that just wants to continue where things left off, but you know it’s different now. 

“The kids down the block, they’ve grown up since you left,” you sigh. “Just like the way we did. They remind me of us.”

Don raises his eyebrows and looks at you in amusement. “Did they take the frogs from the pond near the school and make a little swamp for them in their backyard?”

You scoff. “Oh, stop—that was you and you only!”

“Me? From what I remember, you didn’t want to leave the frogs because you were scared they were going to get lost like they don’t know the goddamn place, so I took all four of them and we made a house for them in my backyard,” he said, smiling a bit. “The things I do for you, Y/N…”

“Don’t act like I haven’t done anything for you!”

“Oh, c’mon!” he ruffles the top of your head and you laugh. “God, I’ve missed you and all the stupid shit we do up here…”

The grin on your lips slowly fades away as you start to feel the growing pit in your stomach that something isn’t right about this. 

The last time you and Don had spent the night up on the roof, the night before he left for the army, you remember was your most prized memory with him. A Coca Cola in each of your hands and bellies full of his mom’s world winning apple pie, the stars shined brighter than the whites of either of your teeth, and you could have sworn the moment was perfect as it was. You remember the atmosphere being muddy between you two. He told you he was joining the army the morning of and had you known your best friend was going to leave you for three years fighting a war he didn’t have to fight, you would have stopped being foolish and kissed him. But he beat you to it. 

“So, how was Europe?” you question. You tread on shallow waters asking him, but it was inevitable, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

He shrugs. “It was okay. Pretty at least, could have been prettier if it weren’t for the destroyed buildings and bullet holes through the walls.” Already, you can tell there’s something wrong just from the way he talks. It’s different, it’s almost as if he’s trying to hide something from you. “It fucked me up, Y/N. I’m sorry.”

You frown when he runs his hands over his face and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t write me back after I sent that letter in November. Not even your parents. What the hell happened, Don?”

“I lost a lot of friends, good friends, too. They were great. They deserved only the best, and now they’re dead, Y/N,” he says in a shallow breath. “Skip and Alex—they were my best buds throughout the war, I think I told you about them in a letter. They got hit by a German shell back in Belgium. After that, there was nothing of them anymore. They were blown to shreds, Y/N,” he whimpers. “I went to look for them and oh my God...there was only blood and dirt. Not even their used cigarette boxes or letters from home, all there was...was this!” He pulls out a cross with a couple broken rosary beads, still unwashed. His hand shakes when he shows it to you as if they’re sacred because in his mind, it’s all he has left of them. “They were my best pals.”

You let out a deep sigh and place a hand on his shoulder. You don’t know what to say. 

Perhaps that’s why he’s different this time around. The amount of trauma he holds in his heart, replaying in his head like the recurring melody of a song, you don’t know if you can ever understand the extent of his memories. 

You’re not asking for his war memoirs, rather, you ask for safe passage to his heart. 

“I don’t regret joining the army, though,” he continues. “I met some really good guys, and I’m proud to have served with them when the duty called, but I lost a lot of them. Skip, Alex...my buddy Joe lost his leg in Belgium, too.” He fiddles with the broken rosary beads in between his thumb and index finger. “Couldn’t sleep after that, war is so...fucked up. I believed those stupid war stories ol’ Howard down the street used to tell us when were in grade school, I just wished he’d told us how death becomes reality.”

The look on Don’s face is somber. You knew all of the people he described to you through the letter he sent you and, in a way, you felt as if you’d known them but nowhere to the extent and connection he had. “I’m sorry,” you murmur, and honestly, you don’t know what else to say. There was never a book on how to console your best friend after they come home from war and even if there was, you know it wouldn’t match up to the sober feeling that stands in between you and him.

“Yeah,” he says, almost as if he, too, is speechless, and you don’t blame him. If you went through something as traumatic as he did, if you ever lost Don, you couldn’t imagine what you would do yourself.

