I Don't Need You
Chapter 13. Each Other
Masterlist
Summary: Ridgeback was right: you and König make a good pair on the battlefield. Though, that doesn't mean the mission still can't go wrong.
Warnings: cursing, German that I'm too lazy to translate (nothing important), violence and blood, reader gets socked
As much as a leader should be, and as much as I hated to admit it, Ridgeback was right about everything he’d said: König and I made a decent team.
The morning after König’s temper tantrum, he was waiting outside of my door before breakfast. He mumbled something about “need to work together”, before turning on his heel and marching towards the mess hall. I stared after him, confused, but quickly grabbed my jacket when he barked at me to keep up with him. He was still grumpy, sure… but he wasn’t grumpy with me. Ridgeback must have given him an earful.
For the rest of the day, it was impossible to shake him. He ran training courses with me as we both got a feel for how the other worked. I figured out that König was truly a tank, in every sense of the word. Any poor “enemy” corporal that stood in his way was either launched to the side or pelted with a minimum of five rubber bullets to the head. And this was just a practice course; I couldn’t imagine what he would look like on the field. I was happy to be his six, his shadow that cleaned up the mess behind him. I made sure any stragglers were swiftly taken out, and that no one could sink a bullet into his back as he maneuvered through the course.
It was flawless. It made Ridgeback smirk as the two of us made our way back to the start of the run. His eyes held a thousand I told you so’s that made König scoff and my eyes roll. Still, it was obvious that we worked well together.
After that, I had a brief period of solitude when I retreated into the shower. As soon as I emerged from my barracks, König was there – leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone. He followed to the mess, where we ate in silence. In the common area I pulled out a checkers bord and challenged him to a game; König obliged, opting to put his phone down and entertain my request. It was only a few, shameful minutes before he had me beat; He chuckled as I pouted and flipped on the TV, letting some foreign movie drone on and pretending I was invested.
It wasn’t humiliating to have him connected to my hip, nor was it suffocating. It felt good to know I had molded so well to someone in the team; that I could see how useful I was. But König was certainly… unexpectedly clingy. “Forcing himself” wasn’t the correct term, but it wasn’t hard to see that he was straining his limits. There was still something holding him back from accepting that we were a decent pair, even if it was just in combative circumstances. Part of me wanted to call him out on his behavior and tell him to stop being a child – then again, I didn’t want to start an argument. Not with the next mission right around the corner. So I let him be.
In addition to the dynamic between König and I, Ridgeback had been right about the mission: it was a downright bitch. Based in some tiny village on the edge of Narikala, Georgia, backed against a thick, snowy forest. The air was bitterly cold, nipping at my cheeks and seeping in through the fingertips of my gloves. I sat next to König on the heli, absentmindedly letting my knee rest against his thigh to savor any warmth I could get. He bounced his knee anxiously – in excitement or nervousness, I couldn’t tell.
Not five minutes after the heli had touched the ground did all hell break loose. König and I jumped out of our seats and were immediately met with a storm of bullets. Pedestrians had already started panicking when they heard the blades of the helicopter – now, they were screaming, running to take cover in the shabby, concrete structures that lined the streets. It was a miracle that we didn’t get separated then and there – well, not much of a miracle. König had grabbed me by my vest and yanked me to the side, out of the line of fire. He didn’t let me go until we had made it into one of the buildings, dropping me rather unceremoniously onto my feet.
From there, things only got worse – but we were able to manage it. Rose and Horangi weren’t far behind us as we cleared each room for them. It was nothing short of difficult: some of the enemy soldiers were able to land a decent jab to König’s side, despite being killed no less than three seconds later by a bullet to the neck. He seemed… giddy, like a teenage boy playing some first-person-shooter game in an arcade. It was all game to him; throwing punches and firing his assault rifle, occasionally dropping a laugh and scampering off to find his next victim.
Covering his six was surprisingly a simpler task on the field than in training. König didn’t leave anything but dead bodies in his wake. I spent more time helping him with what was hitting him head on. He used his gun more often as a bludgeoner than an actual rifle, ramming it into the faces and stomachs of anything that crossed his path. I forced myself not to focus on it too much – the idea of him relishing in the massacre of others threatened to shake me from my objective, but I pushed past it and continued to follow him through the buildings.
The stench of iron was strong now; the sounds of gunfire and voices shouting in a foreign language echoed across the various concrete walls, but I was all too attuned to it by now. The two of us reached the building where the hostiles had set up their temporary base, covered by thick walls and satellite dishes on the roof. König took the upper ground, running up the stairs on the side of the building. I pulled up next to the lower entrance and cleared one side – almost instantly, a hostile soldier clocked me on the opposite side, right in my face with the butt of his rifle. My back hit the wall before I realized what was happening, but I didn’t hesitate to fire my gun from where I was propped up on the floor. My pulse thrummed loudly in my ears as I blinked a few times, pulling myself up to my feet with a grunt.
