lol so i did the random generator prompt and this was too good to pass: "Are you ok? You sound like you’ve been gargling glass.” i think Liebgott or Talbert would bee :chefkiss: for thiss one, but your call my friend!
Haha, thank you very much, what a lovely prompt! 💖 You said Liebgott or Talbert, but uhh.. you’re getting two for the price of one, here. It’s kinda lowkey shippy if you squint so I hope you don’t mind that! Things happened, shenanigans were had, foxhole affection is a thing now. 😂
He’s never going to be warm again. He’s never, ever, not in this lifetime, going to be warm again. He’s going to be the best version of a human-shaped ice statue this world’s ever seen. (He thinks there must be ice statues out there, somewhere, in lands where winter survives longer than it should and there is nothing but white and palest blue as far as eyes can see.)
Floyd stares balefully at the walls of his foxhole. He’s taken to glaring at the tree root that had poked him in the back all night because Chuck is the world’s most solid sleeper and had not responded to any attempts to be moved around. Chuck’s gone now, running some errand all the way to D Company’s line because Nixon thought Chuck’s the only one who could survive a stare-down with lieutenant Speirs, and all Floyd’s got to show for this time alone is that he’s frozen fucking solid and hating a tree root more than he probably should.
He rasps out a breath. Feels it turn to pricks of needles in his throat that are even sharper than the pine needles that litter the earth. Coughs, rasps, hacks out half a lung, then coughs again.
“Fl-flash.”
He stutters the password out as he hears footsteps between the coughs that he can’t fully place. His hands are nowhere near his gun. If it’s an enemy, he’s probably in trouble.
“Thunder,” sounds a familiar voice, then, and he groans out recognition. He doesn’t need to glance up from his staring contest with the tree root to see the concern written all over that face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He’s not, but this isn’t really fixable. “Why?”
Joe Liebgott all but crashes into the foxhole. Feet first, sinking down beside him in a fluid sliding motion, jostling against him carelessly as he goes. He can smell the bubblegum on Joe’s breath now that the man sticks his face so close to Floyd’s that he thinks he can count the man’s eyelashes if he was the kind of man who could have that as a pastime.
“You ruined” – he coughs again, shielding his mouth with his sleeve – “my staring contest.”
“You’ll live.” Joe’s all throwaway gestures and furrowed brow. He doesn’t even ask what the hell Floyd was staring at, which is unfortunate because the concern in Joe’s face is the kind that needs a distraction. Dark eyes peer into his face in search of something Floyd isn’t sure he wants to learn more about. “Are you sure you’re okay? You sound like you’ve been gargling glass.”
“I’ve been gargling fucking snow and dirt,” he spits out, irate, “and my throat’s on fucking fire. How do you think I’m doing?”
“Yeah. Well.” Joe blinks. “At least your throat’s not cold?”
“Fuck off.”
There’s no fight in him. His rebuke sounds weak even to his own tongue. It’s too hoarse, too raspy, too much of something to pity rather than a command to be listened to. And while he might outrank Joe, might be able to boss him around on any other day, he’s likely not going to succeed in dislodging the man from his foxhole any time soon.
“Did ya talk to Roe?”
“Joe.” He glares at the Californian best he can. “Have you seen Roe, lately? Or Spina, for that matter?”
The Bois Jacques forest is tough on all of them. Toughest, he thinks, on medics who’re dealing with a company of mishaps and increasingly depleting supplies. Roe looks like he hasn’t slept in a fortnight. Spina has turned more and more Philadelphian in speech, which earned him the moniker Third Philly Musketeer and makes Floyd distrust every second word that spills from the man’s mouth.
“Okay, yeah, sure,” acquiesces Joe, “let’s ignore the fact that you need medical attention.”
“Thank you.”
He huffs out an annoyed, short, painful breath when Joe shifts beside him and then drops his entire weight straight onto Floyd’s thighs. A dull ache spreads through his chest at the familiarity of the feeling. Floyd recalls the time he got himself skewered by a bayonet – lying there just like this, blood pouring out of his body, with Joe’s weight the only thing to anchor him and annoy him at the same time. Joe’s never learned the concept of personal space with him, always getting up in his face in much the same way Chuck does. He wonders, sometimes, if this is some fucking Californian code for hello you and I are friends now that he, being from Indiana, utterly fails to recognize.