“It hurts me knowing that you went through this alone and I was here...doing nothing, finishing college, watching all those Rita Hayworth movies she made all while wishing you were here to watch it with me,” you sigh. “I’m not asking for you to make me understand—I don’t need to, unless you want me to. I’m sorry if I’m just spewing out shitty words that don’t mean anything to you, they don’t really teach you this in school.”

“No, Y/N, you’re alright. Being here with you after so long...it’s more than enough,” he nods and shoves the broken rosary back into the pocket of his pants. Silence. Don takes a sip of hit soda, the sugary liquid dribbles down the corner of his mouth and he wipes it off with the back of his hand. “You know I was sent to Paris not long after we arrived in Austria...” he says, “and I was gonna write back to you then, but...it didn’t seem right. Not after I left you waiting for months, years, even.”

You shake your head and smile. “Don, you could have left for five, ten years and not written me back and I'd still send you one in a heartbeat.”

The look on his face reeks of uncertainty, but he’s your best friend, and you know he’d do the same for you. You know that because the moment stepped back in Astoria, he’d dropped his bags off at his parents’ and gone straight to you. 

“You come here often?” he asks, and the initial question surprises you.

“No,” you tell him. “Was waiting for you. It’s just not the same without you sitting next to me.”

“No boyfriend?”

“No,” you chuckle and shake your head, lifting the bottle of soda for a sip. You wonder if he remembers what he said the night before he left, but your gut tells you not to mention it, just in case if those feelings changed, too. “No boyfriend.”

You remember the night before he left, how the words slipped from his lips so naturally, clearer than the skies that allowed for the stars to shine through—he could have serenaded you with his words then, and you wouldn’t have noticed anyways. 

“I’m sorry,” he says and hangs his head low.

You knit your eyebrows together. “Why are you sorry? You have no reason to be sorry.”

Don takes another sip of his drink. He stares at the street in front of the house, trying to avoid your worrying gaze. “I’m different. I’m not the same boy you grew up calling your best friend, you know? I think...if I had returned your letters, we wouldn’t be sitting here like two grown adults catching up with each other over a bottle of Coca Cola, I wouldn’t have to explain myself so that you’d understand why I’m not the same—this is just...it’s just bullshit!”

“Don.”

“The reason why I didn’t write you back is because I didn’t think you cared anymore. I felt like I wasn’t making an effort to keep in touch with you not because I didn’t care—I cared a whole lot—but because I didn’t know where to pick up from,” he says. “I was scared you didn’t care anymore.”

You frown. Don’s your best friend, but he acts like he’s just your friend. As if he didn’t threaten to beat up the schoolyard bullies in second grade when you got that horrendous haircut, or when he denied a chance to go to prom with Lucy from English class and instead asked you because it felt like the ‘right thing to do.’ Don has always mattered, whether or not he was with you physically, not because he’s your best friend but because, in a way, it was his existence that made everything feel alright.

“No, Don,” you cup his cheek and lift his head to face you. There are tears in the corner of his eyes and he frantically blinks them away.  “I’ve always cared. I’ve cared since the day your mom invited me for cookies and we ended up having a sleepover back in the first grade, you remember that?”

He nods. “Sugar cookies. They ran out of chocolate chips at the store.”

You find it quite beguiling how suddenly having someone back in your life made everything feel whole again—it’s like Don’s homecoming filled a hole that consumed your heart for the last three years. He was always there to catch you when you were at your worst, and you were there for him. You like to think you and Don were made for each other, maybe it was your inner seventeen year old being foolish again, but you’ve always believed it was true when he used to hold you against his chest on nights like these; when your sodas were still fizzy and the tears in his eyes didn’t exist.

Don leans against you, his cheek rests on your shoulder and you swear, it almost was like what it was before. “I miss the way we used to hang out here,” he says. “I remember we used to sneak up here to eat the rest of my mom’s cookies after bedtime every time. Then the cookies turned into sea salt caramel and then Butterfingers and then, we went to college, Hershey bars.”