Roze and Horangi entered shortly after; Roze grimaced, placing her gloved hand on my helmet and turning my cheek towards her. “That’s gonna be a shiner. You ok?”
I sniffed and cleared my throat. “I’ve had worse.”
“That’s right.” She replied proudly, tapping my helmet, before running off to one of the monitors. “Horangi! The drive.” She jerked her head in his direction.
He pulled a hard disc from his cargo pants pocket, tossing it across the room; Roze caught it effortlessly and jammed it into the towers of one of the monitors, plugging in a passcode cracker.
“They’re calling in backup.” He said, glancing through one of the windows. “Don’t even care who they’re aiming at, civilians or us.”
“Have you heard from Majka?” I asked, unable to hide the slight worry in my tone. “Exfil?”
“No. Comms are still down.” He said bluntly. Even he was nervous, missing the usual, cocky lilt in his tone. “Last I heard, Fender and O’Connor were still on the west side, clearing the exit. Castillo and Zero are setting up foxhole.”
I nodded. Everyone still seemed to be on track, at least – it was daunting not to have Majka in our ears, keeping us connected with who had what position. König was the only one with a ham radio directly to Majka – it was the only line we had to any sort of commanding voice.
“I’ll find König.” I said, tapping Horangi’s arm. “Castillo and Zero will have your backs on the way out. We’ll guard the entrance.”
He nodded, before swiftly crossing the room to stand next to Roze: still bend over the monitor and typing furiously on the keyboard. I turned on my heel and left through the way I came, clearing the room left and right, then running to the edge of the building where I had last seen König. The air was quiet with the lack of shouts, despite the abundance of guns firing. Would König make a sound if he was being attacked? Would he stay silent? How would I know if he was injured? What if he was already?
Suddenly, a massive figure rounded the corner. For a moment I raised my rifle, aiming at the soldier’s chest – until I realized it was König. Switching teams as often as I had made it a struggle to remember who to shoot and who not to shoot, but it was easy to recognize his lumbering form anywhere.
He didn’t bother with the pleasantries. “Exfil isn’t coming.” He said, maneuvering his body to press flat against the side of the building. He tucked his ham radio back into his tactical vest.
“Huh?!” I snapped, following closely behind him. “The fuck do you mean?”
“You see this?!” he gestured to the chaos around us – it was fairly congested with enemy soldiers. Although we made good headway, we were outnumbered. “They won’t be able to get in here. Majka said we need to get out; he has evac on the way, but it’ll take time.”
I scowled, more at the situation than at König. I knew Roze and Horagni could handle themselves, and they were more than safe with Castillo and Zero on their backs. What got me was the retreat; I’d only ever retreated twice before (ironically, both times falling under Price’s command), and it only did more harm than good.
Before I could give it any more thought, König’s thick fingers were wrapped around my vest again, pulling me behind him. I steeled my nerves as we wound through the buildings, dodging bullet rain and civilians as they sought cover. König appeared to be running us towards the forest, taking us closer to the edge of the village.
“What about the others?” I shouted over the commotion, as he dragged us past the large, stone walls at the entrance of the town. They would essentially be trapped in the center of the gunfire.
“They’re fine.” He said bluntly, dragging me up the hill and towards the tree line, not entertaining the issue I presented. Whether he was truly confident with that statement, or burying his concern for the sake of focusing, was beyond me. I had to trust him; the snow beneath my feet made it difficult to keep my pace with him, but he had yet to let go of my vest, so I had no choice but to stumble after him.
A glance back at the village had my stomach clenching in worry. Would they be able to get out? I looked around at the bodies strewn in the snowy terrain around us, some civilians, some enemies, some of our own. Gunfire continued to echo through the frigid air – Evac wouldn’t be here for a while, I realized, staring at one of the cadaver’s rucksacks – which might not even matter, if we froze to death in the woods. We certainly weren’t prepared to wait out in the freezing cold, however, a native to Georgia might. I dug my heels into the ground and ripped myself from König’s hold, acting on an impulsive survival instinct.
“Was machst du?!” König yelled a babble of German that I ignored. I skidded to a halt by one of the bodies and rolled it over (with difficulty), searching frantically. C’mon, c’mon… I tore open the pockets on his tactical belt and scavenged what I though was useful. König scanned around us – the sound of bullets flying, along with the fact that we were not trying to move away from it, wasn’t sitting well with him.
“We need to go!” he shouted.
