a/n: blah blah this is that obligatory distancing myself from the real Easy Company dudes disclaimer, which in this case also justifies the creative license i used (see: total invention) about babe's background. and also of course that any and all shipping i do that is b/o/b related could have nothing less to do with the real men, and only to do with fictional conjectures from the miniseries. (which i think is the case for nearly all writers in this fandom. i haven't met anyone yet who doesn't abhor shipping the actual men.)

there's some tentative baberoe if you squint. i'm definitely not going to object to interpretations as such.

anyways. i'm sorry/not sorry that all my contributions (see: 2) to the band of brother's fiction pool have been one-shot character studies. i'll work my way up-if you're interested, and if you're not, that's fine too. alles gute.

xxx

Watching Julian bleed out and choke on his wound in the Belgian snow reminded Babe a little of playing baseball on Front Street. It was always evening, when all the husbands were home from work and the dinners had been finished. The road was always too busy before that.

There was one Sunday where some kid got hurt. In the years he'd played baseball in the streets or alleys with the neighborhood kids, the worst anyone had ever gone home with were scraped knees or elbows from sliding into home. Marks like that were badges of honor. But this kid, whose name Babe didn't even know, was on the receiving end of a racing foul ball. The ball shot past his glove and careened into the boy's neck with enough force to knock him off his feet.

The ball's stitches left a large gash in his throat. The doctor said he was lucky: blunt force like that could've dislodged his windpipe, caused cardiac arrest. Instead he got off with fifteen stitches and a temporary cast, but that didn't make the minutes before he was helped any easier. He laid in the street, in shock, one hand clutching at the blood dribbling from the wound and eyes wide. Babe, who'd been pitching, was frozen in his place as his teammates called for their parents or jogged over to help the boy up.

But Julian was hit by a bullet, not a baseball, and watching the light in Julian's eyes become increasingly smothered with every limp, desperate clutch at his ruptured windpipe was something Babe would remember for the rest of his life, even more so than the way the blood he spit up became increasingly dark and sluggish. Better not to think about it.

Babe spent the hours after the patrol sitting around foxholes with Bill or Malarky or someone, he wasn't really sure who, and trying to listen to them talk about things beside the war and the weather. He took the coffee that was offered to him and nodded when he was spoken to. After wandering from foxhole to foxhole, he dragged himself over to Doc Roe's hole, a few yards behind the front line outpost.

Although pursuing comfort from Gene of all people would turn out to be the best decision Babe made that day, maybe even that month or year, he could barely rationalize it at the time. Initially he figured it was just because that was the only hole left he hadn't dropped into. He didn't know how he expected someone who couldn't even call him by his nickname to provide any kind of emotional support. He'd simply run out of people to turn to.

Maybe the aloofness was exactly was drew Babe to Gene in the first place: he didn't grow up hearing 'no' very often. Everyone was Babe's friend and damn it, Doc Roe wasn't going to be an exception. Babe liked challenges, anyways.

He pulled back the hole's cover to find only Spina huddled underneath. He wasn't Doc, but he was a Philly boy too, so Babe slid in, took the blanket Spina spread over him, and settled in against the dirt and body heat.

Gene dropped in a few minutes later and greeted him with a gaiety Babe had never heard him express before, but it wasn't until Gene offered Babe's formal first name that Babe looked up and saw the chocolate bar being held in front of his face. Gene broke a piece off, which Babe accepted and took a tentative bite of. He hadn't had chocolate since Holland; he'd given the rest of his candy bar rations to Julian.

And even though Doc's attempts at comforting him, whether with chocolate or words, weren't particularly successful, Babe appreciated them. Before he knew it he was asleep, lulled into slumber by Gene's voice, accented and deep. Reminded him of that radio show his parents listened to before turning in. A lot of things were reminding him of home tonight, come to think of it. That was both comforting and fucking devastating.

Tired of feeling homesick and sad, Babe wrapped an arm around Gene, who'd gone limp from sleep, and thought of the warmth instead of the popping from flares.