You and Don went to college together before he joined the army. It’s a distant memory that still hangs on, but they were good memories. You just wish he was there with you for the last three years. “You know, I used to hang up your letters on my wall while you were gone?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Gave me the motivation to finish my degree.” You still have them. “Knowing that you were somewhere out there doing whatever you needed to do, I knew you’d come home to me.”

He smiles, and he does it because he knows you’re not looking. “The night before I left...I thought about it. A lot.”

“I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who does.”

“I thought about you,” he admits. “I thought about how much I missed you and how bad I wanted to sit up here with you and do nothing. I thought about what I said to you, and everyday I wish I’d done more than just say those three words.”

You hum. 

“I wish I wrote those words down in the letters I sent you. I had three years to write three words at least once, and I didn’t. I didn’t know if you still wanted me because I wasn’t with you. I still don’t know if you want me now.”

“I do.”

It’s silent for a short moment, almost sweet. You think it’s because Don’s starting to believe you now. He chuckles and scratches the back of his neck. “I...I'm sorry for creating this between us. If I had only returned your letters, maybe we would have been closer. Maybe then I wouldn’t have put you in this situation.”

“Look at us. All those years you spent training to become a soldier, fighting a war, and we’re still the kids we used to be, drinking soda on the roof of your house.” You rub his arm. “You could have been away for many more years, and still, I would have waited for this moment, to be with the man I’ve loved since junior year of high school.”

It was so much easier than you’d ever thought it would be. Actually, saying it wasn’t the scary part, no—you could have said it without thinking beforehand and still meant it—it was watching Don’s reaction.

First came confusion, understanding, and eventually, joy.

He lifted himself off your shoulder and turned around to look at you, and you reached out to trace the shape of his eyebrow, eyes scanning the rest of his face to come to the conclusion that he’s still as handsome as when he left. He’s so close that you can hear his heartbeat, and maybe if you lean a little closer, feel it. 

“Junior year?” The words leave his lips silently as a sheet of folded tissue paper.

You nod. “Junior year. I think it was when we watched the football team get crushed by forty-two points, but maybe it was way before—I’m not so sure. But what I do know is that, the guy I’ve had a massive crush for years, I have him now.”

“You call that massive?” he laughs and you lean against his shoulder, he takes your hand into his. “I’ve had a crush on you since junior high!”

You smile. You try to recall every moment you and Don shared back in junior high to figure out when exactly he fell for you, but there’s just too much. You like to think that he fell in love as the years passed and you both grew from teenagers into young adults, and you, too oblivious of the fact that he might be your person, your shining star in a galaxy of a billion. 

In a way, you both knew this was bound to happen. Regardless if Don spent five, ten, twenty years overseas, you would’ve still waited for him, because he’ll come home no matter what. Every road he takes will always lead him back to you.

You look up at Don. He’s grinning and parts his lips to speak, but you place a hand on the back of his neck and kiss him, and forever wed your dreams that were once thought to be unattainable; under the same stars those dreams were formed. This moment seemed like forever, as the sun and moon bid each other goodbye and the kids down the block ride their bikes down to the nearby diner, there’s nowhere else you would rather be than in his arms, his touch, his lips...

Finally.

[johnny-martin-is-mypeanut]

Decking Webs Halls

Discription: it's December and Webster is feeling all marry and bright, Johnny is not, he is ready to throw hands, Bull and Liebgott watch from the sidelines till something happens, Malarkey and Speirs brings a little seasons greetings