“Alright alright!!” I said, finally snatching the backpack off of the body. Hopefully this is enough…
“Komm!!” König finally ran back, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me back towards the trees. I shouldered the backpack and followed closely behind. We ran as fast as we could up the hill – I struggled to match König’s wide stride, but his grip on my wrist forced me to keep up, or risk getting it torn off if I slowed down.
The sound of a rifle firing nearby made us both jump. König must have assumed the battle stayed within the village walls, however, we were sorely mistaken. The bullets landed in the snow beside us, barely missing our backs. I looked over my shoulder and saw two enemy soldiers steadily following us, shooting in our direction as they clamored up the hillside. I mumbled a curse – König kept tugging me upwards as bullets whizzed by our heads.
“Keep moving!” he ordered – though it fell on deaf ears.
I tore my wrist from König’s grasp and ripped my assault rifle from over my shoulder.
“Scheisse – Bonnie!” he shouted angrily, but I ignored him. If I didn’t try to kill them now, they were going to follow us into the woods.
I fell to my stomach, aimed the gun, and fired. The first few bullets took out the closest soldier – the other one ducked low to the ground, and that combined with the angle of the hill made it harder to hit him. He took position and fired again, missing my leg by a few inches. I pressed myself down, steadying my aim, and fired a final, fatal bullet into his back. He jolted from the impact before falling limply against the snow.
König grabbed me by the collar and pulled me up. “Auf mich!” he shouted, ushering me in front of him. I ran ahead while he scanned across the hill one last time, before we both stumbled into the line of trees.
I did my best to steady my breathing as we continued to sprint, despite the adrenaline starting to wear off. My thighs and shoulders were burning as the effects of the fight were finally catching up to me. Branches from the trees whipped against my body as I ran, stinging and scratching against my skin. Eventually, König passed me – lucky bastard with those stupid-ass long legs – and took the lead, running further and further into the dense thicket of trees. He started to slow down, deciding that we had gotten far enough away from the village.
Retreat always left a sour taste on my tongue.
I rested my hands on my knees, gasping desperately for air. My throat felt like it was burning and my entire body was shaking from the post-adrenaline rush. König leaned against a tree, his head lolling back as his chest heaved up and down. We were both spent – at this point, if there was still anyone pursuing us, our best bet would have been to hide – or just surrender.
I straightened up, placing my hands on my hips and tilting my head back. God, this is going to hurt later. König pushed himself away from the tree. His breathing had slowed to a normal pace, although the stress on his body was evident in every other aspect.
“What was that?!” he spat, pointing back towards the field.
A deep, fiery anger quickly began to simmer in my chest. I slowly looked at König, hands still on my hips and my expression furious. “What the fuck was what, colonel?” I said, my tone clear as day: tread lightly.
“That stunt you pulled earlier.” He stood directly in front of me, looking down through his mask with obvious anger. “Fucking posting up on the hill like that, acting like-“
“You mean saving our goddamn lives?!” I stepped forward so that I was right up against him, despite having to crane my neck up to meet his gaze. “Doing my fucking job?”
“We were fine!” he seethed. “They weren’t hitting us, yeah?”
“Yeah – because I fucking killed them, you’re welcome!” I glared at him with an irate look. “They would have pursued!”
“You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“Well guess who’s alive and who’s dead, huh?!”
“You made yourself an easy target by stopping there!”
“Are you fucking blind?! Or deaf? Did you hear anything that I just said, dipshit?!”
“Vorsichtig…” König spat at me, sticking a thick finger in my face.
“I don’t speak dumbass.” I retorted.
König’s eyes widened with fury, and he leaned down so that his face was inches from mine. “Hör mal, du kleiner Mistkerl- “
Suddenly, he stopped. I continued to stare directly into his eyes, adorning my own defiant glare. He was looking back at me, however, he was focused on something else. He glanced over my head, in the direction of the battle. Realizing he spotted something, I froze in place and listened intently. After a few moments, we heard the sound of quick footsteps, distant, yet approaching. An irritated voice was shouting as they ran towards us through the trees.
We both turned and ran. König ducked behind a tree and grabbed my arm (perhaps I wasn’t fast enough for him to tolerate) – he pulled me against him, with an arm around my waist, holding my own against my sides. He pressed himself against the tree, and his hand roughly covered my mouth. I didn’t even say anything…
We waited silently, listening as the soldier drew nearer. König’s hand around my waist grew tighter by the second, and his hand pressed harder against my mouth, as if he thought I might yell out to the assailant. The footsteps grew closer – the person didn’t even try to mask the sounds they made, speaking loudly into their comm. “I lost sight of the runners.” She said.
Dumb bitch, we weren’t that fast.
