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rogue-durin-16 · 2 years

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I just love women in suits or in uniform, so can you write BoB with women in suits with the boys just admiring? Can you do Malarkey, Hoobler and Luz? I saw you writing for Shifty and Bull, but their not on the character list. Can I ask for them, too? Sorry if this is too vague.

A/N: OH THIS WAS THE REQUEST. OKAY YEAH NOW I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WANTED. Also as a fellow woman in suit, this was quite self indulgent. enjoy darling <3

DON MALARKEY

Malarkey would shortcircuit at the mere sight of women in suits. Yes, I will die on this hill.

It all started when he saw Marlene Dietrich in Morocco.

That woman in that tuxedo awakened something in him and it has yet to die down.

Wide eyes at any woman in pants and a tie.

Once he overheard Guarnere commenting on how gals should only wear dresses and skirts and he went out of his way to defend women in suits.

He was a bit too enthusiastic. Now he gets teased every time E Company comes across a woman in a suit.

But they don't understandddd, it's not just the suit, it's the womannnn, it's the power they radiate just by walking.

Bonus points if they wear heels. Malarkey definitely gives off "step on me" vibes.

He desperately wants to date one but whenever he has the opportunity to ask one out in, let's say, a pub, he can't.

Like he PHYSICALLY can't. That sweet, bright charm of his evaporates and he's left being a shy, babbling mess.

When he finally lands one, it's because SHE made the first move. And the second. And the third.

The boys assume Don's pride must be a little wounded but I'm telling you, he couldn't care less, he's over the moon with the whole situation.

DONALD HOOBLER

100% watched Morocco with Malark to understand what the fuck was up with Marlene Dietrich and went down the Amy Jolly rabbit hole.

Like, you don't understand, he got himself a picture of her and carries it around at all times.

Now god forbid Hoobler sees a pretty woman dressed in a manly suit.

He's so sheepish about it good lord.

Toothy grin. Instantly smitten. What's eye contact, he don't know her.

Will try to impress her. Poorly.

Will also not succeed because have you seen the kind of women who wear suits? Yes you have, and you know Hoob is gonna have to try little bit harder.

He's definitely intimidated by them, and that makes them even more attractive, I don't know how to make this one make sense so bear with me.

GEORGE LUZ

He beats around the bush a lot when talking to them but he's relentless. If he wants a date, he'll get a date okay?

He just needs a little push.

Luz was the one making fun of Malarkey becoming unable to function at the sight of women in suit. He started the joke.

Shocker huh. Obviously no, but you know what comes as a shock for him? How hot women in suits are.

Particularly that one Intelligence Officer working with Nixon who often comes and deliver documents to whoever is Easy's Commanding Officer.

She's stunning in her uniform right? Right. Well actually we don't know if she's stunning or if Luz is just utterly smitten by a goddamn C.O.

It's probably the latter but THAT DOESN'T MATTER.

What matters here is that epiphany George has when she comes rushing from Colonel Sink's office without having time to change into her uniform because she was on leave.

She's wearing a beautiful plaid blue three piece —I'm talking trousers, blazer, vest, tie, the whole shebang— and George suddenly understands Malark.

He groans and pretends to melt into the chair he's sitting in. Muck and Penkala find this very fucking amusing.

He's so dramatic about it, like, he wants you to know he is a d m i r i n g you. What he doesn't want to do is tell you.

Luz is the one who gives himself away to Don and I will stand by that.

SHIFTY POWERS

Unlike Malarkey, though, George definitely tries to hit on this one Lieutenant while they're off duty in England, which earns him some serious scolding from Winters and maybe —just maybe— a date from the C.O. he just flirted with.

Cheeky bastard.

He definitely defended Malarkey's interest in suited up women at some point.

Most assumed it was just out of courtesy because this man is a literal angel and everyone was going hard on Malark for absolutely no reason.

Truth is, he sees the appeal.

Yeah he very much sees the appeal.

BULL RANDLEMAN

Very quiet about his admiration so he goes unnoticed but uhhh definitely just as down for it as Don.

Some would underestimate his ability to sweettalk anyone into anything, by the way.

Forget Luz's obnoxiousness, Shifty gives out the most polite, subtle compliments to these women.

What a gentleman.

He probably would ask out a beautiful girl in a suit to everyone's surprise.

To some of them, an affirmative response from the woman would also come as a surprise.

Not for McClung though, he knew Shifty would get her duhhh.

Bull gives Hoob and Malark shit for drooling over Miss Tuxedo but high-key admires the women who wear them.

I don't know if he'd be attracted to them but he definitely thinks they're functional and badass, which he loves.

Specially if they smoke.

Actually, I feel like he would find this very sexy oop-

He would so have a "go girl" attitude whenever they would pass strutting by.

Honestly, I don't think he'd have much of an opinion on this, I firmly believe Bull loves functionality and tradition for him, and a suited up woman isn't very traditional :/.

Tags:

Band Of Brothers: @francois-ceverts @chubbypotatoepie @tvserie-s-world

Permanent taglist: @elia-the-bibliophile @randomparanoid @karlthecat15722 @thebutchersdaughtersblog @amourtentiaa @comfort-reads

#band of brothers headcanons #shifty powers x reader #george luz x reader #donald hoobler x reader #don malarkey x reader #bull randleman headcanons #don malarkey headcanons #donald hoobler headcanons #george luz headcanons #shifty powers headcanons #band of brothers fanfiction #band of brothers #band of brothers x reader #bob boys headcanons #bob #easy company

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cchickki · 11 months

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Band of Brothers fanfiction ♠️

I recently moved all my old stories onto Archive of Our own from fanfiction.net. They’re up if anyone is interested in reading them who didn’t back when I had my old blog!

A Woman At War (Original)

Description: Marie Docherty is one woman of a select few chosen to join the men of Easy Company in the front lines. She follows her friends into Europe as she learns the nature of camaraderie and of the heartbreak of war. - Follows the TV series & Donald Malarkey's book 'Easy Company Soldier.' Malarkey/OC

Chapters & word count: 65 / 221,848

Rating: M

A Woman at War (Rewritten)

Description: Marie Docherty chose to enter the paratroopers as one of the first females to join the fight. That was her choice. What she didn't choose was to fall in love with a fellow soldier, or grow attached enough to endure bloodshed and heartbreak like no other. Join Marie (again) through the Eastern front of WWII as she cares for the men of Easy Company.

*This is a rewritten/revised fanfiction I wrote and published on my ff.net account between 2014-2015

Chapters & word count: 12 / 52,349 (unfinished)

Rating: T (for now)

A Miracle in Bastogne

Description: Eugene Roe receives orders to go back into town to rest up from battle fatigue. Instead he finds himself caught in a stressful situation that he can't seem to get out of. But he soon realizes it may be a blessing in disguise.

Chapters & word count: 6 / 14,016

Rating: T

#band of brothers #hbo war #band of brothers fanfic #donald malarkey #eugene roe #fanfiction #a woman at war #a miracle in bastogne #my fanfic #oc marie

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phyllisthefirst · 6 months

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[This fic is entirely about the fictionalized representations of the men of Easy Company that we see on the show. I mean no disrespect to the real men by writing this.]

Donald Malarkey x OC

[Part 2]

Summary: Don is determined to do no more than the bare minimum in his new assignment as "Technical Advisor" for an Airborne exhibition. He'll leave the actual work to the historian in charge while he tries to deal with the memories that keep coming up, of D-Day and everyone he lost after it. If only Miss Mowbray weren't so damn determined to make him actually give a damn.

Warnings: Flashbacks to war, undiagnosed/untreated PTSD, period-typical attitudes towards PTSD and mental health.

Tagging: @next-autopsy - okay so there's no new chapter for George and Phyllis but that's only because I'm horribly stuck on their plot. This part has a special guest appearance though!

Babe, there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you - Part 3

Don’s confidence in agreeing to “share some stories” turns out to have been premature. Apparently, his simple offer to tell Miss Mowbray about all he went through in the war is more difficult to deliver on than expected when he was actually very content never to dwell on those memories again.

He makes it through his retelling of D-Day and the days leading up to it, somehow - perhaps because he’s become accustomed to those memories again, the way they’ve been plaguing him ever since he set foot in the airplane hangar.

Brécourt Manor, too, is possible, because he can focus on the tactical aspects, who did what how and where, and on how Winters led them through it with unimaginable calm and precision. He tells her about his dangerous quest for the Luger, exaggerated to make her laugh. When she does, he finds it in himself to tell her just a little more, Sainte-Mère-Église and Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and Carentan.

Oddly enough, it's Toccoa that first gives him trouble. She asked about how they prepared for D-Day and he wanted to start at the beginning, recount just how much training they went through before the jump. But remembering Toccoa means remembering the grueling runs up Mount Currahee, the long night marches on restricted water, the pig guts in the training course - all the things they went through together, that formed them from a bunch of green boys into a company of soldiers. It means remembering when they finally managed to snag their first weekend passes and got so terribly drunk at a bar in town they nearly got kicked out, the evenings spent playing cards and joking around inside the barracks when Sobel had once again condemned them to a weekend on base. It means remembering the day he was assigned to a mortar squad with Muck and Penkala.

It means remembering how many of the men he met at Toccoa are no longer there.

She can tell he's struggling even before he can articulate it.

“You don't have to talk about it.”

He smiles, trying to reach for that old version of himself that has become a convenient mask to fall back into when he feels shaken like this.

“I called your exhibition bullshit. I think I owe you this much.”

“No. You don't owe me anything, and least of all this.”

The fierceness with which she says it is comforting: It reminds him of the way he used to go about protecting his brothers in battle. She may not have a rifle, but in this moment she looks like she'd jump right into the trenches for him.

“Perhaps we can take some other statements into account. Maybe some of the men from your company could contribute a little?”

Don ponders it for a moment. It feels like taking the easy way out, shirking his duties on the others. But maybe for some of them it won't be as difficult to talk about it? Maybe it's just him who's this broken.

***

He doesn't have to think long before he's settled on a name - surely the biggest blabbermouth in the company will be able to share some stories.

It's surprisingly easy to get access to a telephone line - something that would have been a rare commodity just a few weeks ago, one that would never have been squandered on trivial matters like this.

Now, it only takes talking to two or three people before he's led to some Major’s office with a telephone. Beatrice’s official request was ignored, but Don’s inquiries came with a side of wine, cigarettes and mentions of various wartime heroics.

“You might be a good historian, but here's what you have yet to learn: Everything goes faster in the military when you grease some palms.”

“It also helps if you're a man,” she snaps, and he feels bad - he intended it as a joke but to her, his little remark must have sounded rather patronizing. Not to mention, from what he's seen of how the men interact with her, she might not be far off the mark either.

“Or if you're actually in the military, I guess,” she adds a little sheepishly. It often goes like this with her - she loses her temper and then immediately regrets it. He sometimes thinks she should get an opportunity to let out all that suppressed frustration without having to take it back for the sake of peace.

“That certainly helps,” he agrees, then picks up the phone and asks to be connected to the 101st Airborne at Zell am See.

She suggested sending ahead a telegram to make sure their intended interview partner can be reached, and indeed, the man in question is already waiting for their call.

“Sergeant Bullshit! How are ya?” Of course, Luz doesn't actually give him time to reply. “So, are you out dancing with Parisian beauties every night? Sipping on champagne and oysters? Living the high life?”

Miss Mowbray, who has her ear pressed to the phone receiver right next to him, looks at him with raised eyebrows, and Don suddenly wishes this conversation was taking place in person rather than over the phone: Just imagining his prim-and-proper research partner face to face with George Luz is highly entertaining.

“I sure am. Nothing but champagne and oysters for me here.”

George sighs wistfully.

“Lucky bastard.”

Don laughs again, once more reminded how much he's missed his friend.

“So, what can I do for you?”

This is the tricky part, the part they couldn't cover in the telegram. As expected, Luz is a little skeptical at the idea once Don has laid it all out.

“You want me to talk about the invasion? Hell, I had no idea what was happening half the time. I overshot the drop zone by about nine miles and spent the entire night trudging through flooded fields, shitting myself with fear.”

“That's exactly why we want to talk to you. Because of details like this,” Miss Mowbray pipes up, unable to hold herself back.

“Hey, who's that?” Luz is understandably surprised. “You didn't tell me you brought a dame , Malark!”

“That’s Miss Mowbray. She's a historian, she's putting the exhibition together.”

“Is she ?” Don can practically hear George’s shit-eating grin right now. “You haven't told me about Miss Mowbray before! She sounds lovely!”

Don feels heat creep up his neck. Luz is right, he hasn't mentioned his co-worker or project partner or whatever they are in a single one of his letters, held back by something he can't quite explain.

Miss Mowbray shoots him a quick, quizzical glance but doesn't dwell on it further. Instead, she looks down at her notes, and when she speaks again, her lips have that determined set that he's noticed before.

“Thank you, Private Luz.”

“Please, call me George!”, Luz interrupts jovially. To Don’s surprise, she smiles instead of being annoyed at the interruption, and he can't help but be a little peeved. She wouldn't let him get away with something like this - not to mention, she still insists on calling him by his last name.

He hasn't offered otherwise, but still.

“George,” she repeats. “As Sergeant Malarkey has told you, we are gathering eyewitness statements of the night of the D-Day jump, the training leading up to it and the days after. Anything you want to share, we would much appreciate.”

“Well, who am I to deny a request from a lady!” Luz is really laying on the charm now, and Don rolls his eyes. He’s about to tell him to cut the flirting when Luz’s voice turns a little more serious and he starts talking, his first sentence sobering him up immediately. “You know, I might not have made it to the jump if I hadn’t switched places on the plane.”

With that, they’re off, Miss Mowbray listening intently and scribbling lighting-fast notes on her trusty notepad. He wonders if she actually expects to make it through this entire project this way - he’s got quite a few more people he could ask to speak to her, and if they all talk as much as Luz, her hand will fall off long before they’re finished.

They keep talking for a good while longer, Luz luckily willing to talk about their experiences without much prodding from Miss Mowbray. Don interjects sometimes, because George clearly values entertainment over accuracy in his stories and doesn't always think it necessary to keep every detail straight. Apart from that, though, Don doesn't have much to do - his partner-in-crime is great at conducting these kinds of interviews, surprisingly empathetic considering he first judged her to be cold and standoffish. But she isn't cold at all, instead sharing in George's experiences without pretending to fully understand them, inviting him to share but never pressuring. George certainly thrives under the attention, but Miss Mowbray too seems to enjoy herself. He doesn't think he's heard her laugh this much the entire time they've been working together. You haven't given her much occasion to, his brain supplies accusingly, and once again Don feels ashamed of himself.

His mother would have been horrified if she’d seen his behavior towards Miss Mowbray these past weeks - not just lacking in chivalry but downright lazy and rude. That’s certainly not how he was raised. But maybe he can still make up for it, at least a little bit. Be more helpful, and a lot more civil.