“You gotta get better if you don’t wanna be taken off the line, Tab,” murmurs Joe while he places an icy hand against Floyd’s throat. “Gotta keep warm and stuff.”
He leans into the touch of Joe’s hand, even when it chills him to the bone. Swallows pins and needles. Shivers and burrows closer to the warmth Joe exudes, as though the man absorbed a little of the Californian sunshine and is bringing it forth in the middle of a Belgian forest.
“You’re warm,” he says, and tries to keep the need out of his voice. He blinks up at Joe. “I don’t wanna go off the line.”
Joe’s face turns unreadable, but his eyes burn as much as his memories of sunshine do. Floyd huffs out another breath. Rasps out a mumble and a cough. Closes his eyes just so he doesn’t need to see Joe’s brow furrow into concern over him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispers, all the same, because he knows Joe. Knows he’s prone to motherhenning people worse than Lipton and Martin combined, even if Joe’ll never admit to it. “I’m gonna be f-fine.”
Joe’s head lands on his shoulder, then, with merely a soft nudge of his face against Floyd’s collarbone and a shift of motion atop him. Joe’s hand doesn’t leave his throat. Floyd wraps an arm around the man once he figures out how moving his limbs works again. Tangles his fingers into the webbing, folds his hands into the warmest creases of fabric he can find, pulls Joe close and tries to focus on all the warmth he can feel right now. Tries to focus on anything but the press of Joe’s body against his own, the hand on his throat that’s more comfort than agony even if he’ll never admit it, the breaths Joe exhales against his bare skin just beneath his ear.
“Joe,” he says, “we can’t stay like this.”
“Yeah, we can. You’re sick.”
He cracks an eye open. Tries and fails to glare at him. “Could be contagious.”
“Fuck off, Tab, I’m indestructible.”
“I really fucking hate you,” he says, staring up at the darkening sky overhead. “I hope you know that.”
“I’ll note it on the same paper that says you can’t live without me.”
“You don’t have a paper like that.”
“Tab.” A huff of breath, sharp and rather annoyed-sounding. His name sounds like need. “Floyd.”
He squeezes affection into Joe’s lanky, warm frame best he can. Burrows his face into the crook of the man’s neck and swallows back all the things that hurt about existing in this world. He doesn’t have words for this.
You were away sooooo long. Currently still young lady 😘
As for an ask, the prompt generator gave me the following “a hug that some might consider too long”. And now I can’t get the thought out of my head of someone of your choice giving Ron a hug that’s waaaaaay too long. Someone give that man a hug.
I was! It’s been, what, a month or so? Entirely too long, haha, but what can you do -- glad to be back, though! And, well, you’ve gone and done it now. One very long hug for a certain captain Speirs -- or should that be major Speirs? -- comin’ right up!! 💖
He isn’t sure why he’s here.
Or, at least, that’s what Ron tells himself and has continued to say to himself for well over a fortnight now. It’s something he muttered to himself this morning over breakfast. Another thing he whispered to himself every night before going to sleep. Just the one thing, again and again, mulling it over in his head, pondering it over coffee, sighing at it before stepping into the cab.
The sun burns on his skin as he opens the gate. He’s already got a tan – supervising training down in Georgia will do that to a man – but the heat here feels like it’ll scorch him red and leave him weeping before he gains the freckles he used to have as a kid.
He almost steps out of the sun and into the shadows the porch offers. Almost ascends the stairs to knock on the front door like he’s expected and invited, which he knows damn well he isn’t. He’s so close to finding nobody’s home. So close to walking away again.
“Oh, you gotta be joking,” snarls a loud voice from somewhere beyond the house, and just like that Ron is rooted to one spot and incapable of movement. “Really? That’s the hill you’re gonna die on? Unbelievable!”
He’s ten years into the past. Ten long years and he’s right back in Austria, where he’d last heard an exclamation like this one. Ten years of never hearing this annoyed and perpetually loud twang popping off about something or other – and just like that, it’s like no time has passed at all and he’s right back in one of those staff sergeant meetings that never seemed to go as planned.
Ron blinks against the bright light. Blinks against the sight of too many flowers in the garden, the rocking chair on the porch, the path that leads around the house to where he thinks the voice originated from.
He draws one breath. Then another.
“Get the fuck” – he hears, and then there’s yowling and a flash of ginger he hasn’t seen since Edward call-me-Babe-sir Heffron – “back here!”