“Copy.” She replied to the inaudible voice on her comm. She quickly slipped by us without taking notice of our bodies, not even twenty feet from her. Once we were behind her, König expertly maneuvered us to the other side of the tree, his hand never leaving my mouth. I struggled to breathe against it, as his entire hand covered from my chin to my nose. But we waited quietly for the footsteps to fade into the distance, and then some more, until König was satisfied that she was gone.
He released my mouth; I fell to my knees and gasped for air. “Holy shit-“ I wheezed.
“Sorry…” he said wearily; a complete one-eighty from his recent outburst. I waved a hand at him, signaling that it was ok. He waited in silence as I struggled to catch my breath. The tension from moments before had subsided, although not completely. König shuffled awkwardly on his feet, rubbing a hand on the back of his head.
“I didn’t need to say all that…” he finally spoke. “I was just… fick, I don’t even know. It was a close call.”
I got back onto my feet. “Don’t worry about it.” I said, clearing my throat and dusting my pants off. “Just curious, what did you even say? In German?”
König looked at me, unmoving. “Ah…” he rubbed the back of his head. “Use your imagination and you’d probably be right. I’d rather not get into any more trouble today.”
I nodded, choosing to let the topic slide. “I’m sorry too… I shouldn’t have said those things about you… to a fucking colonel, too.” I said with an apologetic chuckle.
König shrugged. “I’ve heard worse. What you said was tame.” He paused a moment, then broke away from my gaze, looking at his surroundings and sighing. He paused in the direction of where the soldier had disappeared into. “I wonder why she would move so far away from the fight…” he said, “that seems reckless.”
I shrugged. “She was following orders.” I replied, rolling my shoulders and cracking my neck from side to side. “But the way she tracks is what’s piss-poor; heard that bitch from a mile away.”
König chuckled. “With a sniper rifle and a good angle, I could shoot her from here.” He held his hands up, positioning his non-existent gun on his shoulders, aiming in her direction. His shoulder blade was soaked in blood; something I hadn’t picked up before. It made me panic momentarily – when did he get that? Was that before or after we fled? – but I soon noticed that it wasn’t that deep. It needed to be patched up, for sure, but he wasn’t suffering from blood loss.
“Right, well“ - I slipped the backpack off of my shoulders and began rifling through it- “before we try chasing her down, you need stitches.”
Arms still in the air, König looked back at the cut. “Eh,” he began, reaching over to touch it. “I think I will be fine, this could be worse.”
I nodded and pulled out a suture kit. “Exactly: we’re gonna fix it before it does get any worse.” I pointed a finger at him. “On the ground, big guy.”
König dropped to his knees (a little too quickly) and stared up at me. I paused, shocked at the immediate obedience, and chuckled to myself. I got down on my knees, and König shifted to fully sit down so that I was at a comfortable level with his shoulder.
“You’re gonna need to take your shirt off.” I said. “I’m not tearing it up when it’s this cold. You’ll need it.”
König faltered, as if he was going to protest, but all that came from him was a sigh. He started with his arm guards, followed by his tactical belt, radio antenna, and his helmet, tossing them into a pile next to him. He pulled the hem of his shirt from his waistband, then paused. “Mask stays on.” He ordered.
I raised my hands defensively. “Fine by me.” I reached a hand under the back of his shirt, snaking it up and through the top of his collar. I could feel the smooth muscle of his back covered by a layer of sweat, despite the cold weather. I grabbed the back of his mask and pulled it back underneath his shirt. “Hold the front end under the shirt and then take it off. I’ll hold it back here.”
His breath hitched in his throat, followed by a very visible shiver. He reached through his shirt to grab the front end of his mask, before pulling the shirt over his head, wincing as it peeled away from his wound, and discarded it with the rest of his gear.
The cut was deep and angry, but thankfully it wasn’t terrible. König definitely needed stitches – luckily, that would be the only thing he needed. I grabbed a bottle of iodine solution from the kit as he watched, and he sighed. He pulled one of his gloves off and folded it between his teeth, preparing for the pain.
“Quick sting-“ I warned, popping the lid off of the bottle and pouring it sparingly over the wound. König inhaled sharply and groaned, barely muffled by the glove. I winced at his pain and mumbled an apology. I started threading a suture through his skin, focusing hard on being as gentle as possible. I could feel each fiber of his muscle tugging against the thread. His back was tense, flexed and unmoving as I worked. I peered at the scars on his back; some small, some long, some were thin lines, and others were wide gashes. Even a few bullet scars here and there. I noticed a dusting of freckles smattered across his upper back, thinning out the further down they traveled. Kinda looks like falling stars…
“Scheisse!” he suddenly growled, bringing me back to the situation at hand. Get it together – bad time to get distracted. I glanced up at him and watched as he breathed forcefully through the pain. He would suck a long breath in, before pushing it out between tightened lips, ending it with a small groan.