#band of brothers #band of brothers fic #band of brothers fanfiction #donald malarkey #donald malarkey/oc #donald malarkey x oc #okay so this is a short one but it does bring the plot along so let's go

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liebgotts-lovergirl · 2 years

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Fire On Fire: Chapter 5

(Ch. 4), (Ch. 3), (Ch. 2), (Ch. 1)

Gallery II Taglist Application II Symbol Guide

Summary: The truth comes out but neither expected the other's reaction... WARNINGS: Alcohol mention, general angst, fluff A/N: Tagging some of the amazing creators & friends whose work inspired me to start writing again: @wwhatev3r @brassknucklespeirs @softguarnere @holdingforgeneralhugs @rogue-durin-16 @auroralightsthesky @lenabob @legally-devorak @dustyjjumpwings @stillbandofbrothersthirsty @tvserie-s-world @toyes-lipring @hurricanerex666 @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant @softliebgott @latibvles @mercurygray @sergeant-spoons @problematicfavesareproblematic @softspeirs

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

It didn't take her long to find him.

Alix knew Joe well enough to know that he chain-smoked when he was upset and he'd want to sit down for a smoke before walking back to his billet, especially at such a late hour of the night.

She was a spy; she was supposed to know these things.

There was a quiet pond just a small ways from the pub which had a number of quaint wooden benches overlooking the water's edge. It was the perfect place for a late-night smoke to clear your head.

Despite being the middle of summer, nights in Aldbourne were usually brisk and as goosebumps prickled up her arms, Alix berated herself internally for forgetting to grab her fur wrap before leaving the house earlier.

In Philadelphia high society, fur was primarily for winter wear but with the drafty English air, the former model figured her mother would’ve forgiven her eventually.

Squinting in the dim light, she was able to identify a lone figure occupying a bench by the water's edge and she surmised it was most likely Joe.

As she approached, the rhythmic click-clack of her heels on the pavement knifed through the stillness and the hunched figure turned, allowing the gentle glow of the moon to illuminate his face.

It was Joe Liebgott alright, and he looked like hell.

He was pale as a ghost, save for the reddish blotches on his cheeks where tear-tracks glistened. His hair stuck out sporadically and Alix could tell he’d been running his hands through it, another nervous habit of his.

As soon as he saw her, he hurriedly swiped the tears away with his sleeve and only then did she notice the blood.

It was crusted on the scraped and swollen knuckles of his right hand, with thin dried stripes all the way down his fingertips like crimson paint.

From what she could see, it looked like he'd busted his knuckles open punching something, probably a wall.

"Jesus, Joey, are you okay?!"

Joe's expression hardened.

"Don't worry 'bout it."

Alix ignored him, stepping over the handful of cigarette butts that littered the ground by his boots and rushing to his side.

"Let me see your knuckles,” she insisted urgently. “I can help."

Sitting next to him on the bench, she reached for his bloodied hand but he jerked his arm away.

"Like Hell you can."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, her temper starting to flare at his tone.

"It means don't bother, Alix," Joe spat and the young agent flinched.

It was the first time he'd called her by her real name instead of a nickname and somehow, it stung worse than if he'd just cussed her out.

“You should get going.” His voice was quieter now but just as embittered and he crossed his arms, staring hard at the pond’s surface. “Wouldn’t want your boyfriend getting worried.”

Alix bristled at the accusation.

"He's not my boyfriend," she snapped. "I don’t even know him. But even if he was, what's it to you?"

Snorting defensively, she muttered, "It's not like you give a shit about me beyond a quick fuck anyway."

Joe's head shot up and he looked over at her with puffy, red-rimmed eyes.

“Is that what you think,” he asked, his voice rising with indignation. “That I was just in this for sex?”

“Santa Maria," the agent swore, throwing up her hands in frustration. "What else am I supposed to think when you walk into my life just to fuck me and walk out again like nothing ever happened?!”

"Goddamn it, Alix!” Joe sprang to his feet. "It was never about the sex! Don't you get that?! It was about you! It was about being with you!”

“Then why did you keep disappearing?” Alix pushed, her chest aching with half a year’s worth of suppressed heartache. “For weeks, Joey, not just days. Weeks!”

That was the final straw.

“Because I was falling in love with you, alright?!” Joe yelled, his voice breaking as the tears he’d been fighting began to spill down his cheeks. “And that scares the absolute shit outta me!”

Before Alix had time to comprehend what he’d said, Joe had turned away, squeezing his eyes shut and running a shaky hand through his hair as he struggled to regain his composure.

For a moment, all Alix could do was stare at his back in stunned silence as the weight of his words began to sink in.

“But why…?” she managed to choke out finally.

Why would you love me?

“Why would that scare you?"

Her voice became small and she hated the way it sounded: Weak. Quivery. Scared. All of the things as an agent, she was trained never to be.

"...Am I that hard to love, Joey?"

He whirled back around, the frustration gone and concern suddenly written all over his face.

"Fuck no! Are you kiddin' me?"

Joe sat down next to her again, this time close enough that she could see herself reflected in the pupils of his beautiful, brown puppy-dog eyes.

Reaching out, he gently tucked an escaped curl from her bun behind her ear and Alix felt her heart skip a beat.

"You, Alix Martinelli," he murmured. "Are the easiest fuckin' person in the world to love."

He flashed her a small, rueful smile and leaned back on the bench, digging a pack of his beloved Chesterfields out of his coat pocket.

"Hell,” he remarked with a sniffle as he fished around for his lighter.

“Everybody knows I’ve been stuck on you since your first day here. Didn’t even say a damn word to me but I saw that gorgeous smile and I was done for.”

He chuckled softly, adding, “Tab and Popeye wouldn’t stop givin’ me shit about it.”

Alix's mind was racing, trying to make sense of it all.

All these abstract pieces, all these feelings, all that time…

“Joey, it’s been six months of whatever this—” she gestured to the two of them “— is but then tonight, out of the blue, you show up with…”

She trailed off, unwilling or perhaps unable to finish the sentence.

“Mary." He filled in the name for her as he lit up his cigarette, completely oblivious, and Alix felt her mouth go dry.

"Yeah. Her."

"That was Tab's doing," Joe explained after taking a drag.

“He could tell I was losing my fuckin’ mind over you and he thought forcing me out on a double-date with him and some local girls might distract me or somethin'.”

Taking a shorter drag, he let the smoke curl into the crisp night air and remarked dryly,

“As you can see, it didn't work.”

"Sure looked like it did with the way she was hanging off you," Alix muttered, trying and failing to keep the petulance and bitterness out of her tone.

Joe leaned slightly closer to her to make sure she heard him.

"Not a bit. Like I told her and Tab, I already got my eye on somebody else."

He gave her a wink and she felt her cheeks starting to flush pink so she dropped her gaze, avoiding his eyes.

It sounded too good to be true. There had to be a catch, there just had to be.

“But if you felt this way all this time, then why didn’t you say anything to me for so long?” she asked, expecting to catch him in a lie and prove to herself that the whole thing was some sort of mistake.

But when she cautiously looked up at him for an answer, he was gazing at her with those beautiful, sad brown puppy-dog eyes she loved so much.

"Because," he began. "I knew two things from the moment I met you. One: I knew loved you. Because how could I not? You're everythin' I ever wanted. And Two…"

He hesitated for a second before saying quietly,

"Two: I knew you were gonna break my fuckin’ heart."

Alix's forehead creased.

"I would never," she declared fervently but Joe just shook his head.

“Girls like you don’t end up with guys like me, Ziskeit. I’m not an idiot. You're a calendar girl, for Christ’s sake! You gotta practically beat guys off you with a stick! I've seen the pages people ripped out an' shoved in their pockets for safe-keeping. You're everybody's dream girl!"

He ran a hand through his hair.

"And you’re not just pretty either, you're smart too, crazy smart! With your OSS creds and your high-class schooling, you got one hell of a future when all this is over, y’know?”

Taking another slow drag, he exhaled a few seconds later with a grim-sounding sigh.

"And me, what do I got? I'm just some fuckin’ cabbie from Frisco. Nothin' special. Why the hell would a girl like you, who could have Gene Fuckin' Kelly if she wanted, want me? There’s a thousand other guys— classy, uptown types like your officer back there— who are better for you than I’ll ever be. You'll probably end up marryin' some big-shot attorney someday anyway. So I've been tryin' to stay away from you… and Jesus Christ, did I try!"

He shook his head again.

"Honestly Zees, stayin’ away from you was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do," he admitted. "And I couldn't even see it through 'cause I'm fuckin' selfish. 'Cause at the end of the day, I know I’m nowhere near good enough to call you mine, but goddamn it, Alix, I want to anyway!"

Alix’s vision began to blur and it felt like there was a burning lump in her throat that wouldn’t budge.

This was everything she'd ever wanted but it couldn't have come at a worse time. They were all jumping into a war zone any day now.

Should she tell him how she felt, despite knowing that one or both of them might not make it back home?

Should she open herself up to the possibility of letting him in, just to lose him?

She'd already lost her older brother to the war, could she stand to lose her boyfriend too?

She forced her gaze heavenward, warring internally with her head and heart until the tears passed. Finally gathering her courage, she slid over a little bit, inching closer to him like a bomb she was set to defuse.

Despite her nervousness, her heart had made its verdict clear from the get-go:

Being his, even for a little bit, would be worth the risk.

"You are more than good enough, Joey," she murmured, tentatively reaching over to rest her hand on top of his before interlocking their fingers. "You're the only person I want."

He looked down at their intertwined fingers and back up to her eyes, searching her features fervently for any trace of deception.

"No kiddin'? You really mean that?"

Alix nodded, beaming, and gave his hand a light squeeze.

"Of course I mean it! But we're still gonna have to keep things quiet, okay? I don't think either of us wants to get busted for fraternization."

Joe nodded in agreement, a lopsided grin lit up his face as the realization sank in:

They were official.

He looked more overjoyed than she'd ever seen him, more like a kid in a candy store than a soldier days away from war.

"Still gonna be pretty fuckin' great though, even if we can't tell anybody we're going steady yet, huh, Zees?"

Alix cocked her head curiously.

"I've been meaning to ask you what that means. I tried asking Muck because he speaks some German but he had no idea. You're always using it and for all I know, you could be calling me the world's biggest bitch in German or something."

Joe chuckled.

"It's nothin' like that. Hell, it's not even German. But you're still gonna kick yourself when you find out."

Now Alix was really perplexed.

"Why?"

"Because it was right in front of you the whole time."

"Stop speaking in riddles, you asshole," Alix pouted.

"Fine, fine, just 'cause it's you," Joe teased, his brown eyes sparkling. "It’s Yiddish. The word is Ziskeit but sometimes I’ll shorten it to Zees. Still means the same thing, which is ‘Sweetness’. But we also use it to mean someone you cherish, like a sweetheart.”

Alix blinked in surprise.

“Wait...So you mean this whole time…?"

"I've been telling you how I feel for around six months now and you had no clue 'cause it was in Yiddish? Yeah."

Alix giggled and nudged at his shoulder playfully with her own.

"I never took you for a sap, Joe Liebgott!"

"Neither did I," he quipped as he stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. "Guess you just bring out a different side of me, Zees."

"Well that explains why Skip didn't recognize it then. He tried to tell me it meant 'Goose' at first and I told him he was full of shit."

Joe laughed.

"Goose would be gandz. I can call you that instead if y-"

"Joseph Liebgott, don't you dare."

The paratrooper jokingly pretended to mull it over for a minute before responding with a mischievous "No promises."

For the first time, Alix realized that her palms had been sweating from the nervousness.

Her first instinct was to wipe them off but she hesitated, biting her lip. A part of her knew she was being irrational but she worried if she let go, the spell would be broken and everything would be as it was before: Joe would leave again and it would be as though nothing between them had ever happened.

It would all have been just a dream.

But her palm was growing clammy and so grudgingly, she let go of his hand, waiting tensely for the other shoe to drop.

But Joe didn't disappear.

Instead, he draped an arm lovingly around her shoulders, resting his hand lightly on her tricep and Alix shifted so she could lean into him, releasing a sigh of relief she didn't realize she'd been holding.

Joe was kind enough not to acknowledge it.

"I didn't know you spoke Yiddish," Alix continued conversationally. "Seeing as you'd had some translation training, I always just assumed you spoke German."

"I speak both,” Joe replied as he absentmindedly traced little circles on Alix’s upper arm. “But German just feels more…distant, y’know? My family never uses it at home, just when we’re in public. We use Yiddish with the people closest to us since it’s a big part of our heritage. It just feels… more meaningful, I guess, 'cause it's somethin' we don't use with everybody, y'know? Stop me if I'm not makin' any sense."

“You’re making perfect sense, Joey,” she assured him softly. “And I’m honored that you use a Yiddish term of endearment for me. It means the world that you care that much."

Joe pressed a kiss to her temple.

"Why wouldn't I? I've only been sweet on you for what, six months now? I know people who got married in half that time!"

He chuckled.

"And don't worry, I got lots more pet names where Ziskeit came from too. We're gonna have you speakin' Yiddish like a pro by the time you meet my folks!"

Alix red lips quirked up into a smile.

"Yiddish is so beautiful, I can see why you hold it close. Honestly, English has never been strong enough to describe how I feel about you either, which is why I use Italian. Like, tesoro, which means treasure but we use it for the word Darling. And cucciolo, which is my other favorite. It reminds me of your adorable puppy eyes."

"I know what they mean," Joe divulged sheepishly, turning slightly pink. "I kinda asked Gonorrhea to translate for me 'cause I was hoping you felt the same as me but I was too chicken-shit to just ask ya in case I was wrong..."

"And you still didn't just tell me how you felt, even after you knew I felt the same?" Alix's eyes were huge.

"Yeah, 'cause I didn't believe him." Joe was cringing at his past self now. "I thought he was just fuckin' with me or somethin' 'cause there was no way in Hell a girl like you could ever feel that way about a guy like me."

He shook his head with a grin.

"I've never been so fuckin' glad to be wrong."

Alix was about to reply when a particularly strong gust of wind whipped through the nearby trees, stinging her bare arms with its chill. Starting to shiver in her spaghetti-strap gown, Alix silently cursed herself again for forgetting her fur and began rubbing her hands together to warm them.

Having noticed her shiver, Joe immediately tugged his coat off and placed it around Alix’s shoulders. It was huge on her but the wool was cozy, still warm from Joe’s body heat.

Hearing the approaching hum of voices from a distance, she hurriedly glanced over her shoulder before shrugging the coat off as a small pack of servicemen and their dates left the Crown, walking along the road behind them back to their billets.

“C’mon Ziskeit,” Joe implored. “Put it on, will ya, before you catch a cold.”

Alix shook her head nervously, her eyes darting back to the group passing them by.

“What if someone sees?”

“Let ‘em.” Joe shrugged. “They can’t write me up for givin’ a beautiful lady my coat when she’s cold, can they? Doesn't prove shit."

“Oh yeah?" Alix cocked an eyebrow slyly. "So did you let Mary wear your coat then too?”

Joe snorted.

“You kiddin’ me? I wouldn’t even let her hold my jump wings.”

Satisfied, Alix pulled the coat back on, enveloping herself in the warm wool. She was swimming in it, the thick material dwarfing her small frame like a sack.

The sleeves hung way past her hands and Joe stifled a laugh.

"Jeez and I thought Perco made the coats look big!"

"Oh so you let Perconte wear your coat too, huh?" Alix joked, a teasing glint in her dark eyes. "And here I thought I was special."

Joe rolled his eyes playfully.

"You're a fuckin' smartass, d'you know that?"

"Hey, you fell in love with me," Alix reminded him with a quick kiss on the cheek. "So you asked for it, Coat Whore.”

Joe was about to respond when a commotion behind them cut him off.

"In Banbridge Town in the County Down, one morning last July-"

Both their heads snapped back toward the sound of the singing.