Oh, but he definitely shouldn’t have set foot here, is the last thing he thinks of before he scrambles to grab a hold of the biggest cat he’s ever seen bar a tiger. His bag tumbles to the ground, already forgotten, as he plucks the beast out of its quest to collide with his face at record speed. Yowling, spitting, clawing, enraged fury awaits him.
“Lollipop, no!”
“You called this” – he huffs, snarling as he grabs the cat by the scruff of its neck – “absolute fucking monstrosity” – he winces – “Lollipop?!”
“Tab did, sir.”
“Please inform sergeant Talbert that this is unacceptable.” He slips back into familiarity without second thought. Rises to his feet, confused-looking red-haired menace well in hand, and shakes his head. Blinks again. “Why are you all wet?”
Chuck Grant, sun-tanned, smiling, soaking wet from head to toe, gestures helplessly at himself before he makes a throwaway gesture at the cat. “Pop lost his toy in the water. Dove in to get it back for him, but uh.. Toy was wet.” He shrugs helplessly. “I was renegotiating the upturned nose, but splashed water at him by accident and he went absolutely ballistic. Again.”
“Remember me telling you that we don’t negotiate with fascists?”
“My cat’s not a fascist, sir. He’s just..”
“Add your cat to the list of things we don’t negotiate with, Chuck,” enunciates Ron, very slowly, as he holds the guilty beast at arm’s length. “The thing’s a tyrant.”
“Pop’s harmless, really.”
“He tried to claw my face off.”
“Mostly harmless, sir.”
“Can I let go of him now, or would you like a few moments to compose your own eulogy?”
Chuck waves his hand impatiently. Ron opens his own hand and isn’t altogether surprised when the ginger beast lands on its own feet and doesn’t even dignify him with a backward glance. The cat trots past Chuck, up the path, out toward the back of the yard where Ron’s convinced the cat’s wet toy must be.
“And fucking steer clear of the gardenias while you’re at it!” snarls Chuck halfheartedly, threatening the cat in the same icy tone he used to reserve for the Nazi prisoners. A sigh, then, and another call after the pet. “Honestly, you’re lucky you’re cute!”
Ron shakes his head. Cute isn’t exactly a description he’d use for a cat that, quite frankly, looks like it had lost a fight with a door, a frying pan, and an electrical socket in successive order. He’s quite convinced the beast doesn’t know what gardenias are, either, because this is something even Ron gets confused about from time to time.
“Sooooooo.” Chuck draws out the word. Looks him up and down – staring, measuring, judging – before pinning his gaze down with those too-blue, too-knowing eyes. “Ten years, huh.”
He nods. Can’t find the words to agree. His throat’s gone dry.
“Fuck, s-sir – sir – fuck, it’s b-been..”
Chuck’s speech trembles, halts, stutters a moment. The man lets out an impatient huff. Strides up to Ron with a slightly loping gait, shaking his head all the while, and there’s something so Chuck about the motion that Ron’s breath is knocked clean from his lungs.
I’ve missed you, he wants to say, knowing full well he can’t go around saying things like that, god, forgive me, I’ve missed you.
A strong arm wraps around his shoulders and pulls him in close. Another arm, gentler, wraps around his waist and squeezes soft affection into his skin. His white shirt, so neatly pressed this morning, will not survive the onslaught of meeting Chuck, who’s still dripping water and soaking him clean on through now that he’s pulled tight against the man’s body. He frowns, huffs out a breath, stands there and flexes his hands.
Chuck’s head lands against his shoulder in the next moment. If he glances down, he’s sure to brush the man’s hair or forehead with his lips. A soft, contented breath blows warm air against the nape of his neck. He chews the inside of his lip. Bites his cheek until he’s almost sure he’ll bleed from the ache of it. His nails dig crescent moons into his palms.
“You’re allowed to hug me back, you know,” comes a murmur that’s on the verge of being a full-scale complaint the likes of which he hasn’t heard since Austria. “I’m out of the army. You won’t get shot for it.”
“Debatable,” he hums, but grasps hold of a belt loop on Chuck’s pants and pulls him just a little closer all the same. He allows his other arm to wrap around the man’s frame. Squeezes as tightly as he dares. “I’m still in it, after all.”
“Yeah? Here I was,” chuckles the man, “thinking you’d finally come to your senses. Fucking Korean War, man. Thought we were gonna lose you.”