I looked back down to the wound and continued working. “Sorry, it shouldn’t be too much longer here.”
“Eh, you’re fine.” He said through clenched teeth. “I’ve done this plenty of times, though it never gets any easier.”
I tied off the last suture and grabbed the peroxide once more. I showed it to him as a heads-up. He chuckled. “Give me your hand for this one, yeah?”
I smirked and offered my hand, which he held tightly. He shoved the glove back into his mouth and faced the opposite direction, as if he was trying to be as far away from the pain as possible. I poured the solution on the stitched cut and he immediately hissed in pain. His hand squeezed mine with an inhuman amount of pressure, popping my knuckles and sending pain through my fingers, and I mumbled my own string of expletives. Remind me to never let him do that again. I quickly covered the wound with a piece of gauze and some tape, my hand still occupied by König’s.
“Sorry…” he said, releasing my hand.
I examined my fingers. “All good. I probably deserved that.”
“For what?” he asked, grabbing his shirt and slipping it back over his body.
“I dunno…” I said, leaning back on my heels as he turned to look at me. “I got you distracted on the field.”
“Anything could have distracted me. I’m glad it was just you…” He sat back against the tree. “… and nothing more dangerous.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “You don’t think I’m dangerous?” I quipped.
König laughed and shook his head. “At least not to me. The only thing I fear in you is your attitude. It’s quite sour.”
I scrunched my nose at his comment, followed by a playful jab to his shoulder. He inhaled sharply in pain and I winced, realizing that I had struck his wound. “Sorry!”
Night had fallen (quicker than we expected), and the forest was now freezing. We decided against making a fire, in case the enemy was still clearing out the field. I had been hoping and praying that the rest of them were alright: that Roze, Horangi, and everyone else had made it out of the village and into the woods somewhere, or at least managed to find evac, once they had gotten there. I would let myself freeze to death in the forest if I knew thy had died there. Still, the not knowing was almost worse.
König was pressing his back against a tree with his arms folded over his chest – surprisingly, he wasn’t shivering, but he still looked irritated with the current weather. He occasionally paced around our hiding spot, scanning the woods for any sign of… anything, really. But the world remained quiet, save the crunching of the ground under König’s heavy steps and my teeth clacking together.
I was frigid. I had crouched against the base of a tree, knees tightly scrunched to my chest with my arms tucked in between them. I was blowing warm breaths over my fingers – the fingertips of my gloves were cut off long ago to help have a better grip on things, and the current situation made me regret making that choice. My muscles twitched and shivered as my body tried to generate what little heat it could, which wasn’t much. My fingers and toes began to sting from the cold. Never thought I’d die from hypothermia… first time for everything, I guess.
König rubbed the sides of his arms, clearly not as cold as I was. He stopped pacing, watching me as the sound of my chattering echoed through the small patch of woods we were in. “You alright there?”
I nodded, never meeting his gaze. “P-eachy.” I said, my shivering taking over my voice.
“You won’t make like this before evac gets here.” He scanned the woods again, as if our rescue was about to come running through the trees any second now. Wishful thinking.
“Hopefully it d-oesn’t take that l-long for me t-o pass.” I joked. Neither König nor I found it funny.
König sighed. He dropped himself at the base of a tree and leaned back, spreading his legs in front of him. He looked at me and patted the ground in between them expectantly.
For a moment, I was taken aback enough to stop shivering. “Huh?”
“Come here.” He said, frustrated. “I’m trying to warm you up, blödmann. I’d rather not have you die right next to me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I knew whatever he called me was an insult. “No thanks, I’ll be f-fine.” I turned my head back down, exhaling warmth over my fingers. The thought of sitting in König’s lap like that was embarrassing, and something I was absolutely not about to do. Ever.
He stared at me, his eyes blank. I could feel the irritation radiating off of him, but I didn’t care. He couldn’t force me to do anything, and I know he wouldn’t try.
“It’s an order.” He stated firmly, his voice slightly deeper than before.
I looked at him with surprise. “Excuse me?”
“Are you forgetting that I’m a colonel?” he questioned, cocking his head to the side.
I scoffed. “Sometimes you forget- “
“I’m not going to repeat myself, sergeant.” He warned.
And there it was. That feeling. That electric zap in my lower abdomen. That stupid sensation that had got me in trouble with Ghost over a year ago. All from a single order from my superior. I stared at König, hoping my arousal wasn’t obvious, as I attempted to shank every single butterfly in my stomach. Christ, get it together you slut…
I sighed, standing up and moving towards König, who chuckled smugly. Rather than sit in between his legs, I planted myself next to him, our shoulders and hips touching. I brought my knees to my chest again while his remained splayed out in front of him. The excitement I felt earlier was gone, now replaced with an awkwardness. I couldn’t stop the small frown that settled on my face.