It was a clearly inebriated Joe Toye stumbling out of The Crown with an equally inebriated Don Malarkey by his side, the pair belting out a truly spectacular rendition of an Irish folk ballad while a bemused-looking Skip Muck was proudly harmonizing just behind them.

"–down a bóithrín green came a sweet cailín and she smiled as she passed me by! She-"

Alix grinned. Had it been any other night, she would've been right there with them.

Her family's maid, Penelope, was originally from Ireland and she'd taught Alix several of her favorite folk songs as the pair hung wash together. Alix's mother, Clarissa, always scolded her for helping Penny with her chores because it "was beneath her as the lady of the house" but Alix didn't mind at all.

On the contrary, she relished getting to swap stories and folk songs with the older girl, who had done so much more living in her 26 years than Alix had in her 23.

Penny taught her Irish folk tunes and Alix taught her some phrases in Italian to impress the Calabrian boy from the South side that Penny had her eye on. It was like having a real friend, not like the sycophants at her boarding school who simply had to work their family’s connections into every conversation or they’d combust.

“–From Bantry Bay down to Derry Quay, from Galway to Dublin town–”

As the voices of her best friends slowly faded into the distance, Alix leaned her head on Joe’s shoulder and admired the beauty of the moment----

The chorus of chirping crickets, the faint quacking of the ducks in the shallows, the laughter of her best friends in the background, the soft glow of the moon on the water, the earthy smell of the rolling fields beyond the pond, the warmth of Joe’s body radiating through his clothes as he wrapped his arms around her.

They were going steady now.

Her heart was so full that it felt like it might burst through her chest.

All of the months of waiting and hoping had been worth it. She wanted to cry and shout and jump for joy at the same time.

But as more and more people began to file from the doors of The Crown, Alix took a worried glance over at the worn watch on Joe's wrist.

"Madonna mia," she exclaimed. "It's already 11 o'clock and I still need to review my cover story and dossiers before tomorrow!"

Joe stood up and gallantly offered her his arm.

"Mind if I walk ya home then, Ziskeit? Call me a sap but I can't let my girl walk home alone at night, even if she is a spy. I'd still go outta my mind with worry."

Alix stood as well, smoothing the skirt of her dress.

"One condition."

"Name it."

"You stay the night. I could use some cuddles from my boyfriend while I'm reading up on all the people I have to kill."

The paratrooper gave her a lopsided grin.

"I was hoping you'd ask, Zees. After I drop you off, I just gotta run back to my place real quick so I can grab my ODs for tomorrow and I'll be right back over. Ya won't even know I'm gone. How does that sound?"

Alix ecstatically linked her arm with his.

"Sounds perfect."

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sergeant-spoons · 4 months

Text

56. Where You Go, I'm Going/So Jump, And I'm Jumping

Leslie Sheppard

Taglist: @thoughpoppiesblow @wexhappyxfew @50svibes @tvserie-s-world @ask-you-what-sir @whovian45810 @brokennerdalert @holdingforgeneralhugs @coco-bean-1218 @itswormtrain @actualtrashpanda @wtrpxrks

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June 5th came and went in a blur. Before Leslie knew it, night had fallen. Where the lamps would usually have been lit stood dark, empty poles that more than one man had run into by not looking up from the shadows. Leslie ducked around the metal beast, knowing she'd never see it again and not sure why she cared enough to think about that. She'd be in France by morning, and it would be dismantled as soon as the airfield could shrink again post-Normandy. Strange things. A relic from old London, she suspected, nothing like the electric lamps she knew from home. These ones stood alone, entirely disconnected from one another. They had to be lit by hand individually, lighting up the night in a slow spread from the center outward. They stood alone. Like the men always said about Currahee.

We stand alone—

Together.

The sun set just after 8:30 in the evening. 20:30 in military time. Leslie's mind had kept slipping all day, falling back upon old manners she once knew. In that last fading light not ten minutes ago, Mama E had gravely informed the Mechorps that their DZ had changed. Gathered in a clump outside their commander's tent, the men and women of the company kicked at the crusty, dried mud and muttered condolences but never fears. They couldn't be afraid. Not soldiers. Leslie was afraid but not surprised to hear they'd be jumping to meet up with the 2nd Armored Infantry now. Kiko, hollow-faced and silent, seemed to have completely forgotten Mama E ever gave them that warning in the long age that had passed since yesterday. Tink was somewhere else, busying herself with packing or food or what have you. She knew someone would tell her if there was news.

"We've got news."

Once told, Tink sat quietly on her bunk, staring at the emptiness of the tent. Everything but her bunk and the support pole in the center of the tent frame had been dismantled and packed away for another regiment's use somewhere to the north. Leslie blinked for a moment, then looked out the tent flap at the beckoning stars. She took a deep breath and crossed herself, small, so maybe no one but God would see if he cared to look.

"I'm gonna go find a priest or somethin'," she said.

"I think I'll pray here," Tink replied, looking at Kiko, who hesitated. Tink beckoned her over to the bunk, and she went and sat, leaning on Tink's shoulder.

"I think I'll stay here," she told Leslie, weary in the eyes.

"Okay."

Leslie stepped over, kissed them each on the forehead, and left.

Now, walking through the night towards the last remaining sector of light in the camp, she looked out towards the lights of the Airfield and took another deep breath. She stopped to let a British platoon pass by uninterrupted and ducked into a tent with a torn side. No luck; just a mess tent that had been raided for last-minute snacks. Leslie couldn't imagine how anyone could eat before the advance. She'd barely touched her dinner.

Feeling her stomach lurch, she picked up a half of an orange and kept going.

The only man of the cloth she could locate in the darkness was Father Maloney, a chaplain who served with Easy Company. She found him by following the words of his prayers, though at first, she hadn't been able to hear what exactly he was saying. As she drew closer, she recognized some of the Latin, in the sense that she would have recognized a face from her childhood or a story she hadn't read in many years. Maloney's face, lit by candles, appeared around the bend of a brick wall, and Leslie continued forward over the mossy ground until she'd joined the makeshift congregation. They stood clumped together in the shadow of a large tent that now housed a group of British anti-aircraft gunners. Not three hours ago, American paratroopers had laid their heads in those beds for the last time.

Skip was there, fingering his rosary near the back of the group. He wrapped his arm around Leslie protectively as she came up to his side, almost as if he'd known she'd come.

"No Tink?" he whispered.

Leslie shook her head, leaning into his arm as if she needed the warmth despite the early June air.

"Said she'd rather pray with Kiko."

He nodded.

"We'll see you on the ground, then."

Leslie froze. Skip felt it and squeezed his arm around her.

"Won't we?"

"No," she sighed, her shoulders falling as her chest tightened. "No, you won't."

"What?" He stepped back and stared at her, even though Father Maloney had started up a new prayer. "Why?"

"Hey, Sheppard!"

Archie Potts didn't seem to notice he was interrupting a service. Maloney glanced at him but kept leading the prayer. Archie waved at Leslie, his watch glinting in the light from the torn-side mess tent.

"C'mon, we gotta go, we gotta go!"

"Gimme a sec!" she whisper-shouted back, then turned back to Skip, grabbing his hand to squeeze where it still hung close to her side. "We just got the news, right before I came over here."

"Shit."

"Yeah, no shit. I mean, yes, it's shit, but no shit, it's shit."

They laughed, but there wasn't much humor to be had, and after a beat of silence as Maloney's even voice filled the air, they pulled each other into a tight hug.

"Watch out for yourself out there," she told him.

"You watch out, too."

"I will. Tell Don I love 'im, yeah?"

"I can't do that," he refused, shaking his head. "That's something you've gotta tell him yourself."

"Oh, I know," she replied without thinking about it. "I didn't mean like that, not yet."

He stared at her, astonished, but then he smiled, and she knew he was trying to find the silver lining in all this.

"Not yet?"

She flushed.

"Skip—don't."

"You could go find him. Right now. You could-"

"No. Just tell him the way I always mean it, alright? Please?"

"I'll tell him," he promised, softening. "Not like that, but— I'll tell him."

She grabbed his hand and squeezed, looking him in the eye for what she prayed would not be the last time.

"Godspeed, Skippy old boy."

He squeezed back.

"See you on the other side."

Archie came over to drag her away, and Leslie went with him, muttering a quick amen so as not to offend Father Maloney with her early dismissal. Archie scolded her for making the both of them late and as Leslie went back around the brick wall bend, she lost sight of Skip in the dark.

22:00 hours. 10 p.m. Whichever time you called it, the time was ripe. Time to load up the planes.

Out of all her friends, Skip was the only one from Easy who Leslie had seen since early that morning when she and Tink snuck over to have their breakfast with him, Don, Alton More, and a few of the other Easy boys they didn't know all that well. Kiko said she wasn't hungry and stayed in bed. She was still there three hours later when they came back from the morning run, and Tink bribed her to get out of bed with a Hershey bar and a few rounds of canasta to get her mind off things. Leslie had said goodbye to Don right after that breakfast, and that was it. It felt strange to be without him, especially now since she knew they would no longer have a chance of meeting up on the ground.

She missed him already.

It didn't take long to load up the planes, but then came the waiting until everyone had boarded and checked their equipment and cleared the runways. Officially, D-Day would begin on the 6th of June. It would be past midnight by the time the Mechorps—and Easy, and all the 506th, for that matter—flew over their DZ. Leslie was starting to doze off when she felt the engines of their plane start. Not doze off into sleep—into a trance. She saw shapes in the shadows around her friends' legs and boots. They started taxiing to the runway and that was that. No turning back now. Not there ever had been before. Not for Leslie. She stuck her clammy hands into her pants pockets and found the paper wrapping of a stick of gum sticking to her left hand. She pulled it out and squinted at it, feeling the engines thrum louder and louder behind her head.

The planes lined up on the runway and waited for their signal to take off.

Leslie folded the wrapper into and out of the shape of a crane over and over again until her hands became too sweaty to get the little folds right. Thinking about all the things she could have said to Don but didn't as they were saying goodbye, she felt the crane slip through her fingers. It fell from her lap and bounced away across the unsteady floor. No one else saw or noticed, and she looked away from it, focusing on the stars outside instead.

Don fiddled with his hands and wished he'd kissed Leslie when he had the chance.

Skip wrapped his rosary beads around his finger and prayed to live to see his home, his family, his friends, and Faye again.

Penk listened to the sounds of the plane—the engine, the shifting of his comrades' boots across the floor and their bodies across the benches, the rattling of the metal frame as the wheels inched forward over the asphalt—and tried not to think about all he could lose. Life. Limb. Happiness. His friends. Kiko—if he hadn't lost her already.

He bowed his head.

Next to Leslie, Danny Huff pointed out the open door at the spotlights turning on all down the runway. The planes in front began to move, propellers pulling them forward.

Kiko tried to focus on her breathing. Now was a bad time to let her emotions get the better of her. If she had only done it sooner. Or later. Or never.

She wished it had been never.

Tink thought about her brothers back home. She thought about her cousin Janie. She held her rosary to her lips and ushered up a prayer that everyone she loved would live through the night.

Especially George, she thought, feeling guilty for the preference but unwilling to take it back.

George thought about Tink. About how long she hugged him in the shadows behind the tent after the last dinner they'd shared. About how long it took her to let go, and about the kiss she ran back to press to his cheek, her eyes shining with tears, before she left for good. Even as Liebgott started to cough and dry-heave and the other men shied away from his impending vomit, George stayed lost in his mind, sitting still and cold and afraid.

Captain Eades, Mama E, sat at the front of the pack, gripping the edge of the doorframe with her good hand. The metal felt warm against her palm from how long she'd held it there. She looked across at her mechanics—her soldiers—her boys and girls—and saw their faces, one by one. She saw the fear they tried or didn't even bother to hide. She saw the nausea and the calm. She saw the strength and the weakness. She saw Luchette reach across the aisle and grab Sheppard's hand, then again beside her to take Palekiko's. Sheppard and Palekiko leaned forward and connected the third side of the triangle, and the minds of the men looking upon them seemed to ease at the sight. Captain Mercedes Eades looked at her watch, lifting her tiny flashlight to read the surface as the plane began to gather speed.

Tick-tick-tick.

Hands met at midnight and the plane bucked into the air. Flight, flight from all things known and toward the great, black night. Flight across the Channel and on to France, to war and bloody glory.

So be it. The 506th Mechanical Corps—the first in history, the unsung heroes of 101st Airborne—would get the job done.

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cielie-voss · 2 years

Text

Vera Doyle - Easy Company's redheaded Angel

Part two

Part 2 of my band of brothers fanfiction with my lovely Medic Vera Doyle.

Part One

Part Three

Masterlist

After arriving back in England after D-Day, Vera felt homesick for the first time and tried to drink ist away.

This Part (and the next) was inspired by @bandofspeirs fanfic Blindsighted. (You should absolutely read it, I love it.) 💕

Warnings: swearing, bad flirting, alcohol consumption.

She had never been homesick. Neither when she emigrated from France, nor during her training with the US Army, or when she came to Aldbourne, the last stop before the invasion.

But when she came back to England after jumping into Normandy, after jumping into her homeland to save and liberate her people, she felt that bittersweet heartbreak for the very first time in her young life. She missed her old home. Her carefree life among the fig trees and rose bushes. But now she knew with certainty that she would never get that life back. That she would never see this country the way she once did. This land she once knew and loved no longer existed as she remembered it.

Plagued by these feelings, she accepted Bill's invitation to accompany him and several other men to a bar. She rarely drank with the men. A certain fear was always buzzing around in her head. A fear that she would lose control of herself and that some men might take advantage of that. While she trusted every single one of her friends, there were plenty of men she didn't want to trust blindly.

But that evening she pushed that thought to the farthest corner of her mind. She wanted to drink. No. She didn't just want to drink, she wanted to get drunk to forget this nagging feeling of homesickness. At least for one evening.

At their table were Malarkey, Muck, Penkala, Toye, Guarnere and a replacement named Babe they met a few evenings earlier. Men came and left the table, George was joking around and working hard alongside Buck Compton to wager a few packs of cigarettes. Young women took the soldiers onto the dance floor, people laughed, celebrated and lived life. Everyone was in a good mood except for one person. Vera. She hung over her pint of beer and stared at the vanishing beer crown.

The bartender noticed her mental absence and quickly shoved a glass of whiskey in front of her.

"Here, on the house." His pitying tone only made her grimace. She didn't need sympathy. Especially not from someone like him who didn't even know her. She's too proud for that. Still, she wrapped her pale fingers around the glass, nodded her head in thanks to the bartender, and raised the glass to eye level. For a short moment she examined the almost gold shimmering liquid, turning and swirling the glass a few times before she emptied it with a sip. The whiskey left a burning feeling and she felt every millimeter of the liquid flowing down her throat, but she enjoyed it. That was exactly what she needed at the moment. She paused for a moment, closed her eyes and internalized that well-known burn that reminded her of her father. After the burning had subsided, she took a deep breath and gently licked the last drops off her lip. Then a sound snapped her out of her trance.

Guarnere had ordered another round of beer and now set the full glasses on the table with a loud clunk. She still had her elbows on the table and she was now looking over the glass at Bill with half-open eyes. He smiled at her and handed her a full glass of beer.

"Now drink. We're alive, we're here, we have to celebrate!" Was his simple request. She drained her first glass in one gulp, pushing it aside along with the whiskey glass. No sooner had she toasted with Bill and Toye than the two were already dragged back onto the dance floor by a couple of pretty ladies, leaving her alone at the table with her glass and her thoughts.

