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softguarnere · 2 years

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Hiya lovely!! Could I please put in a self-indulgent request for a Lieb oneshot (or hcs, whichever you'd prefer!) where he always has to be close to or touching his S/O, whether in little ways or big? 🥺👉🏼👈🏼

I have a personal headcanon that his main love language is Physical Touch so he's big on PDA & having his S/O close to him brings him a lot of comfort, whereas having them far away feels empty 😅

Thank you so much in advance!! 💖💖💖

Touch Me, Love Me, Can't Get Enough

(5 times during the war that Liebgott wants to hold you and 1 time after)

Joseph Liebgott x reader

A/N: Aly, bestie, the way that this request had me giggling and twirling my hair and kicking my feet the second I read it!!! I absolutely love this headcanon, and I'm so honored that you asked me to write it 🥹 I had waaayy too many ideas, so I decided to go with a 5 times +1 time fic for this one. I hope that you like this 💕🕊️ (As always, this is written for the fictional depiction from the show -- no disrespect to the real life veterans!)

Warnings: angst, discussions of concentration camps, depictions of war

It's one of those things that you don't notice until someone points it out. In this case, the someone is Sobel and pointing it out is him huffing that "Private Liebgott has no sense of personal space" when he passes the two of you heading back to barracks one night after coming back from a weekend pass. You're suddenly hyper-aware of the way that your arms bump into his every now and then as you walk due to your close proximity. You've both been drinking, though, so it's not like you really have all your cognitive functions about you; occasionally bumping into one another is like a tether making sure that neither of you falls over or wanders off. Sobel's criticism is easy to brush off.

Other people's comments? Not so much.

"It's hot as hell in here," Skip complains, using his sleeve to mop the sheen of sweat off his face. "Glad they're not takin' us to the Pacific; this heat is all I can stand."

Malarkey shoots a glare to someone passing by who jostles him as he slaps down his next card. "Speak for yourself."

"What? You tellin' me you like it this warm? Five minutes ago you were talkin' about how happy you'll be when we get off this boat."

"I meant them." Malarkey nods towards you and Liebgott. You both look up from your cards, confused. "I know that you guys have to constantly be touching each other or whatever, but how can you stand it when it's this hot?"

Constantly touching each other? What's that supposed to mean? You're just playing cards to pass the time while the boat chugs towards England, and you're sitting next to your friend . . . whose left arm is pressed up against your right. Sure, you could blame the closeness on the crowdedness of the boat, but Malarkey and Muck are sitting across from the two of you, and they have space between them.

At the same time that you start to lean away, Liebgott shifts beside you, wrapping his left arm around you and pulling you into his side. He fixes Malarkey with a cool look. "And what of it?"

You try to keep your expression cool as well, but you're having to concentrate on it. The oppressive heat from the boat is what's making it hard, you want to tell yourself, despite the fluttering feeling in your stomach at this close contact -- which is even closer than usual.

The Oregon boy shakes his head and slaps down another card. "Enjoy the heat stroke, I guess."

His point is proven, but Liebgott doesn't move his arm from around your shoulders. Instead, he smiles at you. Not his usual smirk that he throws around when he's pulled one over on someone; this smile is soft and warm.

Well, if you're going to help prove a point, you might as well commit to it. You smile back and lean further into his embrace.

"Flash!"

"Thunder!"

You lower your gun and squint through the darkness as a figure emerges from the bushes in front of you. If one good thing came out of all of those night marches that Sobel sent Easy Company on back in training, it's that you could recognize the silhouettes of your fellow soldiers in a heartbeat, even in the worst lighting. Your heart thrums when you realize who's coming towards you.

"Joey!" You really shouldn't put your gun down, not now that you're on the ground and in the midst of chaos, but you throw both arms around him. He does the same. He smells like the war -- that cologne that war produces that's a mixture of fuel from the C-47s, the sweat of excitement, and the faint smell of his shampoo that still lingers in his hair.

He melts into your touch. At some point between the boat ride and the news that you would be jumping into France, you two had decided to make it official, even though in some ways, you had always been a couple. Joe has been more open with the ways that he initiates physical contact with you since then. In a way, you can't really blame him; he comes from a big, affectionate family. Being away from their love and warmth has been harder for him than most people realize. It's like he craves physical touch. Good thing that you like his affection.

"Are you okay?" He whispers, still holding you tight.

"I'm fine. Are you?"

He nods. Reluctantly, he draws back from your embrace so that he can look at you. In sunlight, you love the way that his brown eyes turn into pools of amber honey. Now, in the darkness, they remind you of the new moon -- mysterious, but a comforting presence that never leaves you.

"There were some paratroopers back that way." You jerk your head slightly to the left. "Stuck up in trees. I was worried . . ."

"I know. Me too."