König froze at our touch, seeming to feel the awkwardness too. It was a bit amusing, seeing him flop between being cocky and sheepish. Eventually, he relaxed, ever so slightly leaning into my side. Soon, he gained enough courage to wrap an arm around my shoulders.
Reflexively, I tensed and pulled away a bit. “You don’t need – “
“I don’t want to hear it, Bonnie.” He said, pulling me back in. His words expressed superiority, yet his voice sounded anxious. “I’m keeping my teammate warm. I don’t want you to freeze to death out here. We’re benefitting each other, you know.”
I hesitated to give in; in all honesty, König was very warm… even his fingers. They gently rubbed the side of my arm through my sleeve, sending pins and needles through my skin as the feeling began to come back. My head fit easily against the side of his chest, and I felt good too… not even aroused, just safe. The stress from the mission and worrying about my team – it all was catching up to me, but now it was being absorbed into the warmth of König’s form.
I sighed, leaning against his body as a shiver ran up my spine. Under the smell of sweat and gunpowder, there was a hint of musk. I hated how it comforted me.
He felt my movement and chuckled. “Not so bad, huh?”
“Stuff it.” I replied curtly.
König laughed, charmed by my stubbornness, I assumed. “Here, give me your hands.” He opened his free hand and offered it to me. I reluctantly obliged, my sense of reason now being controlled by my dropping temperature. He was able to close his hand around both of mine, gently kneading my fingertips between his. The blood rushing back to my hands was painful, but the accompanied warmth was welcomed. I stared at his large hand massaging mine with half-lidded eyes; now that I felt safe, I realized how tired I had been for the past several hours.
“Thanks.” I mumbled. Even though I was feeling better, the situation was still embarrassing. I tried not to rely on people if I could help it.
“Go to sleep.” He said, ignoring my comment and letting go of my hands. “I’ll keep first watch. It’ll give you a few hours of rest.” He kept his gaze forward, aligned with the trees with an iron stare.
I huffed, tucking my hands into my sides and leaning into him further. I could sense he was just as apprehensive about our unfortunate situation, unwilling to acknowledge the tension between us – which was probably for the better. If we could hold off until evac reached us, we could pretend this had never happened. I let my eyes close, bristling against the contrast of the frigid air and König’s warm muscle, choosing to be thankful that I wasn’t out here alone – and that neither was he.
Right before sleep blanketed over my senses, gently pulling me down from awareness, I felt his arm shifting back around me to hold me closer. I smiled.
I startled awake from a dreamless sleep – pain shot through my fingers and toes when they tensed up. The freezing bite of the wind nipped at them, and they burned as my blood began to flow throughout my limbs.
I looked up at König, at poor, poor König…
He was still sitting upright, his one arm draped limply over my body. His eyes were fixed forwards on the tree line – they were narrowed against the chill of the wind, and dark bags had formed underneath them. His posture was slouched, and occasionally he would drift forwards, only to jerk himself back against the tree. He blinked slowly as he fought away the sleep.
“König?!” I pushed myself upright, staring at him with concern. “Oh my god, are you ok?!”
“Bitte,” he said, still looking at the trees ahead. “Ich muss schlafen…”
“What?”
“I need to sleep.”
“Shit, why didn’t you say something?” I asked, sitting up against the tree.
“I tried. You wouldn’t wake up.” His voice was gravelly from his lack of sleep. “You snored.”
“I- what?” I pulled my head back, looking up at him with an offended expression. “I snored?”
“Like a horse. May I please lie down?”
I scowled. That doesn’t even make any sense… I pressed myself against the tree trunk, ushering him to lean against me. “Yeah, you sleep, Colonel. I’ll keep a lookout.”
Instead of resting against my side, König completely flopped down into my lap. I let out an oof as he landed – it felt like a tree had just fallen on my legs. He let out a long, tired groan, his eyes finally closing for the night. He wrapped his arms around my thighs and hugged them close – his fingers were freezing, making me inhale sharply as he tucked them between my thighs for warmth. I didn’t even have the mental capacity to react to the gesture due to the frigidity.
“König-“ I began to protest.
“Es ist so kalt.”
“… huh?”
“It’s cold.” He mumbled.
I hovered my hands above his body, unsure of where to put them. I glanced around the dark woods, only being able to decipher one tree from the next by the light of the moon. Why am I nervous? There’s no one here but us.
That’s exactly why I was nervous.
I sighed, rubbing my hands roughly over König’s arms to warm him up. He grunted something in appreciation, squeezing my legs tighter. I bit my lip and prayed that he wouldn’t crush me. Despite his appendages being cold, his torso was relatively warm, still. As much as I hated to think about it, his current position over my body did a much better job at fighting the cold than how we had sat before.