She grabbed a lighter from the table and nervously ran it through her fingers. After a while this glass was also empty and with a simple hand movement she informed the bartender that he should bring her another one. Malarkey slid into the chair next to her, a huge grin on his face, his cheeks as red as his hair. He watched her for a moment and realized that she hadn't even noticed him. Only when she brought her third beer to her lips did he speak to her, his grin had disappeared in the meantime.

"How much beer have you had already? You shouldn't drink that much.", he admonished her cautiously, but only got a cold look from her.

"Stop me and I'll kill you.", were her only words. After taking a sip and resting the glass back on the table, she turns to him

"Shouldn't you be dancing with the others too or..." she let her eyes wander around the room. Men danced, played darts, enjoyed themselves with the ladies (and not just by dancing.) "...whatever?" Her gaze was now back on Don, who gave her a penetrating look. After a short silence, he shrugged.

"Why should I? You're sitting here alone with your...", he counted the glasses in front of her. "With your third beer?!" He looked at her again, a little worried. "You shouldn't drink so much, Vera."

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Don. Va te faire foutre!", she just grumbled and demonstratively took another sip.

The alcohol made her otherwise unremarkable Irish accent thicker and harder for everyone else to follow her words. She usually only got that accent when she was talking fast and excitedly, when her words flowed out of her mouth faster than her brain could form the sentences. And the more agitated or indignant she became, the more likely she was slipping words from the French language into her sentences.

"Are you alright? You seem a bit..." he couldn't even finish his sentence.

"Of course I'm fine!" She blurted out, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Do I look like I'm not feeling ok, for fucks sake?!" Malarkey's brain needed a few moments to understand her words. But he saw how tense she was, how empty and burned out. As soon as they were pulled from the frontline, he knew something was wrong with her. At first he blamed it on the stress of the experience of fighting, killing and seeing death right on the front lines of a war. He thought she was haunted by the faces of the fallen soldiers, the faces of those she couldn't save. But he quickly realized that there was something else that was bothering her. Something much deeper than that.

"It's alright. I'm alright." Her voice was downcast, dry as she assured him she was fine. But this statement was not really credible. He knew her too well for that. She was too proud to let anyone know how she felt.

"You know you can talk to me, right?" His hand found her forearm and gripped it tightly, reassuring her that she wasn't alone.

"Thanks, Don." She tried to give him a smile, but it wasn't really convincing. "Now join the others and have fun." Before he got up, he took a deep breath, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek without thinking and then followed her instructions.

More beers, short conversations and awkward attempts at flirting followed, which she had to put up with.

After her fourth beer, Babe dragged her onto the dance floor. Bill, who now affectionately called her little witch, was worried about her. No one has ever seen her this depressed and hurt. She has always been the company's sunshine, always laughing and smiling. He wouldn't be able to make her laugh by himself, but he knew how much she loved to dance. And his new friend Babe could dance like no other. So he persuaded him to lure Vera onto the dance floor.

Her mind was already tipsy after four beers and one whiskey and she found it hard to resist the new guy. Although she was initially reluctant to move to the music on the dance floor with Babe, she still enjoyed it. And after just a few moments, her dance partner managed to make her laugh.

"What an amazing laugh!" he coaxed as he leaned forward and spoke directly into her ear over the loud music.

"Oh shut up," she admonished, still laughing and turning her head away, cheeks flushed. Laughing, he hugged the young woman and led her across the dance floor for the rest of the song.

As the next song started, Bill waved at the two of them, another round of beers on the table. Laughing, the two sat down at the table next to Bill, followed a little later by Malarkey, Muck and Penkala. After a quick toast from Alex, they clinked their glasses. But before Vera could touch the glass with her lips, another replacement approached her from the side.

"I wonder what that pretty mouth can do." He tried to flirt suggestively with her. It took her drunken mind a moment to understand his pick-up line and before she could answer, Bill jumped in. He pushed himself between him and Vera from behind the flirty replacement.

"That mouth can do a lot of swearing, kid. Trust me. Now fuck off." He pressed his index finger against the chest of the puzzled-looking soldier, who after a moment turned and walked away. With an eye roll she put her hand on Bill's shoulder and he turned to her with a satisfied grin.

"Oh, Bill, my hero. What would I do without him?" she blurted out theatrically.

"Pick up a guy for example," was Penkala's reply, making everyone else laugh.

"Oh come on, that wasn't a guy, that was just a kid." Bill replied, bringing his glass to his lips. "Vera deserves better." He took a long gulp and put the glass down.

"Oh really? Something better? Someone like you or who's on your mind?" Malarkey interjected with a grin and nudged Bill with his elbow.

"God, no, that woman would drive me crazy!" Bill raised his hands in defeat. "I think someone like..." He thought for a moment, looked around the bar and then turned back to Vera with a cheeky grin. "Someone like Buck Compton maybe, am I right?" He wagged his eyebrows meaningfully to emphasize his point. He noticed how she looked at the tall blonde man and how she laughed when they talked to each other.

"What?" Her reaction was simple: she was startled. Sure, Buck Compton was obviously handsome, kind, courteous, and a genuinely lovely person. But the idea had never occurred to her. She had often imagined, albeit unintentionally, what life would be like with one of the men in the company outside of the war. But never even a single scenario had awakened any feelings in her.

The conversation quickly fizzled out before anyone could reply, as Bill was pulled onto the dance floor again by a pretty blonde, with Babe and Don following them both.

"Fancy a round of darts?" Skip leaned on the table next to Vera and gave her a questioning look while she happily sipped at her beer.

She shook her head and put the glass down again. "No thanks. But I'm happy to watch you from here." Her heavy Irish accent made Skip a little worried and he glanced at the empty glasses.

"Okay." He grabbed the beer she had just put back on the table and took it with him as he got up. Before she could protest, he said, "You shouldn't drink so much!" and disappeared into the crowd with Alex.

Snorting, she leaned back and ordered another beer with a simple wave of her hand. "Why does everybody keep telling me I shouldn't drink that much?", she wondered.

#band of brothers #band of brothers fanfic #hbo war #bill guarnere #babe heffron #warren skip muck #alex penkala #donald malarkey #joe toye #george luz #buck compton #fanfiction #vera cecile doyle #skip muck #hbo war series

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urlocalfrogmammy · 4 years

Text

like the greeks— donald malarkey

ANON: Please can you do 9 with Malarkey! Thank you! (prompt #9 : "we aren't starting—or joining— a cult!")

taglist : @floydtab @wexhappyxfew @deldontplay @gutsandgloryhere

returning late to the company after d-day, malarkey is more relieved to see you than you think.

i really enjoyed writing this one !!! thank u anon. warnings : none. word count 1.1k

three days and three nights. that's how long you were supposed to be on the line. but it had been much longer than that, you didn't know how long exactly it had been but you knew you couldn't count it on one hand. the french sunshine gave the desolate town a happy-looking disposition, but however happy everyone pretended to be you knew that there was tension in the air. "hey! y/n?"

"floyd?"

talbert grinned in amazement as you wrapped your very real arms around him. "oh my god! we thought you were—"

"tab, i'm fine!" he held you at arms length before nodding in approval at your state. "second platoon's over there. good to see you, sweetheart."

on your way over to your squad, you encountered many men of easy who were happy to see you. luz had hugged you very tightly, perconte offered to sell you a watch, liebgott showed off his nazi flag and lipton gave you a smile and a pat on the back. even cobb nodded at you as you passed. you approached the mortar men of second platoon, glad to see them after 3 days of being awol from your squad. "hey fellas."

"y/n!" malarkey tackled you into a hug and swung you up off your feet. after setting you back down, he took your shoulders in his hands. "you okay?"

"dandy." you quirked a lopsided smile and winked at him.

"y/l/n/!"

"muck."

he stretched out his hand and you shook it. "took your time."

"yeah. i wanted to take in the scenery."

taking a cigarette that malarkey offered you with a smile, you settled down next to him and listened into their conversation.

"see i think we could really get it going—"

"get what going?"

"a cult." alton more looked down at you, exasperated by the rest of his friends.

"look all i'm saying is if we could get enough people on side—"

"skip! we are not starting— or joining— a cult!" you pointed at him in an authoritative manner. "swear to god, you three have one brain cell."

"i'm proud of my braincell!" skip declared.

you chuckled and shook your head. "no... you know how the fates all share an eye?"

"the what?"

"the fates, alex, you know, greek mythology?"

there was a murmur between the men; an agreement that they had no idea what you were talking about. "the fates control fate. right?" they nodded. "they all share one singular eye." you smirked and paused for dramatic effect. "you three," you waved your finger at them, "not you alton, you're a genius, but you three, you all share one singular braincell."

alex shoved you and you elbowed him in response. "god! this kraut cheese tastes like shit!" you weren't listening to your fellow mortar man, instead you were grabbing onto alton more in an attempt to avoid penk, who'd now decided to wage a war with you. "alton don't just let him hit me!"

"why am i involved!"

"you're the only one with a brain cell!" penk caught you and started to punch you gently in the stomach as you mock groaned and said: "oh god! you're gonna kill me!"

malarkey stood up and intervened, deciding that for him it was too risky to let penkala attack you. "alex, get off her!"

"it's only a bit of fun!"

"don, i'm fine—"

"haven't you had enough of fighting?" the statement made the tone of the conversation feel uneasy, so instead you stood up. "i'm going finding bill, i'll tell him i'm back."

bill guarnere gave you a characteristic chuckle as he saw you. "hey kid, whaddya hear, whaddya know, huh?"

"hi bill." you looked over to joe and smiled. "joe."

"what's up, huh?" he motioned to the step he was sat on and you took the hint. settling yourself down next to bill, you allowed him to wrap an arm around your shoulder. "you look like someone pissed in your canteen." canteen. you hadn't realised how thirsty you were until joe said the word, and how you salivated at the word. "have either of you got a drink?" bill unclipped his canteen and handed it to you. you were courteous enough to only take one sip, but you let it rest in your mouth and savoured the feeling of moisture.

“so, you gonna tell us what's up?"

"i'm avoiding don."

"malarkey?"

"yes. he's angry because me and penk were play fighting."

"he's probably jealous, kid."

you shook your head in disagreement. "nah, he didn't say—"

"he's in love with you."

"don't be fucking ridiculous bill. come one joe, you know don better than almost anyone, tell bill—"

"he's right? because... he is y/n." donald malarkey. and you. you wouldn't lie and say you'd never pictured it, but you never pictured him thinking the same thing. donald malarkey was, in your opinion, well above your league. "y/n." bill clicked in front of your face and snapped you out of your daze. "i should go talk to him—"

"second platoon! we're moving out!"

night fell, and you were still marching. your mortar gear was heavy on your back, and you were exhausted. stumbling, you felt a hand steady you. "don." you whimpered, and he slid his arm under your armpits. helping you to walk, he called to bill. "we need to stop! y/n is failing!"

"five minutes."

"come on, sweetheart, i'm gonna sit you down somewhere."

all don could do was settle you down on a rock for the five minutes bill allowed. "you okay?"

"bill said you're in love with me." the statement hung heavy over don, as you watched him scan your face in order to gauge how he felt about it. "i like you." you reached out for his hand. "i'm sorry i compared your brain cells to the fates."

"i don't wanna be your greek fate. i wanna be your greek hero!"

"you do know they had tiny penises right—"

"y/n!"

"alright, go on."

“i really care about you.” you didn’t say anything, just leaned up and captured his lips in yours. he seemed motionless at first, so you pulled him down and he took the hint. after a few moments, you were cut off by an irritated guarnere yelling: “save your energy! jesus christ!”

#band of brothers #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers fanfic #hbo war #donald malarkey #don malarkey #donald malarkey x reader #donald malarkey fanfic #donald malarkey fanfiction

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amartiniplease · 5 years

Text

Donald Malarkey x Reader

“Just smile, I really need to see you smile right now.”

A/N: Hi, it’s been a minute. I’ve been really busy with school and had a little bit of writer's block. This one has been in the making for about a month now and I just wasn’t sure how to finish it off, so I decided to leave it like this. Hope you like it!

Also I just wanted to say to tell me if you have requests for a story, having a purpose makes writing a little easier too!

Synopsis: They had already lost so much, so why did this have to keep happening?

Disclaimer: This work is based on the characters as they are portrayed in the HBO series Band of Brothers and is by no means meant as an offense to any of the real men that it was based on.

They were a miserable crowd that trudged into Haguenau. David Webster was back, smiling as if their reunion was something celebratory. His greeting had been colder then he had expected and when he joined in with second platoon all they could do was stare at his clean uniform and spotless face, dirtfree and scarless.

Ardennes and Foy had taken a hard toll on Donald Malarkey. Losing some of his best friends had taken a hard toll on him. He was battered now, sharper somehow, than before. His smiles were rare things, and he was more drawn back, disconnected from the rest of the men since taking up the role of leading the platoon. Besides, the loss he had suffered made him hesitant to open up to anyone else.

Y/n eyed him worriedly feeling a spike of sadness at his slumped posture. He looked different, not necessarily in a bad way, the raggedy look suited him. It made his interior, affected by the horrible experiences of war, reflect onto the outside.

He had just gotten back from showering, wearing a set of clean uniforms. His exhaustion was easy to spot, but then again, each and every one of them was exhausted. It was something in his eyes though, that Y/n knew had the potential to grow into hopelessness. They were all so close to that point and she was afraid that he would tip over the edge.

“Hey Don,” Y/n offered him as genuine a smile she could. “You clean up nice!” She said when she had his attention.

He chuckled drily. But the look in his eyes remained, and he didn’t smile. It made her heart hurt that she couldn’t do more. She met his eyes with a sad smile, noticing the look on her face Don walked over to her, putting an arm over her shoulder and squeezing a little. His other hand was preoccupied with lighting the smoke resting between his lips. When he got it to light up, Y/n was quick to steal it and take a long drag and lowering the cigarette before exhaling. She looked up at him turning her body more towards him and pressed a kiss on the corner of his mouth. Before, when she’d done that it had always caused him to smile brightly at her but now he just let out a little relieved sigh.

“How are you holding up?” She felt him tense up at the question.

They avoided those topics most of the time. Since it was little they could do about their situation, they had agreed that it was pointless to bring up any unnecessary distress. But Y/n felt alone and Don was the only person she wanted to talk to.

He offered her the shortest response possible. “As best I can.” Shooting her an apologetic look, he brought up a hand to touched the side of her face.

Y/n leaned in to the touch before bringing the cigarette back up to her lips and breathing in the smoke. She closed her eyes as she exhaled, the feeling of desperation overcoming her all of a sudden. Tilting her head forward a little so she could rest her forehead against Don’s she inhaled another drag, letting the smoke shift out of her nose.

“I really need to shower.” She muttered instead of pressing on. As much as she trusted and respected the men, she did not feel comfortable showering with all of them.

Don leaned back to look her up and down as if he hadn’t realised her dirty state, which to be fair he probably hadn’t since it was what they were all used to. “Do you want me to talk to Speirs or Winters to see if you can get a more private option?”

Y/n sighed, she didn’t want to cause any trouble. “It’s okay, I’ll just wait until everyone else is done.” She closed her eyes, she just wanted to get some sleep.