Off to your right, the sharp staccatos of machine gun fire pierce the night. On instinct, you both ready your guns and crouch down.

"We gotta move," Joe whispers. Then you both push through the darkness and into the bushes that he had stepped out of moments before.

He leads the way, but moves slowly, keeping you close. It’s like that the rest of the day, too, after you link up with other people from E Company and finally find where you’re supposed to be. It’s subtle, but Joe bumps his shoulder against yours throughout the day, like he’s got to remind himself that you’re near. That, coupled with the glances that he casts your way when no one else is looking, is enough to make your heart clench.

That’s the thing about Joe Liebgott – he’s great at physical affection and showing you that he wants it, but words don’t come as easily to him, and telling you what he wants and needs is an entirely different matter. You’ve always wondered if maybe a past lover scorned his verbal affections, because he seems so unsure of himself whenever he uses his words, which is so unlike the cocky, confident Liebgott that everyone else knows.

“What’s wrong?” You ask when you finally have a moment alone.

Joe immediately holds out his hand to you. When you take it, he intertwines your fingers and squeezes. He starts to shrug, but when he catches the look on your face, a crease appears between his eyebrows as he thinks. “I just wanna keep you close.”

“I’m right here.”

“I know. It just feels like if I can hold onto you . . . then nothing will happen.”

A memory of fellow paratroopers and their parachutes all tangled in the trees earlier that morning hits you. You had worried that Joe might be one of them, and he had worried for you as well. War is an uncertain and fickle thing. Anything can happen to anyone. You had accepted that fact when you joined the airborne division. Sure, you would do anything to keep Joe safe, and he would do the same for you. Having him by your side is a comfort, and you know he feels the same way.

Anything can happen in a war zone. But if anyone is stubborn enough to stop anything from going wrong, it just might be Joe Liebgott.

III

Nothing is guaranteed in a place like Bastogne. Least of all who you get to share a foxhole with. Most of the time your foxhole partner ends up being whoever was in the nearest one when a fresh round of shellings begins and you need a place to hide. You spend many nights curled up against your fellow soldiers for warmth, leaving the next morning knowing more about them than you ever had before.

If you had it your way, you would be sharing with Joe, to make sure that he’s alright. But as it is, you really only see him occasionally when you get to line up for warm food – a commodity that’s becoming more and more rare as the quality of it gets worse and worse. Sitting with the rest of Easy, he’s subtle, knocking his knees into yours whenever he sits beside you, or even kicking the side of your boot with the toe of his; anything to establish contact. There’s hardly any time to talk, but the longing in his eyes is obvious enough.

If you knew that you wouldn’t get in trouble, you would hold his hand, or wrap him up in your arms. Being away from him is hard for you, so you can only imagine what it must feel like for him.

“Funny, I always thought that hell would be hot. It’s a little colder than I pictured,” a familiar voice says as Joe drops down into the foxhole beside you. He winks. “Hiya, sweetheart. This foxhole taken?”

There’s no use in trying to hide your smile. “I don’t know. Usually I require a reservation, but for someone so handsome, I think that I can make an exception.”

“Come here.” He lifts his arm and throws it around your shoulder, pulling you into his side as you open your blanket and throw part of it over his legs before all the heat can escape you. The helmets you both wear cause some difficulty, but he rests his head against yours as best he can. He sighs. “I’ve missed you so much, (Y/N).”

You plant a small kiss on his cheek. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“God,” he groans. “I swear it’s killin’ me, being away from you.”

A joke he once made at the start of your relationship flashes across your mind. If you move out to Frisco with me after the war, I’ll have to invest in a better air conditioner, you keep me so warm.

“Why?” You tease. “Do you miss having your own personal radiator?”

A cloud of condensation forms as he huffs a laugh, his warm breath fogging the cold air. “You remember that?” He smiles when you nod. Pressing your helmets together again, he shakes his head a little. “No. I just miss holding you.”

You lean further into his side. “Well then hold on a little tighter. We gotta make this last before the next shelling starts.”

He rubs his hand up and down your arm. “We always make it count.”

“Oh thank Christ, look who’s back!” Luz exclaims when you walk into CP.

“We saw each other earlier, Luz,” Webster laughs.

“Not you.” Luz smiles at you, either not noticing or not caring about how it makes Webster’s smile falter. “(Y/N)! They finally let you outta the hospital?”

You smile as you drop your bag onto a nearby chair. “Something like that.” You lower your voice to a stage whisper, offering the radioman a wink. “Had to go AWOL. Don’t let any of the medics know.”

“Your secret is safe with me.” He winks right back.

From the couch, Sergeant Lipton coughs. He offers you a smile when he catches his breath. “It’s good to have you back, (Y/N).”

“Thanks, Sergeant.”