"don't you like Christmas, Johnny" Webster giggles softly as he smacks the shorter man on his back. "David, you'd like to keep your hand. You should kindly remove it" Johnny growls and Webster removes his hand quickly "No tidings of joy? No you and your kin? No good will towards men?" Webster rubs his neck nervous feeling like he's pushing the wrong buttons. "No, leave me alone" Johnny drank his coffee. Bull had his arms crossed a smile on his face watching the other two as Liebgott got a little worried he inched a little forward and Bull stopped him with his hand "No, not yet" he chuckled as Liebgott continues to watch. Johnny didn't really care for Christmas he wasn't home, he was cold, annoyed and drinking ice cold coffee. "No Christmas carols?" Webster itches his neck trying to get some Christmas cheer out of Johnny. "No tree" he continues "no giving that special someone a gift?" He started fidgeting "You know what I like?" "What? What?" "Decking your Halls" Johnny uppercuts Webster who stumbles back a little and then tackles Johnny. "Liebgott! Bull! He's bitting me! He's fucking bitting me!!" Webster cries out. "Bull, your damn Chihuahua is bitting Web" Liebgott sighs softly as they headed over "He deserved it. He was being annoying" Bull replies as jogs over and with one arm picking Johnny up, who started kicking he looked very crazy with blood dribbling out of his mouth. "Lesson fucking learned" Webster held his hand to his neck "I told you not to" Liebgott sighs helping Web up out of the snow. "Come on let's get you to Roe...." Liebgott trails off and he and Web continued to talk as they walked away.

"If I put cha down promise to calm down, candy cane" Bull says softly without any anger, he knew how to handle Johnny in this state. "Yea...." Johnny grumbles and he was gently sat down. Johnny kneels down and picks up snow and cleans his mouth out. "Why didya bite him?" Bull asks quietly looking down at the other, who continues to clean his mouth out. "He tackled me....I went into hyperdrive....animal instincts kicked in...." He mumbles spitting out the bloody snow and looks up at Bull. "You? Scared...you scared" Bull raises a brow and kneels down "Johnny...I saw your face when he tackled you....you were panicked" he gently puts a hand on Johnny's cheek. "Yeah...so I thought I was going to die....Bull I'm not a big guy....I could get hit in the head and be dead" Johnny explains and pulls away from Bull and fell onto his butt, Bull sat down in the snow as well his butt freezing a little."You know you can talk to me right" Bull says softly and scooted closer to Johnny.

Meanwhile, Malarkey and Speirs where up in a tree working to make the others day. "Shimmy further" Speirs pokes Malarkey's butt with his finger and Malarkey moved slowly across the tree branch. Speirs follows quietly Malarkey stops and they both were a little nervous "S..So why are we doing th...this" he asks as he put some mistletoe in his mouth and put a bow on his head. Speirs covers his mouth giggling as he tied his boots to the branch "fuck.... we're doing this because I said so" he looks over and kisses Malarkey's cheek "I'll heat you up later" he whispers and grabs the other by his boots. "Ok...d...deal" he was swung off the branch and it was short enough not to hit the other two but long enough for them to see Malarkey with the mistletoe in his mouth. "I'm....so..gonna die" Malarkey says muffled.

Johnny was tramatized all he saw was Malarkey nearly collide into him. His eyes were wide open as if he was awake and ready to go. Bull was laughing at the insanity infront of him he was cackling and soon stop "Kiss so I can get down" Speirs says gripping Malarkey's legs as tight as he could. "Johnny, Decked Webs halls" Bull looks up and Speirs lost it he was laughing and dropped Malarkey onto Johnny "get off me you monkeys uncle" Johnny was furious, Malarkey quickly got off Johnny before his halls got deck. Speirs leans up cutting the rope and gently dropped himself next to the others.

"so is this a very marry Christmas? Johnny you proud?" Speirs chuckles softly a faint smile appearing. "Yeah...I'm proud" Johnny smirks as he stands up dusting the snow off him. "Webster, you hit him?" Malarkey asks quietly rubbing his neck. "Yeah, I fucking did and I'll hit you too" Johnny growls as Bull stood up and picks Johnny up. "You can't behave you lost ground privileges" Bull sighs walking away

"we tried, we failed, we go back and plan something else" Speirs says walking with Malarkey "Got it"

[yeahcurrahhe-e]

hiiii! i love your writing style sm- i have been bingeing all your bob one-shots over the past week and i'm in LOVE

can i request angst prompt ten, "because i care about you, okay?!", with don malarkey from band of brothers? thank you!