Since Don was no longer going on the patrol he had been ordered to get some rest which Y/n found a relief. But she was worried about the other men. This mission seemed pointless and unnecessarily dangerous. The looks on everyone’s faces when Webster and that new lieutenant had entered the room had been somber. And when Web had revealed that out of the fifthteen men, Heffron, McClung and Ramirez were definitely going, the mood had become even more grim.

“I’m afraid.” Y/n whispered, feeling brave with her eyes closed.

Don put his arms around her and gathered her into a hug, one hand coming up to stroke her hair. She let out a shuddering breath leaning in to him.

“This patrol is so unnecessary and I’m scared for the men going. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” Her words came out muffled by his shoulder.

“I know.” They both knew there were no comfort to be found in empty promises. So he didn’t try to reassure her that everything would be fine.

Eugene Jackson was only 20 years old, and now he was dead. Y/n was sitting on a chair staring at his dead body. One escaped tear created a trail in the dirt that dusted her face. The only thing she could do was stare, they had all fallen silent, unsure what happens next. It seemed as if the silence stretched out, and when the air became too pressing, Y/n stood up without a word and left the room.

The midnight breeze did nothing to help her breathe. With shaky hands she lit a cigarette trying to calm her raging thoughts. She walked to the room where Don was sleeping and almost stopped when she realised that he didn’t know. He would blame himself, no doubt. Though her selfish need for him was bigger than the part of her who wanted to protect him by letting him remain unknowing at least for a little while longer. Y/n knocked on the door softly before entering without waiting for an answer. As she toed off her shoes she wiped away another stray tear before she lay down beside Don on the bed. He flinched a little when he woke, blinking as she came into focus before his eyes.

“Hey, what’s wrong,” He shifted as his eyes searched her eyes, noticing the frantic look in them.

Y/n shook her head, pressing her face into his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of military soap and a little sweat. After a few calming breaths she lifted her head to look at him.

“Just smile, I really need to see you smile right now.” She was ashamed by how selfish that comment was.

Don looked confused, it wasn’t that the desperation in her voice was unheard of, but it was a strange thing to wake up to.

He lifted his hand to touch the side of her face. “Did something happen, Y/n?” The concern was clear in his voice.

Changing the subject Y/n stumbled over her words. “Tell me about when you knew you loved me.”

She could see the hesitation on his face but still he complied.

“It was just before the battle of Foy that it finally clicked.” He paused to stroke her hair. “In Ardennes, I couldn’t even think and when,” Don fell silent only for a second. “Muck and Penkala got hit, all I could think was that what if you were gone too.”

Y/n knew how hard losing his best friends had been for Don, especially when Buck left too. So talking about it was not something he tended to do. She reached out to show her comfort by squeezing his hand.

He let her take his hand without protest, giving her a half smile. “When I saw you after everything I felt like I could almost breathe again.”

Y/n remembered that moment, out of nowhere she had been engulfed in a tight embrace, and she had flinched in surprise before she got a glimpse of Don’s red hair which made her relax and spin around so that she could properly hug back. He had hid his face in the crook of her neck and although she would never bring it up she had heard and felt his tears against her skin.

“I didn’t want to have something happen to either of us without telling you.” He smiled then, properly, and although it was tinged with sadness, the happiness was there too. “And then you told me that you loved me, and you kissed me. I had never been so desperate for someone.” he smirked cheekily, “I felt like I was going to die, more than I had ever done in battle, and I just knew that this was something new, something I had never experienced before. So that was when I knew that I loved you.”

Y/n started crying then, it was only silent tears making their way down her cheeks, but since Don was facing her it was easy to tell. His small smile fell then, and he looked worried.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Y/n” He said it with his commanding voice, that he used whenever he had to order the platoon around.

“Jackson got hit by his own grenade.” She sounded cold despite the obvious the distress her tears was showing. “He’s dead.”

Again that awful pressing silence descended over the room.

Don broke it with a low “Fuck”.

Instead of saying anything else, he wrapped his arms around her and they just laid there in silence as the sun rose outside marking the start of a new day.

#band of brothers #band of brothers fanfiction #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers imagines #donald malarkey #donald malarkey fanfiction

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almost-a-class-act · 2 years

Text

Pairing: George Luz/Donald Malarkey

Word count: 5,488

Summary: "Don feels like someone has put him on a watch, his gaze on that fathomless night outside and George tucked under his arm, making it impossible to change positions or stretch out. He doesn’t mind it, because George wasn’t wrong; something about being close to someone keeps the darkness back, a little. Or maybe it’s just body heat, like George said. Who knows."

Or: Luz and Malarkey fall asleep together in various places toward the end of the war.

#band of brothers #fanfiction #roaroftheninth #george luz #donald malarkey #no idea what we ship tag this because there are literally six stories on ao3 so #luzarkey #why not

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blueberry-ovaries · 5 months

Text

CHAPTER TWO: MAYBE HELL IS A LARGE MOUNTAIN IN TOCCOA, GEORGIA

A/N: Welcome to chapter two of hiraeth! This one is a long one and i’m not to sure if i’m happy with how it turned out, but i didn’t want to not post something so here it is!

Word Count: 2.3k

Content Warnings: period typical sexism, inaccurate historical retellings, violence, blood and war related injuries, PTSD, Winnie’s hatred of authority, bullying (?), probably OOC writing and horrible americanisation of words

< previous chapter > - < next chapter >

Eating rats in Africa had to be more enjoyable than running up a mountain in full pack gear. Especially when your CO hated your company and by extension you

To answer the question what the fuck is a currahee? Winnie was forced into her brand new boots, and a much too large uniform, to run up a large mountain. Not only did she twist her ankle in the first five minutes, but if one more man kicked dirt into her eyes, she might start getting violent.

Lieutenant Sobel was a sadist. Winnie decided on mile two of the run. Given the fact that it looked like he was almost enjoying their looks of despair. As Sobel watched her red faced and sweaty body push past the men on the mountain, she could almost hear the taunting words and insults spilling from his tongue. Although smaller by quite a margin, Winnie had months of active duty behind her, helping aid her in this, rather ridiculous climb. Now that is something she could hear, the grumbles and insults from the men in her company, not many liked the idea that some scrawny looking kid they’ve never met, beating them up currahee.

The top of currahee was an amazing view, not the Winnie got to see much of it. Her CO yelling at her that ‘this isn’t good enough for easy’ or that ‘woman in the military are to blame for our time up currahee’. Like she wasn’t the fastest person to haul ass up the mountain.

The bottom of the mountain left easy company in a pile of doubled over figures with their hands on their knees, sucking in as much air as possible.

“look at that, miss face scar thinking she’s better than us” one of the men mutter between gasps

“what do ya think she did to deserve that one?” another mumbled

Clenching her jaw, Winnie stretched out her neck. no fighting on your first day. A deep breath and an internal lecture on formality she rolled back her shoulders, walking towards the showers as instructed. Now the problem she faced was that there were no women’s showers, which meant, finding a time where there was no men in the shower would be difficult.

After finding a clean pair of clothes. something not covered in dust or ticks! Deciding she was far too sweaty to not shower before the dinner service, she took a faster pace. if i can shower quickly, wearing my undergarments, i can get to the food hall before everyone and-

“outta my way” accompanied by a harsh shove

“watch it dumbass” she hisses back, dusting the dirt off her shorts

“whaddya say to me?” his nostrils flare

“do i have to spell it out for you too?” Crossing her arms over her chest

Both soldiers stand nearly face to face, although in Winnie’s case more face to chest. Her rather short temper was not helped by months at war, and her counterparts clear distaste for her was not helped by her smart mouth.

“Hayes, Cobb, is there a problem here?” Winters crosses his arms over his chest

“not at all lieutenant” Winnie responds, her eyes never once softening from their glare.

With a quick look up and down the taller man, Winnie pushed past him with a shoulder bump and made her way towards the shower block. For all the money the United States Government has put into its military, you would think that maybe the showers would be more than four walls with a flimsy lock. But no! i have to shower and watch my back.

Luck. Something that is not entirely on her side. After the fifth scar, Winnie decided that if there was a God, he was playing with his food before eating it. Luck, was being able to shower without being interrupted, and thanking her lucky stars, she was showering. Maybe it had to do with how quickly she ran to get her clean clothes, or maybe, just maybe, Luck was on her side. The cold water hit her chest, with a choked gasp Winnie jumps backwards.

———

The sweltering heat of Africa was dry. Bugs bite the exposed skin of their legs, now visible after doc let them borrow his scissors. My rash had been present for three days, doc said once it hits a week, we start to worry. I wasn’t worried. As long as the bugs didn’t come near me. Fighting off the Germans was one thing, but bugs? that was a whole new ball game.

They tried to give us shifts down at the ocean. It wasn’t the best option for a shower, but after months in the heat, any water was good enough to clean the mud and grime from our blood stained skin.

The best factor was that the ocean was cold. Even five minutes to dunk yourself under the water and slapping a wet slouch hat on your head was enough to keep you going for the night.

The salt water stings. Eyes blurring as they’re opened under the sea. A burning wound. The ocean turning red. With a strangled gasp and her wet hair sticking to her face like a second skin, she paddles. Winnie holds her left shoulder with her hand, legs kicking wildly as a shot rings through the air.

“Sniper!” her voice is hoarse as she yells for her friends to take cover.

Groaning as she lands on the sand with a wet thud, blood coating her fingers a deep crimson. Dust coating her skin, and a lasting feeling of the cold water sticking to her body.

——

Winnie shakes her head like she can shake the memories loose from her brain. Her hand slams the faucet down, the shower instantly stopping the stream of cold water. not in africa not in africa. Her hands work quickly, drying herself, changing into her uniform. The sooner she could get out of here and eat, the better.

The cold door held her weight as she rested her forehead against it. Eyes screwed shut her chest shuddered with half taken breaths. in. out. in. out. Only allowing two minutes to crack before she pieced herself together. She had things to do. With her dirty clothes in hand, now dropped into the wash bin, Winnie set out for dinner.

left. right. left. right. one foot in-front of the other.

Army food was nothing of great expectation. Army chefs who aren’t actually chefs, mass producing meals with food that Winnie isn’t all to certain is food. Nonetheless, anything was better than eating rats. So she kept her mouth shut, made sure to say thank you to the cooks, and took her tray, sitting at the corner of the table, plenty of room for the men to sit.

Soon enough, tables filled up all around her, and as expected Winnie was the plague. At least, she’s certain people thought she was. That was the only reason for a full table of easy company men to be pushed into one side of the table.

“i don’t have rabies you know” she muttered towards… Johnny was it? Maybe it was Joe “it won’t kill you to sit next to me”

Poking at the concerning loaf shaped meat on her tray, she glanced up as someone coughed. The seat opposite her was about to have an occupant. really wish i learnt those names. He looked out of place, and quite frankly awkward.

“Is this seat taken miss?” He had a soft voice.

“Go ahead” She sighed softly, an open hand as she pointed to the chair

“I hope you don’t mind, the other side is lookin’ a little cosy for my liking” he explained

“Not at all… as long as you don’t mind sitting with the outcast” poking at her meat loaf. If she avoided eye contact, maybe it would be less awkard

“My ma always said it wasn’t right to be mean to someone just ‘cause you don’t know ‘em” The man spoke softly, but he held a fond look when he mentioned his mother. It was rather sweet Winnie thought.

“Well your ma must be a real nice lady” with a smile Winnie looked up at the man “Winnie”

“Darrel… But everyone calls me Shifty” he responded kindly

“It’s lovely to meet you Shifty” she nodded, and responds in a soft, almost embarrassed tone “thank you for sitting with me-“

Chatter around the room stops as the doors to the cafeteria slam against the walls. Standing like Satan at the gates of hell was Sobel, a harsh glare set on his pointed features as he scans the room for his prey. Winnie knew it. as soon as his head swivelled around the room. It was her.

“What do you think you are doing” his voice carries through the now quiet room, he strides to stand next to Winnie

“Stand at attention.” he snaps

Shooting out of her seat, her hand snaps into attention

“Lieutenant Sobel… sir?” her eyebrows crease slightly “is there a problem sir?”

“Do you enjoy making a mockery of the United States Military Private Hayes?” he sneers

Winnie’s face flushes red, All eyes were on her, as she stood at attention, Sobel not saluting her. She had never felt so much hatred for a man, and she’s known him less than twelve hours.

“It’s Sargent” she mutters

“Are you disagreeing with a commanding officer private” the look he gives is one of total contempt, she was beneath him and he wanted her to know it. Still he salutes her.

“It’s. sergeant.” her teeth grit

“Are you implying that your commanding officer is wrong, private Hayes” His tone implied that he was right, even if he wasn’t. A challenge. And boy does she like a challenge

“When my commanding officer refers to me using the wrong rank, then it would seem he, is in fact wrong” she narrows her eyes “my rank may not be from the United States Military, but it is in every way, a rank. I worked for that rank and it would be appreciated if my commanding officer would acknowledge that fact… Sir”

A low whistle settles through the crowd, a soft “oh shit” comes from one of the easy men

“Winnie-“ shifty’s plea is cut off but an angry Sobel

“Respect seems to not be taught in your country. You will not have such blatant disrespect for a commanding officer.” Sobel seethes, a vein popping in his forehead “you will leave the remainder of your meal, and run currahee with your pack. And you will run it without drinking from your canteen, until you understand what respect is.”

Winnie’s jaw clenches so hard she fears she may have cracked a tooth. She tries to not glare at her CO.

“Do i make myself clear.” he asks, his voice low and threatening

“Yes. sir.” she grits out. Saluting.

——

The Georgian air was much warmer at night than Africa or New Guinea. But with the added weight of a full pack, complete with her canteen and new boots. New unbroken boots. Winnie was slowly warming up. The weight was not a new feeling. Carrying all her belongings, her comrades, weapons, anything of importance up the treacherous slopes and hills of Kokoda, the pack was not her worry for her punishment.

The lack of food, even if it tasted like wet cardboard and had the consistency of beans in jelly, was sustenance. And was she going to need that right now. By the time she reached her second dessent from currahee, Winnie noticed the little swirls in her vision. Still, she refused to drink from her canteen. She may be hot headed but she was not crazy enough to disobey a direct order such as this one.

Her feet felt like she was dragging them through the muddy walkways on New Guinea. Like she was up to her calves in mud so wet it was like quicksand. She felt like the world was on her shoulders, Hike three up Currahee left black dots in her vision. But Winnie was nothing if not stubborn, and if she was told to hike, well she was going to hike, if it meant proving her CO wrong.

The fall broke her nose. Atleast, she’s pretty sure it did. She can’t exactly see or hear who was talking to her, but she’s pretty sure he said the words ‘broken’ and ‘idiotic’. The stars looked pretty from here. It’s been so long since she’s been able to lay and watch the sky

“-an you hear me?” a southern drawl sounds

“What?” a mumbled response, as she rolls her neck side to side

“I said can you hear me?” the man asks, he had a rather deep voice. it was comforting however, rather than intimidating

“Yeah” groaning at the now present pain in her face, Winnie forced herself into a sit

“Take it easy, you hit your head pretty hard” he mumbles

“What happened?” Winnie blinks a few times, clearing the spots in her vision, her nose throbbed, and she was sure it needed to be reset

“You broke your nose” He answers off handedly, reaching up to feel around her nose

“How do you know.” Defensively Winnie pulls away from his hands “stop touchin’ me, you can’t just touch people without asking, especially when i don’t know you”

“Would ya stop bein’ difficult and let me fix it” he sighs, his accent getting thicker in irritation

“No. I don’t know you, how do i know you won’t just make it worse” tilting her head defiantly

He sighs in irritation

“Eugene Roe, medic” he drawls “now will you let me fix the nose ‘fore it gets worse”

reluctantly, she nods. Staring at the man with curiosity. He was handsome, there was no denying that. But he was reserved, not in the way Shifty was, like Eugene Roe was purposely closing himself off.