“You gonna be alright?” I asked.
Silence. Then, a long, grating snore, akin to a chainsaw cutting through a tree trunk.
I huffed, patting his shoulder (the uninjured one). I leaned my head back against the tree trunk, fixing my gaze to the trees ahead of us. The forest was utterly silent, save for the occasional whisper of wind rustling through the leaves. Thankfully, the ground was spared from snow due to the thick coverage of the trees. My breath froze in the air, puffs of icy clouds wilting away before me. I looked back down at König: he was out like a light, face pressed into my hip and fingers clenching between my thighs.
Wish I had a camera.
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finally giving fem danyal her own au and fulfilling my 'danny is an animal whisperer' agenda at the same time: mother of monsters danyal 2.0
i say "2.0" because TECHNICALLY 'mother of monsters danyal' is an au I made back in June for Dark fem!Danyal (who I promptly named Layal). However, I haven't posted much for her yet, and I like the "mother of monsters" premise too much to leave it only to Layal. Plus Danyal in that au was going to become the mother of monsters anyway, just with significantly less world domination and mass extinction.
'Animal whisperer' Danny has been something I've been thinking about since my latest DP 'wolfpack au' post and it's! So fun to think about, and who no better to assign the idea to than Danyal Al Ghul? Who comes from a family infamously known for their love of animals and nature?
Fem Danyal is just purely self-indulgent. *gestures wildly at her* i just lomvb,,, her,,,, I've only really mentioned her in context of the 'Things in Threes' au/my first Danyal al Ghul au with the facial scar, but she's!!! I love her. She deserves her own au <33
So kill three birds with one stone! Make a post about it.
Anyways, Danny has a large lair. Similar to cult leader danyal, her lair is a giant mountain region resembling nanda parbat with a big temple/palace-like area built into the mountain. It's large, it's overflowing with natural flora, with its own mini-floating islands hovering over some areas, and it's also completely empty.
Danny takes one look at her lair upon first meeting, -- noting that it looked relatively smaller from the outside -- and promptly, with the elegance of an Al Ghul, goes "What the hell??" Because yes, while she does enjoy her own solitude and privacy, this is a bit ridiculous.
For heaven's sake, there's even a massive lake in there! What's she going to do with all this space? Can she make it any smaller? Why is it so big in the first place? This looks borderline like one of the mega-islands!
She finds out later that apparently, the amount of ectoplasm a ghost has can have an effect on the size of their lair. And since she has such a large core, her lair reflects that. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, it's bigger on the inside so it doesn't take up "too much space" on the outside. Don't worry about it too much.
Danyal isn't totally opposed to having such a large lair, she's just... a bit baffled by it. It feels like so much wasted space is all. All this flora and no fauna to enjoy it with. It's practically eerie.
She decorates her temple-palace area, transforming rooms to match her needs as she sees fit. In the center of the inner gardens is a massive tree that she likes to climb, with twisting, winding branches. Sam and Tucker have honorary rooms, even if they can't safely leave the specter speeder for long periods of time, even with proper safety equipment. So does Jazz. Ali (Dani) has one too, but he can actually use that one, and Danny brought him to her lair so he could decorate it himself.
She has a personal garden, but for the most part she lets the flora exist as it is. Too much space to cultivate it en masse anyways.
Skip to a few weeks later, on her next visit to Clockwork. She developed a habit of going to see him semi-regularly just because. She enjoys his wisdom, and he has a lot of stories to tell, and when he's not being the cryptic and esoteric timekeeper, he's a bit goofy.
(pushing my dadwork agenda here,,, i think Danny deserves to go 'hey, Lord Clockwork, do you want me to buy you something' while she's at walmart, only to receive a singular glowing sticky note that says 'cucumber gatorade'.)
(She insists on referring to him with his proper titles even for the most mundane of things because it's proper, but Clockwork sees a future where she eventually calls him "Cee" and by all things in existence is he determined to get there. Anyways,,,)
On her next visit to Clockwork, just as she is about to leave, Clockwork stops her and goes; "Ah, I have something for you. Hold out your hands."
Danny does as such, and Clockwork doesn't give out things often, so her curiosity has spiked to the highest levels. He turns away from her for a moment, using his staff to summon whatever it is he needs, and when he turns around.
He drops a fish into her hands. Granted, a fish in a small glass tank. But a fish nonetheless. A small one, roughly about the size of her finger, with a blue-black, eel-shaped body and four sets of glowing eyes. She can see thin, almost translucent, but spiny fins down its back and the start of bioluminescent markings. It's swimming around in circles in its small container.