“Yeah, maybe now things won’t be so depressing around here.”

“Awe, Luz, you really think I liven things up that much?”

Lipton reaches up and smacks George with his stack of paperwork. He doesn’t look angry, but it’s clear that he’s said something that he shouldn’t have.

“What?” Luz asks. “It’s not like she wouldn’t know.” When you offer him nothing but a confused look, he shakes his head. “Liebgott’s been all weird since you got taken to the hospital back in Foy.”

“Weird how?”

“Oh, you know: moodier than usual, distant, quiet, quick to anger.”

“So just regular Liebgott then?” Webster asks.

George shakes his head. “Like, if someone tried to draw him from memory or something, I don’t know. He’s just not himself.”

“Well, where is he?” You and Webster are supposed to be waiting for someone to tell you which platoon to join, but you’ve already made up your mind that you’ll be damned if you don’t join your old one. This far into the war, it’s unlikely that anyone would really care if you just walked back in and took up your former place, but still – red tape, and all that. But now the thought is even more tempting. What’s wrong with Joseph? You want to find him.

Lipton offers a vague wave of his hand. “Around here somewhere. Listen, (Y/N), why don’t you join back up with your old platoon? I’m sure they’ll be glad to have you back.”

“And I’ll be glad to be back.” You nod your appreciation and then grab your bag, trying not to leave the room too quickly. During your time in the hospital, all you thought about was getting back to Easy Company, and back to Joe. Now that he’s so close, it makes you feel a little giddy and a little nervous, knowing that in a few seconds, you’ll be together again.

In the hallway, you go to turn a corner and nearly smack into someone coming towards you. They reach out and grab your elbows to steady you. “Are you okay?” Babe asks when you’ve regained your balance. His eyes light up as he takes you in. “(Y/N)! You’re back!”

“What?” A voice from further down the hallway calls. A few of the other Easy boys step into view, and quickly engulf you in a warm cloud of welcome backs and good natured handshakes. All except for one, who hangs back.

You catch Joe’s eye through the crowd. He looks like he’s just seen a ghost; he’s still, staring at you like you might disappear if he blinks. When you finish shaking Tab’s hand, you step towards him and it’s like a spell breaks. In a few quick strides he’s in front of you, and then suddenly his hands have come up to caress your cheeks as he takes you in.

“You went AWOL,” he guesses.

“I had to get back to my company,” you say. You throw your arms around him and squeeze him into a hug, whispering into his ear, “I had to get back to you.” He squeezes you tighter.

“I don’t wanna let you go again,” he whispers. You hear him draw a breath, like he’s going to say more, but he stops himself and rubs his hand up and down your back.

Behind you, you hear some of the boys quietly make their exit from the scene. (Most of them, anyway. You can hear Talbert telling Shifty that he owes him a dollar, and Babe is muttering to someone that he knew it – you don’t have to guess what it is.)

Joe doesn’t seem to mind. He’s always been open in his affections for you in the little ways in public, like bumping into you, and this very open gesture isn’t technically very different since it serves to confirm what most people already suspected . . . as well as telling some of the ones who didn’t to back off.

Still, it’s a little unlike him. Something has changed.

You card your hand through the back of his hair. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just missed you is all.” He huffs a small laugh as he pulls back from the embrace, casting a smirk over your shoulder. “And giving the others something to talk about ain’t half bad.” You swat his arm affectionately, but there’s no malice in it. This is just how Joe is when it comes to voicing how he feels; giving you a bit of his feelings and then deflecting before he can be scorned. You want to show him that you appreciate the effort.

You lean forward and press a kiss to his cheek. When you start to pull away, his gentle fingers catch your chin and bring you back into his orbit, pressing a quick, soft kiss to your lips.

As if he can read your thoughts, he assures you, “I’m okay. Better, now that you’re here.”

Hot, salty tears have been burning your eyes for the better part of the afternoon as you fight to keep them back. Back before the war, your teacher used to make you do breathing exercises in school in the mornings. You try to remember them now as you gasp for air, trying to look calm as you head back towards the town, following the trucks carrying to men back to CP or to where they’re billeted.

“(Y/L/N)!” Someone calls up ahead. In the back of one of the trucks, Nixon leans down, holding out his hand and motioning for you to hurry.

Despite how sluggish and out of breath you feel, you increase your pace to a slight jog, catch Nixon’s hand, and swing yourself up into the back of the truck, taking a seat beside him. His hand pats your shoulder but then stays there, like a tether that helps bring you back down to earth.

“Are you okay?”

You shake your head. You don’t want to cry in the back of this truck. There’s no shame in it, but the afternoon has been so hectic that you would rather have a moment alone to unpack the horrors of what you’ve just seen.