“i’m gonna set it now” he warns “one. two-“

A loud crack sounds through the air, followed swiftly by a string of curses. Winnie now hated yanks and their medics.

——

A/N: HI! i really hope you enjoyed chapter two of hiraeth! it will start to pick up shortly, but unfortunately the only way this chapter was getting written was if it was a ‘building chapter’ nonetheless i hope you enjoyed!

TAG LIST: @malarkgirlypop @mads-weasley @footprintsinthesxnd @bucky32557038ww2 @grumpy-liebgott @executethyself35

#hiraeth #blue *• hiraeth #hiraeth fic #hiraethoc #winnie hayes oc #winnie hayes #winnie #band of brothers fic #band of brothers fanfiction #band of brothers #babe heffron #ronald speirs #bandofbrothers #dick winters #eugene roe #george luz #hbowar #band of brothers #donald malarkey

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stillbandofbrothersthirsty · 3 years

Note

Hi, love!! For your request game, I’d like to request Sofia by Claire O + Luz, Malarkey, or Liebgott (surprise me!) + Friends to lovers 🥰 the MC character’s name could be Sofia! Thank you!

Oh I am a sucker for all these boys but Malarkey had my heart on this one! Thank you for the request <3

Donald Malarkey folded the piece of paper for the thousandth time, and for the thousandth time slipped it back into the worn envelope that was beginning to come apart at the corners. He ran his fingers over the torn corners that were decorated with tiny hand-drawn daisies. The vision of them took him back to his first week in England. The daisies had been fresh, drawn in dark ink, when the letter had first arrived. It had been the first letter he received all those months ago and back then, he never would have guessed he would feel as confused as he did now.

Sofia was one of his oldest friends. He had watched her grow from a young girl to young woman and she had seen him stumble into manhood. She had written to him diligently since he enlisted. He wrote her back with equal devotion, taking great care to explain the details, politics, and frustrations he experienced. She validated him and reminded him to lead with grace. He always signed his letters with their inside joke: your best brother friend. That’s what she had referred to him ever since she had a crush on Mac Wilson in 9th grade and wanted it to be clear to everyone that Don was not her sweetheart.

A year into his time at Toccoa, Sofia had asked Don to stop referring to himself as her brother. Although confused, Donald obliged her request. He had to come up with new ways to sign his letters. He stuck to the innocent ‘friend’, ‘with love’, ‘your devoted friend’. But each time he signed the words seemed insufficient.

He returned to Oregon for Christmas where he and Sofia’s families celebrated together. Christmas day wrapped up with good food, handmade gifts, and parlor games. The sky was growing dark as Sofia’s parents insisted that they needed to get her exhausted siblings home and into bed.

“But-,” Sofia protested. She and Donald were in the middle of a cribbage game they weren’t even close to wrapping up.

“Oh, but I’m just heating up some milk!” Don’s mother said from the kitchen, “let Sofia stay at least! Donald can drive her home when they finish.”

Her parents were easily persuaded. How could they not be? The Malarkey family was an extension of theirs, and Don was nothing less than a cousin to their daughter.

Once they finished up their game, Sofia and Don bundled up and he drove her down the snow-packed road to her house.

“Don?” she asked.

  “Yes?”

“Can I ask a favor?”

“Sure,” he said without a second thought. He pulled his truck into the driveway of her house.

“Well, just hear it out first,” she said warningly, “you may not be up for it.”

“You know I would do anything for you,” Don said reflexively.

She smiled softly, “really? Anything?”

Her tone was light, but Don considered her question seriously. He thought about it; he had so many lines he wouldn’t cross. But he realized if he needed to, he would cross them for her. There truly was nothing he wouldn’t do to make her happy, to keep her safe. She waited patiently for him to respond. Her eyes were dark in the unlit cab of the parked car. “Really,” Don said resolutely, “anything.” He was suddenly aware of the space between them. It would only take the slightest of motions, a few inches forward and an outstretched arm, to pull her against him.

She was motionless but Don could feel the energy grow heavy between them, she was waiting - challenging - him to make a move. Instead, Don cleared his throat, “so what is it?”

Her chin dropped slightly, “Um, it’s about a job. I can explain more tomorrow, I’ll give you a ring.” Don nodded. Sofia swung the truck door open and the winter chill blew in, pinking his cheeks before she slammed the door shut again and disappeared into the house.

The next day, she asked him to keep an eye out for secretarial positions with the army. Although Don wasn’t eager for her to be involved with the military he admired her desire to work and contribute to the cause. He agreed to keep her in mind when she drove him to the train station for a ride back to Toccoa. Before he boarded, Sofia took his hand in her mitted one and said, “keep me in mind, in other ways too.” She slipped a black and white photo of herself into his palm. Don had been so surprised he didn’t know what to think or say.

That was the last time he saw Sofia before shipping off to England. But he had kept her in mind; the vision of her waving goodbye on the platform, the memory of her hair blowing as they drove down dirt roads with the windows down, her squeal of excitement when she beat him in cribbage or gin.

She continued to write to him and he continued to struggle with how to orient himself to her.

The letter with the daisies had been the last he received; he had never responded. She had stopped writing.

Don pulled the letter out one more time and re-read the words he had memorized. She understood he saw her as a sister. Did he? But he never left her thoughts. She never left his. She knew their families were intertwined, and that could be a good thing. It was! Because she saw a future with him. In what capacity? And, she loved him.

It was that line that Don had no response to. He had no idea what to think, he had no sense of his own emotions. And now, it had been weeks, and she had responded to his silence with silence. He could feel her regret and embarrassment from across the Atlantic and those were the very last things he wanted her to feel.

He had tried time and time again to draft her a response but the words were lost on him. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t see her as a sister and more than a friend. She was too beautiful, too captivating for that. He wanted to tell her how he loved her laugh and watching her pick wild berries along the river in the summer. He wanted her to be his, and he wanted to tell her that, God, he thought he was in love with her.

 But he couldn’t bring himself to write any of that down. Don ran his fingers over the worn envelope one more time, taking in the neat cursive letter of his name and address in Aldbourne. Finally, he pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. He poised his pen and wrote:

You're more than my sister, more than my friend. I want to give us a try.

#request game #band of brothers #don malarkey #donald malarkey #best friends to lovers #one shot #band of brothers fanfiction

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softspeirs · 3 years

Note

I'm in my Malarkey feels today - how about "things you said that I wasn’t meant to hear."

“Shut up,” He hisses, “Someone’s going to hear you.”

Another voice, Luz, she thinks, scoffs. “Give me a little credit, Malark. I know how to be discreet.”

There’s a long silence, and she has to put her hand over her mouth as she pictures the incredulous look being given to George Luz at that moment.

“I just wanted your opinion, but if you’re going to ruin the surprise--”

Right then, she knows she should stop eavesdropping. Her birthday is coming, and they’ve had so little happiness lately... she knows he’s been wanting to do something special, or at least as special as it can get in Austria at the end of a world war.

“She’s going to love it.” Luz assures him.

“My Ma sent it over and it took forever to get to us. I hope she likes a diamond.”

Hand still clasped over her mouth, she stills. Oh, dear.

She must have stood there for longer than she thought, because suddenly the door is opening, and she has nowhere to go, nowhere to hide to pretend she wasn’t listening in.

“Oh, shit.” Luz says under his breath. “Uh... I have to go. Somewhere else.”

He pushes past her, giving her a light touch on her elbow as he squeezes through the door.

Malarkey looks distraught. “How much did you hear?” He continues before she can even answer or make up an excuse. “You weren’t supposed to hear any of that!”

“I didn’t mean to--”

“So much for the surprise.” He’s almost whining, and she’s reminded of why it is that she just couldn’t stay away from Don Malarkey. “There was supposed to be candles, and a meal, and I was going to--”

“Don.” Her voice is a whisper, thick with emotion. “Ask me the question.”

He freezes. “What?”

“Ask me.”

“We’re in the barracks--”

“And the only reason we ever met was because we’re both in the Army. I think it’s fitting. Don’t you?”

He huffs, but he’s a little pink around the ears, a bashful, shy smile on his lips as he tries to gather his courage. It’s the most endearing thing she’s ever seen.

“Hang on,” he says, heading back towards the hallway. “I’ve had enough of people listening in for one day!” He calls, and if on cue, a bunch of footsteps sound down the hall, everyone shushing each other.

She can’t help it - she laughs, so hard she can barely keep upright, and when she straightens, he pulls her right into a kiss.

“Marry me.” He says quietly. “And you better say yes loud enough for those yokels to hear you.”

An indignant shout of “hey!” comes from down the hall.

“Of course I’ll marry you.”

“To have and to hold and to listen in through doors for the rest of our lives?”

She scowls. “Shut up, you.”

He laughs, and she’d do anything to see that smile on his face. For the rest of their days, however long they have, they’re going to spend it together.

#mercurygray #don malarkey x oc #donald malarkey x oc #band of brothers fanfiction #band of brothers imagine #THIS TOOK ME APPROX 100 YEARS IM SO SORRY #hope its ok!!!!#softspeirs band of brothers fanfiction

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musicnoots · 4 years

Text

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.

#this was kept in my drafts for weeks now and...here it is #band of brothers #hbo war #donald malarkey #don malarkey #easy company #band of brothers imagines #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers fanfic #band of brothers fanfiction #soft angst #hurt and comfort #donald malarkey x reader #OH AND BY THE WAY THIS WAS 7 PAGES ON GOOGLE DOCS!!

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liebgotts-lovergirl · 1 year

Text

Fire On Fire: Chapter 25

(Ch. 24) ... (Ch. 1)

II Gallery II Symbol Guide II

Summary: "Friendship isn't a big thing– it's a million little things."

A/N: Here it is, y'all! 💖

Taglist: @latibvles @softguarnere @brassknucklespeirs @mccall-muffin @lieutenant-speirs @emmythespacecowgirl @holdingforgeneralhugs @parajumpboots @hxad-ovxr-hxart @sleepisforcowards @indigo-luvers @ax-elcfucker-blog @chaosklutz @mads-weasley @vibing-away @eightysix-baby @ithinkabouttzu

Contemporary: November 20th, 1944. Resistance Safehouse, Signy-l’Abbaye, France.

She had been told that her confinement in the dilapidated cabin was for her own protection but Alix was almost certain that the real purpose was to drive her mad enough that even if she were to be captured, she’d have nothing useful to say.

And it was working, the agent thought as she flipped aimlessly through Wuthering Heights for the umpteenth time.

She was going to go out of her mind.

No one in the OSS knew where the leak had come from meaning that everyone was now under suspicion, so the only conceivable solution had been to tuck Alix away somewhere verifiably secure until the source was discovered.

Her sole contact with the outside world came in the form of visits from Captain Nixon, who was the very picture of maladaptive coping mechanisms as he collapsed into a beaten-in armchair by the fireplace with a drink in-hand.

"Any word on Jen– I mean, Agent Perrault?" Alix inquired hopefully but her handler shook his head.

"Not since the last time you asked. Sorry to say but I wouldn't get your hopes up."

He gave a sympathetic grimace before reminding her gently,

"MIA usually means captured or dead."

"'Usually'," Alix insisted doggedly.

"But not always. There's still a chance she's alive somewhere, waiting it out."

Her case officer's expression was strained but he said nothing, opting to take a swig of his drink instead of discouraging her any further.

There was a beat of comfortable silence between the pair and Alix picked at the shoddy couch-cushions beneath her leg with a chipped nail.

She desperately wanted to ask about Joe but she knew better.

She would play it cool.

"So what'd I miss? How is everyone?" she inquired casually but her handler let out a snort.

"You mean, how's 'Joey' ?"

One of the many downsides of being friendly with an intelligence officer, Alix thought ruefully: They Know Too Much.

"A loose cannon, that's how he is," Nixon answered himself before taking a gulp of what was undoubtedly whiskey in his flask.

"He's worried as Hell about you and he's taking it out on anybody within arm's reach. Not to mention, he keeps trying to weasel SITREPs out of me like your status and location aren't strictly Classified."

The captain shook his head with a grudging, mirthless smirk.

"Have to say, I admire his tenacity but I swear to Christ, I'm half-tempted to put a rush on your paperwork just so I can get some goddamn sleep and Dick can have his best interrogator back. Liebgott's no good to anybody like this and don't we all know it."

Joe was worried about her?

Alix didn't know what to say.

Why should he be?

Shouldn't he be relieved that he didn't have to tie up their inconvenient affair with a neat little bow?

But her conflicted musings were interrupted by the crinkling of cardboard.

Nonchalantly fishing a small, rectangular snack box out of his pocket, Nixon tossed it over to her with an exaggerated sigh of reluctance.

“From Muck again,” he elaborated as she caught it, as if she didn’t already know.

Skip had made it a habit of saving his fruit bars for her. He had told her case officer that it was because he was bored of apricot but Alix knew for a fact that was a lie.

It had started long before that.

╔══ •🖤🖤•🖤🖤•🖤🖤• ══╗

9 Months Ago: February 5th, 1944. Aldbourne, England.

“Hey Doc, is it normal to lose feeling in your legs?" Alix wheezed as she and the rest of the company made the final trudge up the hill to their makeshift campsite.

"Because I think mine have died."

“Lucky you,” Don groaned from behind her as he plopped down onto the dirt.

“Mine feel like they're on fire.”

"Mais ya, Pyro," Roe answered as he settled across from her on the ground, swiping some sweat off his forward with his sleeve.

"We jus' did an all-night hike an' on empty stomachs, no less. Perfectly normal to feel numb, I reckon."

"Enjoy it," Penkala advised as he took a seat on the empty patch of grass next to Eugene.

"After the Charley horse I got in Mile 9, I'd welcome some numbness right about now."

From a little ways away, Alix saw Skip Muck– their other best friend– shifting from foot to foot anxiously as he waited in line to speak to Captain Sobel.

As the only NCO in their friend group, it was Skip's job to report their times on each excursion.

Alix was reasonably confident in their speed– especially on nighttime hikes which were a lot less grueling than in the blistering heat of the day– but Muck always did his best to pad their times anyway to avoid anyone getting in trouble.

That was just the sort of person he was and Alix was eternally grateful.

The blond mimed dramatically shooting himself with his finger-gun as he waited for the unfortunately long-winded Mike Ranney to finish handing in his group's times and she let out a small giggle behind her hand.

"Wonder if he'll be done by noon," Don snickered, voicing her own thoughts and Alix shrugged.

"We can dream," she joked as she began to unbox her breakfast unit. "But I'm too famished to wait any longer."

"Agreed," Alex Penkala chimed in and the usual bartering began.

"Hey Penk, I'll trade you my Pork & Eggs for your cereal bar," Alix piped up hopefully but the brown-haired trooper sat forward and squinted, his green eyes skeptically taking in Alix's offering.

"That's what that's s'posed to be?" he asked, seeming genuinely horrified. "Are you sure?"

The Italian's weak nod was the only confirmation he needed to cement his decision.

"Nie, sorry," Penkala answered, partially in Polish and partially in English.