Thank you so much — I love hearing that people enjoy my content, it means a lot! I will add this to my WIP’s!

[infinitegalahad]

hi! are you still taking prompt requests? if you are, can i please request a don malarkey one with “you wanna help me cook?” “isn’t that what i said.” ?

thank you!!

have a nice day! 🤍

prompts:  “you wanna help me cook?” “isn’t that what i said.”

don malarkey x reader

a/n: MALARKEY RIGHTS! i've been dying to write for him! here's this, without..... any angst?! i truly do not know how i managed it

taglist: @capsparkyspeirs @wecomrades @tvserie-s-world @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant

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"What's the first thing you wanna do when we get back?" Don asked, gaze focused on the road left behind as the truck carried some of your company back to the barracks for the last time. Your days as soldiers had come to an end. The war was over and home was on the horizon at long last.

Both you and Don had long dreamed of returning home together, before you'd even really left. Together you'd wondered what life would be like after the pair of you spent so long fighting to get back. And with only a moment's thought, you had an answer for Don's latest inquiry. 

"I wanna help you cook." You said with a sly smile. Your man stayed quiet at your side for a moment- you could practically hear his thoughts processing beyond those coppery locks of his. 

"You wanna help me cook?" Don asked, after a beat. There was a curious smile in his voice, verging on laughter.

"Isn't that what I said?" You nudged an elbow to his ribs and met his warm toned eye's. 

"I think you just wanna stand by while I make a fool of myself." He did laugh, then. A small, gentle chuckle. It was music to your ears. Don hadn't laughed since the last time Skip cracked a joke.

"No," you implored, "I wanna be fools together. I wanna have some damn fun." 

Sure you dreamed of returning to steaming showers and your old cozy bed. And of all the days you'd get to look forward to without worrying over death and glory. But what you'd most yearned for the longer war raged on, was to have some fun, one day. 

But your answer wasn't one you'd thought of for longer than the second Don gave you to consider his query. You just recalled all at once, that when it came to cooking, Don was alright at throwing rations together. But he'd never been able to find his way around a kitchen. Not before the war, and certainly, you imagined, not after. The meals you'd made at the start of your knowing each other were hardly impressive. And Don would take you out more often than not, spinning off into hyperbolic worries over what might happen if he were left in charge of boiling water. Thing was, you weren't much of a chef either. So it thrilled you, the idea of throwing all caution to the wind, and diving head first back into domesticity together.

You explained as much to the man at your side; the one who'd been there for you through more terror and glee than you'd ever expected to face in your young lives yet. And you dreamed of the carefree event you'd just planned, and all the time you'd soon be allowed to waste side by side. Your time could finally be spent with Don like it had been, for a while. Like you'd always wanted it to be. Without worry. 

When you'd finished rambling and glanced over to find Don's gaze fixed entirely on you, his wide smile managed to cause your heart to skip a beat; even after all this time.

"So, is that a yes?" You snickered. If you considered the softness in his eyes for too long you were liable to burst into tears. Laughter was the best substitute.  

"The first thing we'll do is cook together." Don agreed with a crooked grin. "But the very next thing we're doing is getting married." He nodded surely, as the truck sputtered to a halt. And then he moved to step toward solid ground, reaching up to steady your decline all the while.

It was your turn to smile and lock his gaze in yours, mesmerized by Don and all the ways he still managed to steal your breath away. The man let his hand stay clasped to yours as the pair of you sauntered back toward the barracks.

"So, is that a yes?" Don mocked your earlier statement with a grin, but you heard a genuine wonder in his tone. 

"Maybe the second thing we ought to do is cook, after all." You smiled at him, imagining his hand secured in your own like this, at the altar.

One more night's sleep here as soldiers, and then you'd be home free, to do as you pleased. You'd be free to promise to forever keep navigating life at your man's side. What could be more fun?