"Lord Clockwork." Danyal says all too calmly.
"Yes, Danyal?"
"What is this?"
"That is an adolescent leviathan, Danyal." She’s transfixed onto the tank, but she doesn’t need to see Clockwork’s face to hear the smile he’s stifling.
The myriad of emotions that runs through her all at once threatens to overwhelm her, and she can’t tell if the feelings are negative or positive. So she carefully closes her eyes to breathe in through her nose.
“Clockwork.”
“Ah, I see you’ve dropped formalities.”
She ignores that.
“Why have you given me an adolescent leviathan?”
She's expecting the trickster to look amused when she opens her eyes. Instead, he just looks endeared. "I know you're fond of animals," he says, "and you always look amazed when you come across an animal of the realms. So I thought you might enjoy taking care of the young beast, it's mother is dead so it has no one to care for it."
Oh.
"But, if you don't like it," Clockwork's hands reach out for the tank, "I can simply take it back--"
Danyal shifts the tank out from his reach and hugs it possessively. "I never said that. How do I care for it?"
And so clockwork gives her a list, and when Danyal returns to her lair, she sets up a large tank in her room for the leviathan to swim in -- it's much too small for the lake right now, she thinks. She'll feel better if it's somewhere she can find it. She names him Suhā.
Suhā grows quickly, and by the end of the mortal month she transforms one of the rooms into a large pond for him to swim around in. He's a very loyal beast, recognizing her as it's mother of some kind. Danyal takes great care ensuring that her beastie gets quality care, and Suhā swims to the surface to see her when he senses her in the room.
It spirals from there. Somehow, Pandora catches wind that Clockwork gave her a leviathan, and so the next time Danyal visits the Greater Athens, she gives her a baby chimera. It's eyes are still sealed shut, Danyal can't bring herself to say no. She names the little beastie Firas.
Frostbite hears about it too, and not to be outdone, gives her an animal she's never even heard of. Infinite-realms born, apparently. A fox-like creature with two small horns like an impala, four eyes, and tall legs. The name isn't something she's quite sure how to write down, and she's positive that her friends won't be able to comprehend it. She names her Eira.
Getting the three of them used to each other was... interesting. Suhā tried to eat Firas when Danyal first introduced the two, and they've hated each other ever since. Firas and Eira are seemingly getting along. Her island already feels full enough with the three of them on it.
Of course, that's not the end of it. With her luck, she begins stumbling across other monsters. Realms-borne or otherwise. An injured hydra in the Grecian islands that, through lots of trial and error, Danyal is able to rehabilitate and heal. It routinely comes to visit her afterwards.
A griffin with a broken wing that she moves permanently to the island that likes to keep to itself, but tends to come down when she's near. It gets along best with Firas.
A panther-like monster from the Shades Woods that had six legs and three tails, with ends that reminded her of a venus flytrap. It stuck around the heavy foliage and she can only make out where it was when she saw its golden eyes reflect.
She befriends a young indrik with its leg injured, and much like the hydra it follows her back to her island, and stays there in the mountains. It comes out when she's alone, much like her other beasts.
She receives two more leviathan -- one from clockwork, and one she finds herself while exploring the deeper and darker recesses of the Ghost Zone. It was huddled against the carcass of its mother, and she managed to befriend and get close enough to it to bring it back to her island. Suhā is fully grown by then, with a head bigger than Danyal herself and he still likes to stick her head out of the water for nuzzles when she's near.
He's not very happy with his new siblings, but he's not trying to eat them when she's not looking. So she calls it a win in her book.
And it's not just large beasts either; smaller animals begin popping up when she's not looking. Bird-like creatures and small mammals, and she swears she saw a doe (or something resembling a doe) grazing in the forest while she was walking by.
She takes back with her a lone snake egg once, and it grows so big it wraps around her island and sleeps with its massive head on the mountain beside the temple, like some smaller breed of Jörmungandr.
And on and on it goes. Some of the beasts she comes across never step foot onto her island, some of them follow her back, while others she has to carry back. Not all of the ones that follow her stay, and Danny rehabilitates the injured and releases them when they're fully healed.
It's hectic, and busy, and frankly she loves it. Some of her rehabilitated beasts return to visit her, or to have their children somewhere on the island, or whatever it is they need to do.
She becomes a bit infamous for it. She goes to visit Dorathea once, and as she's walking through the streets she can hear some of the denizens whispering while she walks past.
"Is that her?"
"Her highness' friend? Yes--"
"--that's the one--"
"--Mother of monsters--"
Danny's not sure how to feel about that.
Although, she can't say she's opposed.
Danyal Al Ghul, Mother of monsters, raiser of beasts. It has a nice ring to it.
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