Alix sighed but at least he had the decency to look somewhat apologetic.

"Maybe another day?" he added as the spy turned to the friend seated on her left side.

"What about you, Mal? Pork and eggs for half your biscuits?" she offered but Don jokingly shielded his crackers in response.

"Fat chance," the redhead quipped. "These are getting drenched in coffee, soon as it's done."

"I'll remember this the next time you ask me for a Wrigley's," Alix teased before turning to the medic across the way, whose dark blue eyes were already fixed on her.

"How about you, Gene? Up for a trade?"

She held up the tin with a hopeful smile so the medic could view the breakfast ration within but he shook his head apologetically.

"Uh…'fraid I gotta pass on that," he responded, shooting her a sympathetic grimace as he eyed the tin.

"It don' look fit for human consumption."

Roe wasn't wrong.

The medic's prepackaged block of oatmeal had to be soaked in water from his canteen until it was an almost slop-like consistency the color of wet cement but it still looked better than the culinary monstrosity sitting before her in her own tin.

Using her fork as a poking stick, Alix lightly prodded the chalky egg yolk, hoping to find an angle at which it might at least look a little bit appetizing but found none.

The blocks of pork were so solid that she could hardly get her fork through them and she found herself thinking wistfully of home.

When she was home for breaks in Chestnut Hill, Penny would make the most incredible Irish breakfast known to man every morning – the fluffiest golden eggs, the most mouthwatering sausage accompanied by the scent of sizzling bacon and bread so fresh that you could hear the melodious crackle of the crust.

Just the thought of it was making her stomach growl but her musings were interrupted when Doc Roe reached out from across the way and plunked 4 of his 8 biscuits onto her tray with a shy smile.

"Ya can have 'em for free though, if ya want 'em, che– er, Pyro," he corrected quickly with an awkward cough before adding, "Hope they help."

Alix beamed back at him.

"Gene, you're a real peach, do you know that?"

The tips of the medic's ears turned bright pink and he replied with a "De Rien" so soft that she barely heard it.

Taking a bite of one of the biscuits, Alix let out a sudden yelp of pain as one of her molars connected with the rock-solid bread.

"Cazzo! I think it chipped my tooth!"

"That's why you soak 'em first, genius," a familiar voice bubbled from behind her and Alix turned to greet her other best friend.

"Well well, look what the cat finally dragged in," she remarked playfully as she scooted to make room for Skip in their little circle.

"Christ, Skipper, did you get lost?" Don piped up in-between mouthfuls of soggy cracker.

"Nope, can't afford to," the blond replied with his trademark glowing grin and unflagging positivity, even as he settled cross-legged into the dirt.

"Somebody's gotta keep you two outta the nuthouse."

Eagerly pulling his breakfast unit onto his lap, Skip began sorting through the goods and Alix peeked over his shoulder.

It seemed like that day, only Skip had anything actually worth eating: a Dromedary Bar.

As he slowly peeled back the cellophane, the blond took a second to admire the tropical fruit concoction in his hands and Alix's stomach rumbled enviously.

"Hungry?" he inquired as he began to worm the bar out of its packaging and Alix sighed wistfully.

"Starving."

Flicking out his pocketknife, the blond sawed the bar into two neat halves before scarfing his portion down and gallantly offering the second to his friend.

"You're a saint, Skipper," she proclaimed with a grateful grin as she eagerly wolfed down her half of the sweet treat.

"Nah," he chuckled modestly, wiping his juice-stained hands off on his ODs. "Just looking out for family."

“Bon Dieu,” Eugene had marveled from his seat across from them, shaking his head in quiet bemusement at the pair who had both already finished their sections of the bar.

“Remind me not to let y’all near my mama’s beignets when she send 'em!”

That had been the moment when Joe passed by.

It had started off innocuous enough, just another paratrooper admiring the scenery with his friends, those beautiful russet eyes roving the English landscape around them when they met hers and Alix’s heart thudded in her chest.

The electricity of the unspoken seemed to crackle in the air between them like a lightning storm, so much heat in one glance that it made her cheeks flush like a wild rose.

For a brief second, a conflicted expression flashed across his face and Alix remembered the thought in her mind clear as day:

Two months.

It had been two months.

Joe looked as if he wanted to say something but before he could get it out, one of his best friends– Popeye, she remembered– had distracted him, babbling on and on about their future return to civilization in the coming days.

Alix had never seen Joe appear less enthused. As he was being led away to where the rest of his friends were sitting, he took one last look over his shoulder at her, as if trying to commit her features to memory, as if gathering strength to stay away.

But why?

Two months, Alix remembered thinking sadly as she had watched the handsome paratrooper disappear. It had been two months since-

╚══ •🖤🖤•🖤🖤•🖤🖤• ══╝

The sound of snapping fingers dragged Alix from her memories like a vaudeville cane and when she looked up, she glimpsed a half-concerned, half-amused Lewis Nixon staring back at her from his spot in the armchair.

"Welcome back," he remarked and Alix let out a snort of derision, shrugging off his bemusement as she silently grappled with her thoughts.

Why did the memory of seeing Joe all those months ago make her brain burn? Why did that cryptic phrase echo in her mind: Two months. Two months since what?!

Shaking her head to clear it, the spy focused instead on lifting the ration box's lid and delicately unwrapping the cellophane in her lap.

“Jesus Christ, Nix, nice of you to save me some," she commented dryly, inspecting the remains of a crumbled chocolate bar with a cocked eyebrow.

“Consider it repayment for making me your goddamn mailman,” Nixon deadpanned and Alix rolled her eyes.

“Well if I was allowed outside, I wouldn’t have to have a mailman, now would I?”

“Not this again,” the intelligence officer groaned, holding up his hands in an exaggerated display of helplessness.

"I'm sorry I said anything!"

But it was too late; the floodgates had opened and Alix was already launching into her spiel.

“Nix, it’s been weeks,” she griped, slamming a free hand onto the moth-eaten sofa cushion beside her for emphasis.

“I can’t take much more of this shit! I’m tired of twiddling my fucking thumbs while there’s a war going on out there!”

“You’re preaching to the choir," her case officer said dryly, picking at a twig stuck to his fatigues.

"As soon as your new cover's been backstopped, you'll be the second to know, I swear. So give it a rest, okay?"

A beat of silence ensued and Alix wished fervently that she'd been allowed a radio so she could listen to music.

But alas, a radio signal was too dangerous.

There was no swing jazz on Earth that was worth being found by the Gestapo.

"Have you heard anything about my next assignment?" she probed curiously and the flicker of recognition in his eyes told her he had.

"That's 'Need To Know'," he replied evasively, casting a glance onto the worn-in floorboards. "And you don't, not yet."

Alix huffed impatiently and strained to reach the knife set by her shoulder on the side-table.

Flexing her fingers around the grip, she gave it a leisurely throw just behind Nixon's shoulder at the faded red target on the wall with a THWACK causing him to duck in alarm.

"God, Runt, could you not do that please?" her handler snapped as Alix sent another sailing over his shoulder, the blade whizzing through the air and sinking into the target with another THWACK!

"It's unsettling."

"Is it?" Alix cocked an eyebrow with a smirk, flinging her last knife at the target, the sharp metal sinking into the center with one final, satisfying THWACK!

"My apologies."

"You don't sound very sorry," Captain Nixon grumbled. "But you're going to be in a minute."

Digging into the canvas rucksack he'd placed on the floor earlier, the officer retrieved a hefty stack of paperwork and handed them over the coffee table to her.

"More notes, to be typed into complete reports by 8:00 tomorrow morning. And that's an order."

"Enjoy it while it lasts, Nix," Alix commented sardonically over her shoulder, as she rose from the sofa and crossed to the faded black typewriter resting on the kitchen table.

"They can't keep me cooped up here forever. Soon, you'll have to type up your own fucking notes when I'm in the field again."

"Well you're not there yet, hotshot," Nixon snorted derisively, the corners of his lips quirking up into a grudging smirk.

"So get to work.

17 notes · View notes

sergeant-spoons · 1 year

Text

52. New ‘Do’s & Old Don’t’s

Leslie Sheppard

Taglist: @thoughpoppiesblow @chaosklutz @wexhappyxfew @50svibes @tvserie-s-world @adamantiumdragonfly @ask-you-what-sir @whovian45810 @brokennerdalert @holdingforgeneralhugs @claire-bear-1218 @heirsoflilith @itswormtrain @actualtrashpanda @wtrpxrks

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Two days and they'd leave for Upottery. The weather was warm and sunny, and not a soul stayed indoors if they could help it. Joe Liebgott and Forrest Guth from Easy Company had set up a makeshift barber's shop on the green between two storage sheds. They'd negotiated with the medics for the use of a standing mirror from the medbay across the street and had their operation in full swing by early afternoon. Someone even brought over a calendar, which they pinned to the frame of the mirror. Their date of departure was circled in red pen. There was a big '2' written on the block for today—the 27th—and an even bigger '1' on the block for the 28th. The days beforehand had been scribbled out in the countdown. Leslie thought it seemed a bit foreboding, but she was in too swell of a mood to really care.

"What are ya thinkin'?" Liebgott asked as he sat Leslie down. "Just a trim?"

Leslie lifted the ruler she'd brought for this express purpose.

"How does four inches sound?"

Liebgott's grin in the mirror was positively gleeful.

"Fuck yeah. Let's do it."

She'd measured her hair just last week with Kiko and Tink's help. Hers was by far the longest out of the trio, and lately, it had become more and more difficult to manage. She knew Lieb was Easy's defacto barber, and so she'd decided to wait for an opportunity to ask him for a cut. In a twist of good fortune, she hadn't even needed to ask: that opportunity had landed right in her lap. She had a bit of trouble sitting still at first, as the radio propped up beside Guth's station kept blaring all the best dancing songs, and Lieb had to jokingly threaten her with cutting off more than four inches if she kept squirming. As he worked, they got to talking, and when she mentioned she wasn't sure what she'd say if she met a German face-to-face, he decided he'd teach her a bit of the language. Curious and willing, she agreed.

He started out with a few of the basic phrases—"hi" (hallo) and "bye" (tschüss) and "come here, you" (komm her, du). Leslie challenged him to teach her something a bit more difficult and he complied.

"Fick dich."

"Fick dich?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Fick dich." She grinned. "Think I got it?"

"Down pat."

"Easy. So what's it mean?"

He snickered.

"'Go fuck yourself'."

"Joe!"

He moved the scissors away from her head as he started to laugh. Leslie made a face in the mirror, but that only served to amuse him further.

"Joe, you rascal," she scolded, but she was starting to smile, and he could see he'd won her over. "I'm trying to learn something useful here."

"Whoever said that ain't useful?" He carded his hand through her hair a few times, then patted her shoulder. "Alright. You're done."

Leslie jumped up, shaking her head experimentally to feel the new lightness upon her head. She leaped for the mirror and Lieb chuckled, pretending to grumble something about no thanks. Leslie promptly turned and threw her arms around him, exclaiming her gratitude, and when she stepped back, she thought it best not to mention the pink now blooming on his cheeks. Returning to the mirror, she admired her new haircut, watching how it fell just past her shoulders. Four inches didn't seem like all that much hair until it was gone. A wolf whistle caught her attention and she turned at the same time as Lieb, who'd been reaching for a broom.

"You got yourself a new 'do, Lady?"

Leslie grinned and shot Tink two thumbs up.

"Sure did!"

"Looks fantastic!"

"Thanks!"

Already unconcerned with his sweeping job, Liebgott paused to preen, then had to chase after the pile he'd made when the breeze kicked up and re-scattered all the strands.

"Where are you off to, Tink?"

"Post office!" She turned halfway and lifted the parcel in her far hand. "Got a few treats to drop off for my brothers."

"Treats, you say?"

"Oh, you know, the usual suspects. A box or two of Turkish delights, a few bags of jelly babies, maybe even a Cadbury Fudge sprinkled in with the Milkybars."

Leslie pretended to sulk. "Lucky brothers."

"That's right—Lucky's lucky brothers!" Tink agreed with a giggle. "But hey, whoever said I didn't leave a little surprise on your pillow?"

Leslie's grin returned as she fist-pumped the air.

"You're the cream of the crop, Tink, you really are."

Laughing and humbly waving off the compliments, Tink went on her way with her steps even peppier than before. Leslie turned back to Liebgott and volunteered her services for a little while longer, the lovely warm weather enticing her to spend the rest of the afternoon outside. She helped to sweep up and coerced a few more clients into Liebgott's chair and then Forrest Guth's, in turn. By the time the operation started to close up shop, it was just about time for supper. She strolled along with Lieb to her left and Guth to her right, tossing her cap absentmindedly between her hands and enjoying the soon-to-be-setting sun as it warmed her face. Her companions prided themselves on their handiwork and quibbled over who was the better barber, but she paid them little mind, content to listen and laugh along. She'd started humming the song that had just come on Liebgott's radio when they came upon the mess hall and discovered a few friends standing on the steps. Lieb and Guth forged ahead while Leslie slowed down, wanting to say hello.

There were the usual suspects, of course—Skip, Alton More, and Danny Huff—but Don had been the first to catch her eye. He rocked back and forth on his heels as he chatted with his buddies and she tugged at her hair, realizing only now that she was seeing him face-to-face just how nervous she was about what he'd think of her. He'd never seen her with her hair this short before, not even when Mattie had stuck gum in her hair as a toddler and she'd had to cut half of it off just to salvage the rest. In a flash of self-consciousness, she tugged her cap on, just as Don began to turn to greet his fellow paratroopers. Skip waved to Leslie at the same instant as Don's gaze seized upon her, and she almost forgot to wave back at her friend as Don hopped down the steps, his toothy smile already brighter than the sun setting his ginger hair ablaze. Skip turned and ushered Danny and More into the mess hall, jabbering about absolutely nothing and in doing so, only succeeding in making himself even less surreptitious.

"Don't mind us," he trumpeted, "we'll just be inside here. Getting food. Like normal."

Leslie and Don looked at him, then back at each other, and shared a laugh. Leslie adjusted her cap and when Don's eyes flicked toward it, she readied to jump back but was already too late. He stole it off her head, starting to tease her about 'wearing this old thing everywhere' (though she knew perfectly well that he was delighted by her habit, as this particular cap had been his Christmas gift to her) before breaking off and giving a low whistle instead.

"Hey," he said, pleasantly surprised, "you got a haircut."

"That I did," she replied, once again tugging at a few pieces hanging over her ear. "So?"

He walked all the way around her, admiring the look, and she tried to put her cap back on only to remember he still had it a moment too late. She grabbed for it but he held it back, his smile only growing.

"I like it."

"You do?"

"Of course, I do."

Her blush couldn't have been more apparent to not only her but Don, too, and it gave him the courage to say what he otherwise wouldn't have dared.

"I can't believe you'd ever think you were anything less than gorgeous, Les."

Her hand fell from her hair and she stared at him. The light highlighted her freckles and then her teeth as she smiled, moving to envelop him in a tight hug.

"I can always count on you, Don. You're the best."