“Wasn’t that bad of an op.” He nudges his nose against the nape of Chuck’s neck. Inhales the familiar sting of honey and lavender and doesn’t care that his skin grows wet from the touch. “Jumping from a plane never gets old.”
“That’s the one thing I miss. Open skies, man, as far as the eye can see.”
“Oh, just that thing huh?” He lets out a short laugh. Wraps his other arm around Chuck’s waist and squeezes tighter still. “Open skies and nothing else?”
“Well. I did miss you.” Chuck’s admission is light as feathers against his ear. “But you’re here now. No missing happening right now.”
His throat constricts. His breath is a gasp, a shudder, an exhale he doesn’t care to figure out. Chuck’s arms are warm and filled with never letting go. He doesn’t know why he’s here. Doesn’t know why he’s ever not been here.
“Hey. Don’t you let go,” hushes Chuck, arms tight around his body and voice lilting assurance against his skin. “I got you. Just like that, a-all right?”
“I don’t know” – he shudders out between breath and breaking point – “if I can stay.”
“Cross that bridge when we get to it, huh?” Chuck’s voice is decisive. So matter-of-fact, so familiar that he wants to laugh and scream at the same time. “You’re here now. You’ve met Pop. Tab and Lieb are not due back for another week or so.”
“The three of you in one house and California’s still standing? There’s something wrong with that picture.” He coughs out the laugh and wipes his eyes at the same time. “I’m.. I’m here because they want me learning Russian for some overseas thing. Don’t know how long that’s gonna be.”
“Russian, huh.” Chuck holds him at arm’s length, then. Eyes him critically. “Please tell me you listened to Welsh’s lecture on how to not start a war with the Soviets. Please tell me they’re not sending you over there to, I don’t know, double agent the fuck out of a conflict none of us understand a hoot of.”
Ron can’t help but grin. Shakes his head. “Haven’t heard that lecture. You should enlighten me.”
“Oh, god, should I – yeah I should.” Chuck’s laugh streams out of him. “I’m gonna do that over a beer, though. Fuck, man, you missed Kitty doing her best impression of some Russian uppity wannabe-spy. She was all I don’t care about anything but mother Russia and Nixon was heckling her from the back of the room like you haven’t set foot in mother Russia since the war began, you luxury cretin – I’m tellin’ ya, Welsh could barely get a word out without Kitty interrupting him with some kind of flounce about how Ze Great Vonderful Stalin would surely put bad Americans in place.”
“I’m going to have Kitty’s voice stuck in my head while I’m overseas, aren’t I.”
“Probably? Or, well, my impression of her voice. Which I’ve been told is spot on, even when I’m too chicken to try it on Welsh in case he really does mistake me for his wife.”
“You’re doing just fine, Chuck.”
“Thanks, sir.”
“Hey,” he says, trailing after Chuck now that the man’s turned and gestured him out into the rest of the garden, “what did I tell you about that sir-thing?”
“To only say it when the brass is around? Technically, sir, you’re the brass now. Major and all that.”
Ron snorts out derision. Tugs at the man’s wet shirt and pulls him backward. “Call me sir again,” he murmurs in a voice so low he can feel Chuck go rigid at the sound, “and I’ll dump you into that pool of yours faster than you can say the full name of that ridiculous cat.”
“I’ll save it.”
“No, you won’t.”
Chuck’s grin is smug. “You know I will, Ron.”
“I’ve missed you,” he says, then, and squeezes the man’s hand the way he used to ten years ago. “I haven’t missed the headaches you give me.”
“That’s sentimental. And vaguely cute.”
“Don’t tell the Russians,” quips Ron.
“Oh, I’m coming with you. I gotta give them my best impression of Lenin.”
“You have a Lenin impression?”
“Fuck, man, we can’t haul out Kitty’s Stalin defense now that the bloke’s up and died, now can we? Lenin’s from longer back, they’ll remember him without wanting to punch his eyeballs outta his sockets.”
“That is..” Ron exhales a noisy breath. Shakes his head. “You’re the least comforting person I know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Love you too. So how about that beer, huh?”
Ron huffs. Can’t help the fond smile that appears on his face as Chuck starts to dig out a few bottles from a cooler beside the pool. He knows there’s no space in which he’s obligated to counter the affection with affection of his own. Knows he can be just like this, commanding officer turned into something else entirely beneath this man’s watchful gaze, and have a space in here despite the fact that it’s been ten years and he shouldn’t have anything left to hold at all.
“A beer will do just fine,” he says, and knows exactly why he’s here again.