“It’s just as bad down the road at the women’s camp,” you tell the intelligence officer over the roar of the engine. Even just thinking about it causes you to shudder.

Nixon pats your shoulder again. “Do you need anything?”

“Where’s Liebgott?” You want to be held. You want someone to comfort you and tell you that this has all been a bad dream. You want that someone to be Joseph.

A deep frown settles on Nixon’s face. “We sent him back already. He . . . needed some time alone.” He thinks for a minute, then says over the sound of the trucks, “You should go to him, (Y/N). He needs you.”

And you, him.

When you got back to Haguenau, during a moment alone, Joe had opened up a little more than usual. It had been late at night, lying beside each other on one of the small bunks. Something about the cover of night makes it easier to whisper your secrets, and it’s especially true of Liebogtt. In the quiet of the room, his arm around you, he had said that he felt like one of the ruined Haguenau buildings while you were away in the hospital. “A skeleton,” he had described them. “They’re all crumbled and half-alive. I don’t know if that makes sense. That’s what it felt like with you away; like I’m something only half here, half a memory. Unstable. Lonely.”

That’s what you feel like now. The horrible things you saw have confirmed any thought you ever had about pure evil existing in the world. Anger starts to burn in your chest like an ember; this is why you’re fighting in the war. And if that’s how you feel . . . You need to find Joe. Now.

It’s tempting to run to the house where he’s billeted, but you don’t want to make a scene. You walk as fast as you can, only breaking into a run once you’re inside, sprinting up the stairs.

“Joe?” He’s lying on the bed, his back to the door. He goes still when he hears you come in.

Shutting the door behind you, you press further into the room until you’re standing over the bed. “Can I sit?”

When you take a seat, he pushes himself up and turns to face you. Red rimmed eyes and wet cheeks tell you that he feels the same way that you do about what you saw. The tears you’ve been trying to hold back all afternoon finally spill over, but your ignore them and bring your hand up to Joe’s cheek, using your thumb to brush away his tears.

He brings up his own hand to rest on top of yours. “You saw it too?”

You nod. “I had to spend the afternoon at the women’s camp down the road.”

Joe leans forward, pressing your foreheads together. “Did you have to tell them?”

“Tell them what?”

“That they had to stay in the camp.” Anger bleeds into his sadness as he says it. He sounds disgusted and hurt.

Almost none of the women prisoners you had encountered spoke any English. You and another female paratrooper had had to attempt to communicate with them using scattered English and a few German and Yiddish words that you had learned from Joe throughout the war. Joe is fluent in both of those languages. He probably had an easier time talking to –

The realization hits you like a punch to the gut: he had to tell them that they would be staying in the camp.

“Oh, Joey.” You throw your arms around him, pulling him in closer. Your earlier thoughts of wanting him to hold you feel almost selfish now, when he so clearly needs it. Carefully, you card a hand through the back of his hair. You desperately wish that you could do something to help him, but what is there to do in a situation like this? “What can I do?”

He gasps, harsh and wet sounding, and you wonder if he also held back his tears all afternoon. “Just hold me.”

That, you can do.

+ I

Joe is either a night owl or an early bird. There’s not really an in between. Some nights he falls into bed early, and then quietly gets up and takes his leave in the morning, ready to help usher the other early risers of San Francisco to work. Some nights he stays up late, wandering the apartment and smoking on the balcony until you wake up to find the bed empty, and then keep him company.

The nights when he heads to bed early are your favorites. You’re not sure when you started to notice it, but at some point you learned that, no matter how deeply asleep Joe seems to be, if you come to bed after him, he immediately rolls over and throws out an arm, searching for you across the expanse of bed. Once he finds you, he pulls you close to him, wrapping an arm around your waist and nestling his head on your shoulder. You’re not sure if he knows he does it or not. It might just be something that his subconscious automatically does. It might be a conscious choice. Either way, it’s sweet, and you don’t bring it up for fear that he might stop.

He's also taken to muttering in his sleep, which is a more recent development – he never did it during the war, that you’re aware of, but now you sometimes catch broken sentences and soft I love yous thrown out while he searches for you in the bed.

Tonight is no different. As soon as you slide under the blankets, you feel him roll over, and a second later, his arm is wrapped around you and he’s very close. You run a hand through his hair as you settle in, and his deep, even breathing momentarily hitches in his throat. His arm squeezes you tighter.

“You always hold me so close,” you giggle, watching his sleeping face. He likes to hold onto you, to have you near, and it must say something that he prefers it, even when he’s unconscious. A piece of hair has flopped across his brow, and you gently push it back so that you can see him better. He looks so peaceful when he sleeps. Not worried about anything at all.

Suddenly, you remember something he said back during the war. I don’t wanna let you go again. “Don’t worry,” you whisper, just in case he can hear you. “I’m not gonna slip away.”

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