He gave her a little squeeze, wanting little more than to tilt her chin up with a gentle hand, press his longing lips to hers in a sweet, slow kiss, and suggest they take a drive somewhere—anywhere—just to watch the sunset. He almost did it, almost dared the daydream. But 'almost' meant he hesitated a moment too long, and as Leslie parted from him he lost the nerve. She grabbed him by the hand and led him into the mess hall, already moving on to other matters, and he went along for the ride, smitten as ever. As she complained about how she was simply starving from all the hard work she'd done that afternoon and Skip reminded her that although military food could never beat Mrs. Witchetty's cooking, it would have to do for tonight if she wanted the best company the army could provide. Don lingered by the door, looking at the steadily pinkening sky. Maybe someday he'd let her know the heat in his cheeks wasn't a blemish from the sun after all but something she ought to have known about a long, long time ago. Liebgott started to tease Leslie about how she'd been such a chatterbox he'd hardly been able to get a word in with his clients and as she laughed and pushed at his shoulder, Skip doubled back and dragged Don over to join them in line. Leslie peered further down the light and smirked.

"Looks like spaghetti tonight, boys."

Her friends' groans just made her laugh a little more.

That evening, on her walk back to Mrs. Witchetty's, Leslie was in good cheer. Don had complimented her a few more times during supper, and now his affectionate words were swimming through her head. She felt confident and pretty and more than a little flustered, though she was trying peculiarly hard to not pay attention to that last effect. She let herself in, called hello to Mrs. Witchetty (who was knitting in the downstairs parlor), and started up the stairs, skipping a few steps with the help of the banister on her way up. More energetic than she usually was by this time of day, she went to see if one of her friends would go for a walk with her. Penk had taken Kiko out to dinner, so Tink would be the only one in the house. She'd seemed in good spirits earlier on her way to the post office; if she'd remained so, she was likely to agree. Deciding that a game of Slapjack would get all her energy out before bed if a walk was out of the question, Leslie hopped down the hallway to the room she shared with Tink and went in without knocking.

Her smile vanished in the blink of an eye. The cheery greeting she'd prepared never made it past a stutter of surprise. Cheerful Tink was curled up in the fetal position on her bunk, facing the wall, eerily silent. The only light on in the room was the lamp next to Tink's bed. Leslie's heart stopped and she clapped her hand to her chest, feeling it start to beat again only when she checked her friend was still breathing. She crossed the room slowly and sat down on the edge of the bed, her mind whirling with what could be wrong. Practically vibrating with now-anxious energy, she started to shake the bed with her bouncing leg as soon as she sat. Tink took a deep, shaky breath. As soon as Leslie reached out and touched her shoulder, she burst into tears.

"Oh, Tink..."

Leslie gently drew her friend into her arms, letting her curl up on her lap as much as she could fit. Tink sobbed into Leslie's shoulder, speechless, and Leslie didn't push beyond asking if she was physically ill or injured in some way (she was answered by a swift shake of the head). Leslie rubbed Tink's back and pressed soft kisses to the top of her head, mimicking what her mother did when she was upset, not knowing what else she could do. Thankfully, her attempt at comforting seemed to help, for Tink's rigid body began to relax the longer Leslie held her. Mrs. Witchetty appeared in the doorway after a few minutes, worried as could be, but Leslie just looked at her helplessly, unable to give even an inkling of an explanation. It took Tink quite a while to draw herself out of her despair, and by the time she managed it, the sun had gone down and there were stars pinpricking the deep blue sky. Leslie looked out the window and smoothed down Tink's hair as Tink started to breathe more normally and sit up by herself.

"You were right, Lady," she hiccuped. "You were right all along."

Leslie felt as though someone had twisted a dagger into her stomach. She didn't need to ask to know what—or, really, who—Tink meant.

"That sonuvabitch," she hissed before she could stop herself, and for once, Tink laughed. It wasn't a funny laugh but a delirious one and just made Leslie feel worse for the slip-up.

"Here," Tink said, reaching under her hip to draw out a wrinkled, tear-stained letter Leslie had not noticed before. "It's from Charlie. First time I've heard from him in two months and he- he-"

Tink gulped for air, tears streaming down her cheeks in unending grief. Leslie gently pried the letter from her shaking hands. Though she knew it would only rile her up, Tink wanted her to read what that scumbag had to say, and so Leslie capitulated.

The letter was even worse than she'd expected.

Only phrases here and there leaped out at her as coherent amid the disgracefulness on the page. Charlie was leaving Tink (as if he'd been with her at all these last two years), and not just leaving her but leaving her for another woman, a "good German girl" who wasn't "out there risking her neck for the wrong cause". Charlie had been cheating on Tink for their entire relationship and didn't care if she knew it. Charlie was going to ask for his ring back only to remember he never actually bought her one. Charlie thought 'Hah!' was an appropriate thing to add after that last revelation. Charlie thought Tink was a "disgrace" and a "harlot" for her part in a majority-male service. Worst of all, Charlie thought Tink was fighting a losing battle. Charlie thought the Nazis had a point.

Leslie thought she might vomit. If she felt sick, she couldn't imagine how Tink must be feeling right now. She sat there on the bed, looking over the letter, stunned, trying to keep herself together for Tink's sake but seeing red. She could hear Kiko and Penk in the upstairs parlor, laughing about something and then suddenly going quiet. Mrs. Witchetty spoke, and then Kiko came flying down the hall. She burst in so fast Leslie thought she saw skid marks appear on the floor. As soon as Tink saw her, she burst into noisy tears, and Kiko rushed to her bedside. Tink reached out for her and Kiko took her hands to hold, giving them a squeeze as she scanned Tink for the source of her pain.

"What is it? What happened?" she asked, the question echoed only a moment later by Penk, frozen in the doorway like a scared rabbit.

"Charlie-fucking-Hammond," Leslie said stiffly, "that's what happened."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes," Leslie said, jumping up and letting Kiko take her with Tink. "I can't believe that bastard. I can't believe him!"

"Leslie?"

"He's gone full fucking Nazi!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "Look at this shit!"

She jumped back to grab the letter, then bounded across the room to show Penk. As he read each sentence she pointed out, his face hardened more and more.

"My God."

"I know. I know!" she snapped (not at him, of course). "Fucking. Hell."

Penk had to take the letter from her hands lest she shredded it in her fury. She started to pace and it caused a bit of a racket, but she didn't care one bit.

"Jesus Christ Almighty!" she cried. "If I ever meet that bastard face to face, I'm gonna- I'm gonna slap him! With a chair!"

"Go ahead," Penk said grimly as he brought the letter back over to Tink. "I won't stop you."

Leslie kept pacing and muttering to herself, occasionally swearing loudly and stomping her foot to make a point to the air. Penk kissed Kiko on the top of the head, squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, and left the girls to the dreary night. He wouldn't be able to help even if he'd stayed, so he went, and gave Tink a bit more privacy in her misery in his going.

"I was gonna marry him," Tink whispered, heartbroken. "He hates me."

"Oh, Tink," Leslie said, dropping to her knees beside the bed despite the hardwood floor. "I'm so, so sorry."

The next day, Penk hardly spoke a word all the way until lunchtime. Though he tried not to let it, his reticence drew the attention of his friends. Though he was quieter than Malarkey or Skip, he wasn't timid, and nothing had happened recently to tire him out (now that Sobel was gone, their exercises had become manageable rather than backbreaking). The trio (plus George Luz and Alton More) had gone to lounge and joke around in the shade of a large oak tree after lunch, shooting glances at Penk every now and again, who had gone back to not speaking much now that he'd left the jovial atmosphere of the mess hall. At first, they expected it was the 101st's impending relocation to Upottery Airfield that had got him down, but tomorrow was still a day away, and there wasn't much to do but wait. Kiko was coming with the Mechorps, as were the other girls, so what cause did he have to mourn Aldbourne? Eventually, Skip turned to Penk, looked his buddy in the eye, and asked what was so wrong he couldn't even laugh at George's legendary impression of Major Horton.

"Yeah," George agreed, "what's up, kid?"

Still, Penk hesitated. He wasn't sure if it was his place to let slip what was bothering him. He turned and looked around, seeking an easy out, and couldn't help a sigh at what he instead saw. There she was, Audra Luchette, walking slowly down the path, dragging her feet, her collar turned up although the day was remarkably warm and humid for late May. She looked exhausted and disheveled and—strangest of all—neither Leslie nor Kiko accompanied her. Penk could hardly look away, and one by one, the others followed his gaze.

"Hey, what's up with Lucky?" More asked, picking apart a stalk of wheatgrass.

Penk just shook his head, lost for what to say.

George brightened up at the mere sight of her but deflated just as quickly to realize that sight was one of distress. He hopped up and went to speak with her, clearly meaning to cheer her up, but when he stopped in the road in front of her, she just stared at him, drained of emotion. His smile slowly faded. His friends didn't need to hear him to know he was asking her if she was alright. She just shook her head mutely and cast her gaze to the ground. The last of George's merry expression fell, and he reached out to take her hands, but she crossed her arms instead, shielding herself from him. She'd never done that before.

"Look at her," Don said worriedly. "It's like she's gonna start crying any second."

"She might."

They all turned to look at Penk, who winced at the slip-up.

"You know what's going on here?"

"Yeah," he admitted reluctantly. "It's... not a pretty story."

"No," said Leslie, plopping down beside Don, "it's not."

"Where'd you come from?"

"Medbay. Any of you talk to Tink yet today?"

"No, George's the first. You?"

She shook her head. "Not since this morning."

"She wasn't at roll?"

"No. Really, I didn't think she'd be leaving the house today."

Tink glanced over at the group and they all quickly pretended like they hadn't been staring at her after all. Leslie sighed and picked at the slick grass.

"Well, I'm still furious about the whole thing," she said, "so if I start cursing my head off, sorry for that."

"Did something happen between you two?"

"No, no, God no," she quickly reassured. "It's fuckin' Charlie."

Penk was not the only one to wince this time.

"The fiancé?"

"Ex-fiancé."

"Oh, shit."

"And you were there?" Skip guessed, pointing to Penk, who nodded only when Leslie gave him the go-ahead.

"We all knew he was an asshole, right?" he replied. "Turns out he's much worse than we thought."

"He's the scum of the earth," Leslie spat, picking up a clod of dirt, and Don had to duck out of the way when she hurled it at some invisible aggravation. "Sorry."

"'S'alright. What'd he do?"

"You want a list? He had other women the whole time, ran away with a German girl, mocked Tink for loving him, called her terrible names, turned out to sympathize with the Nazis-"

"Holy shit."

"Yeah," Leslie sighed bitterly. "Holy shit."

She fell backward onto the grass, splaying her legs and arms out like she was about to make an angel in the dirt. After a moment or two, Don joined her.

"She doesn't deserve this," Penk said softly, but everyone heard him and turned to listen. "She's just a kid, really."

"She is," Leslie agreed, staring up into the dizzying sky.

"Even younger than you, Penk?"

"Shut up."

"No, she is." Leslie, who'd been holding her breath in an attempt to calm herself down, let it out in a gust. "She was eighteen when she joined up."

"Je-sus."

"She doesn't deserve this," Penk repeated. "Not one bit."

"If I didn't know any better," Skip mused, trying to lighten up the weighted air, "I'd say you were sweet on the girl, Penk."

More snorted. "I think that's Luz's area of exper-"

"Hey, hey," Leslie hushed him, swatting his leg as she sat up, "not now."

They all followed her solemn, meaningful glance toward the pair on the road. More ducked his head, embarrassed, and Skip tugged at a loose thread in his sleeve, looking twice as sorry.

"Not now," Leslie repeated, softer and sadder, and they all watched as George wrapped his arms around Tink in a solemn hug. There was a tremor in Leslie's voice that encouraged Don to mirror George's attempt at comfort, and he was glad he did, for Leslie leaned against his side almost immediately. The loss of stability in her exhale let him know she was hurting, too. Not hurting as badly as her friend, perhaps, but certainly a great deal for her friend. Penk was right, of course—Tink didn't deserve this awful lot. Especially not so soon before her debut into war, of all things. Don clenched his jaw, anger flaring up in his chest, and resolved that if the bastard who had hurt Tink ever dared to show his face within a hundred miles of the locale, he'd be fortunate to run away with his tail between his unbroken legs.

Tink started back down the path, and Leslie got up and joined her. George came back to the tree and tried at a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Penk offered him a place to sit but he wouldn't take it. He left, soon, heading in the same direction Leslie and Tink had gone. The others sat around for a while longer until Sgt. Lipton came over, almost done rounding the company up for a field exercise on Lt. Meehan's behalf. George showed up late and was given latrine duty that night as a punishment, but he didn't bat an eye. As they got on the move, he told his friends where he'd been. Socket and Meatball could not, of course, make the jump into France, so arrangements had been made to leave them with two old farmers who'd been living off the land together for the last fifty years. Leslie and Kiko, not wanting to upset Tink even further, took the cats up to her room to say their goodbyes, then took them in Captain Eades' car to the farm. George had caught up with them just as they were leaving and came along for the ride. Tears were shed. They gave Meatball many big hugs and Socket many kisses. The cats didn't seem to understand, trying to get back in the car several times until the farmers had to pick them up and hold them as the girls drove away.

The part George didn't tell his friends was what he'd said while they were leaving:

"You'll see them again. Audra, too."

Leslie looked at him a little strangely.

"Audra?"

George ducked his head to the side.

"Tink."

"No. No, it's fine, I just..."

After a brief pause, he heard Leslie laugh. It was quiet and a little unsure, but it was there.

"Of all the people," she mused, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. "Of all the people..."

That evening, as the men hung around, writing letters and playing cards and packing up the last of their things for the big move tomorrow, Leslie showed up at the barracks. A few friends hailed her gaily, and she tried to match their eagerness but didn't make it quite far enough. Once released from their attention with excuses of not having slept well the night before (not exactly a lie), she beelined for Don, who opened his arms for her before she was even halfway to him. She cuddled up against his chest, drew her legs up toward her torso, and laid her head over his heartbeat, and for the first time in several hours, Don felt like he could breathe again.

"You don't look so good," he hummed against her hair, pressing a soft kiss there, and her sigh rippled the cotton of his shirt.

"It's... y'know."

Assuming she meant Tink, he nodded, and she shifted a little, getting more comfortable. After a few seconds, she spoke up again.

"But it's not just..." Another sigh. "I'm cramping something awful, Don."

"Well, then," he said, giving her a gentle squeeze. "That, at least, I can try to fix."

She wouldn't let him get up, but thankfully, his friends found that funny instead of annoying. Skip came over with a blanket and, at Don's request, went without question to the medbay to fetch a quinine tablet from Doc Roe. Leslie leaned her head back against Don's chest and took a deep breath.

"Y'know," she said, quiet so that only he would hear, "I think you're the only guy I know who knows a thing about a lady's time of the month."

"Maybe," he countered, "but I wouldn't know a thing if you hadn't told me."

"Hey, you asked." She giggled a little. "When you were twelve, if I remember correctly."

"Yeah," he replied, turning a little pink, "because my best friend started getting awful cramps once a month and I thought she was dying."

Leslie giggled and Don huffed a breath that tickled the top of her head.

"Well, thank you for looking out for me all these years."

Her smile slipped away, little by little, as the weight of it all sank back in.

"Really, Don. Thank you."

He hesitated, so stricken by her gratitude for what he saw as his lifelong duty that he didn't know what to say.

"There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you."

No. Not that.

Not now.

"Yeah," he hummed at last, and when Skip threw the quinine bottle, he caught it and passed it to Leslie in the same motion. "Anytime."

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

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I’m still not fully back to updating my fics as often as I used to (busy is as busy does), but I’ll be updating whenever I can/more frequently from now on. Thank you for your patience and support. 💕

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