First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY ✨✨ Second off, could I request a Malarkey (or Luz, your choice) one shot? I've got an idea in mind... 'marry me?' started as a teasing joke between friends, but eventually they both wish it wasn't just a joke
Again, happy birthday!! 😁
Thank you very much!! 💜💜 And what a fun request -- I haven’t really written anything for either one before, so I wound up picking Malark and had myself a blast with this one. As I don’t do reader fics or anything of the sort, I wound up creating an OC who just seemed to fit this story beautifully.. and I do hope you’ll enjoy the direction I took this in.
this dream of you
“Well, I wasn’t going to do it this way,” says Don, then, decisive but winking at her in a conspiratorial way that tells her he’s none too serious, “but you leave me absolutely no choice, ma’am.”
“Oh?” Sarah leans closer to him, fully aware of his hand on her bare knee and that small smile he only seems to smile at her. She lowers her voice. Leans in so close that her lips brush his ear. “Did I force your hand, soldier?”
“Marry me,” he says, and she bursts into laughter at the barely-concealed mirth with which he says it. They’re both laughing on this bench in the middle of the pub – slightly drunk, slightly enamored – and she knows he doesn’t mean a damn thing even when his hand squeezes her knee and his face is almost void of jokes. “Sarah, I’m serious, you gotta –”
“This is the least romantic proposal I’ve ever heard,” she grins, and kisses his cheek. “I love it.”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND 500 FOLLOWERS MY DEAR!! A drabble if it tickles the taste buds... the morning after Ron and Billie's encounter in the vampire AU 😏 POV from either Billie or Ron? Love Juno xx
THANK YOU! 💖
That.. definitely tickled the taste buds here. Oh my. You sure as hell know what you’re requesting here, haha! I wound up writing around 2k worth of this morning after, ahem. A little taste..
Dawn comes. He can trace it in the air long before the light in his bedroom changes color. There’s the taste of dew in his mouth, like the water from the well he used to drink from long ago, and the earth waking beneath him.
He lies awake and wills for sleep to claim him before the room coats itself in golden hues. Watches the air around him turn from dark to lightest blue. It streaks across his skin in daring – day challenging night – before it tumbles into her hair.
Her hair.
He scarcely dares move a limb. She is strewn out atop him, tangled with his body like she cannot decide whether to fight or embrace him, and her hair streams out across his bare chest like ripples in the water. There’s something of earth to her that roots him in place. Something of the sea, too, which he only remembers because her hair smells of the bitter orange that blossomed on the winds that pushed him away from Italy’s shores so long ago.
Hi everybody! I’m officially back from my hiatus as we speak. (And threw a Tab set at you first chance I got because I am just like this, haha, you’re very welcome.) I’ve got a long weekend going on right now and figured it’d be the perfect time to reconnect with all of you.
I officially hit the mark of 500+ followers some time in January – how even, y’all – and wanted to say thank you! In addition to that, it’s my birthday this coming Tuesday.. so I’m feeling festive and want to share the vibe!
So..
.. got a gif request?
.. want to workshop-chat about writing?
.. have a prompt request?
.. dying to share a thought/headcanon/whatever else?
.. curious about my writing, my gifs/edits, or something else?
.. just want to hang out with me?
Shoot me an ask!
If you send a prompt or request in, please specify for which character and/or ship it is. If you’re stuck on what to ask for.. this prompt generator might be your friend! ;) I’m also, naturally, opening the floor up to anything to do with my AU.
I’ll be tagging all this stuff as #basilonebday (not to be confused with D-Day, haha) in case you want to follow/ignore it. ^^ Hope you’re all doing well. I’m glad to be back!
I said this on Discord just now as well, but for those of you who aren’t a part of the BoB-server..
I'm just going to take the liberty here to say thank you all for making this birthday brighter and so much fun! 😊 I didn't expect to receive all these responses, creations, and interactions that came my way today and it's done me so much good to feel the love and affection stored away in everything that was given! 💜
I feel blessed to know you and get to create for you in turn! and I just am a bit emotional about that right now 😊
Happy Birthday, Eva!! 😍🥰 I hope you’ll get to spend it with people you love!
Ahhh, thank you!! 💜 (And a bonus Basilone? Catch me going 🥰🥵 in here haha!) I’m celebrating it at home with my parents and online with all of you, so definitely spending it with folks I love and feeling lucky! 💜
