#something something visceral violence and intimacy in the blood on each others hands FROM each other

[mangoisms]

i was so insane for this

[just-an-adventurer]

I am going absolutely WILD for this fic, op. I binge-read this all in once go and it was such a luxury to have all those parts in one. Because of its bulk, I jotted down little notes as I went along so I wouldn't forget to add them to my comment.

In lieu of any sort of cohesive review due to having no thoughts aside from my brain printing out a mental image of a shitty crayon drawing of König and reader covered in blood with little cartoon hearts everywhere, here are the reactions I jotted down:

The heady mix of it all! The tenderness!

The preparation beforehand! Unlocking the gate and checking for consent! He would be a perfect dom if not for the uh, murder and all that. But oh so absolutely PERFECT for a good fic!

The intimacy of him taking off his mask and putting it into her lap!!!

"You felt silly for thinking he knew where you lived" AAH.

Aw man op, from Vig to König you are always coming in clutch with murderous sexy men

His mannerisms are so good! The mix of his confidence with his anxiety (his careful preparation, the way he fiddles with the towel and secures it again as an excuse to break eye contact when the conversation breaks)

MATCHING SCARS ASSFHFJDJFB I AM CHEWING THROUGH DRYWALL

LIKE REALLY GRIM SOULMATE MARKS AAAAH

I love how their scars are in the exact same place, but unique to them

Hands laced together aaaaaah

Lube! Yes! The prep! The foresight! Especially given his size 😏

That sex scene was so fucking HOT. The way you write them is always so visceral, so natural.

The moment right after is so sweet! The way they're laughing after that cathartic climax is just aaaaah. So good.

Ah man, now that the lust has cooled, poor reader is trying to put all the pieces together and meanwhile könig is SO STOKED to snuggle and have everything go well.

And yet, "...No one?"

"No one."

That actually sounded kind of nice...

I am SCREAMING. THERE IT IS, THERE'S A HUGE PART OF THE APPEAL

Hnnnng feeding him a bit of the butchered carrot. The domesticity!

"Knowing him, though, he probably liked you threatening him with it." Pfffff

"If you were to kill him how would you do it?"

YESSSS a reader who has just enough screws loose to be into it. It was touched on in the very beginning but ooooh fuck yeah

Man, can König break the fingers of people I don't like one at a time? Pretty please? *twirls hair*

Their dynamic is everything to me aaaaah

Using italics for translated German is so perfect! It adds it in without breaking the flow of things and gives me the impression that the reader has picked up some of the language in their time together

His dialogue feels so in-character! Like I can imagine it with his voice super easily

Once again hitting it out of the park with the sex scenes! Now with sexy murderous undertones! There's something about kill-mode könig all hopped up and giddy on violence turning into a whimpering mess that has me fucking GRINNING

Yessssss double relationship dynamic of chaste sweet actions following lewd ones

The blowjob misunderstanding had me cackling - the fucking dialogue and back-and-forth was hilarious

Eye contact as part of their love language!!

These two freaks! Covered in each others' blood! Bonded together by brushes with death and hard-on for violence! I love them!!

Absolutely incredible work as always, my friend! This fic is fucking fantastic, the tags are fitting and spot-on (fluff included!). You do such a wonderful job making murderous characters really fun to read and I love that your reader characters are game for it (because of course! We're reading bc we're interested in playing with the idea so it's always fun when the reader character is down for it too!) And your dialogue and body language is always such a treat. I hope this comment makes some sense and it isn't too scattered! Thank you for writing and sharing this beautiful bloodstained behemoth of a fic!

Death's Angel

Pairing: König (stalker/serial killer)/Fem!Reader

Rated: Explicit. 18+

Summary: "Please just let me go! I promise I won't tell! I have a wife! I have a child!" He's heard all the pleas before, but König is finally struck with the oddest dying wish he's ever heard. "Can you kiss me?"

Word Count: 22,480

Warnings:  Rape/Non-Con: Sexual assault, I do NOT go into detail on that part, but uh, it's there. Dub-Con/Consensual non-consent: (+mentions of rape/cnc porn). CNC as a coping mechanism, which (in this case) is dubious as it is not discussed beforehand. + Blood play, knife play, degradation. (Non-consensual) voyeurism (König is a stalker). Violence (König is a serial killer). Fluff (lol it's actually pretty sweet)

A/N: Based on [an ask] I got a couple of months ago. 4 parts in 1. [Read on AO3] for chapter divisions.

[Multi-fandom Masterlist]

[Death’s Kiss]

He cursed himself for getting distracted. But, as much as the military would like to believe he isn't, he is only human. And a particularly buxom woman overtly flirting with him had drawn his eyes from his target. He rejected the woman's advances (maybe he will find her later, there was nothing quite like fucking after killing), and went about searching for his target. Unfortunately he had to be discreet, he couldn't just push people out of his way, as much as he would love to.

He caught sight of a back exit and followed his instincts, they hardly ever led him astray, and took the chance that his target had left this way. He’d only taken a few steps into the dark alley when he heard sounds of a struggle. ‘What’s this?’ He followed the sound of a frustrated groan quickly followed by a “fuckin’ bitch!” and a woman’s scream cut short. 

König stuck to the shadows, plenty around this late, and slipped his sniper hood on as he rounded a dumpster. There was his target, a man in his thirties, with one hand over a woman’s mouth and the other holding a knife he just shoved into the woman’s stomach. 

Interesting. König couldn’t exactly say what drew him to kill certain targets. He just saw someone and decided. Sometimes he’d do recon, other times, like tonight, he’d just see what the night had in store for him. This was the first time he had come across one of his targets committing well, if the woman’s torn dress and the man’s hand now stuffed under her skirt were anything to go by, sexual assault and likely murder. 

König could understand murder. He might even respect it. But he could not tolerate rape. There were always one or two men in his unit he had to keep an eye on. Who were likely to take advantage of the women of a war torn country. Not only were those the easiest of his victims to cover up, but he had a sneaking suspicion that the higher ups placed them on his team on purpose. Let him deal with the troublemakers before they get out of hand. 

Why he should have contempt for one heinous act over another was also something he didn’t bother to think about. Thus he didn’t bother to think when he pulled his target off of the woman. 

-

Red. He’d forever associate this moment with red. Your eyes, which caught his for a fraction of second as he grabbed the man’s shoulder, were red, either from tears or because the man had hit you, or both. There was a bright red ribbon that matched the color of freshly spilled blood hanging loosely from your hair, spiraling elegantly down your shoulder before getting stuck to your skin with blood. Blood, dark red and spilling freely in some places, already clotting in others, almost looked fake. Too…pretty. Most beguiling of all, were splashes of red across your lovely white dress, from the top, which was now ripped free of your body, to the flared skirt.  

Red had always been his favorite color. 

The man was quick enough on his feet to regain his balance and pull out of König’s grasp, if only for a moment, as he reeled and threw a wild punch at König.

König caught the first easily, smiling under his mask, as the man’s eyes went wide as he realized how much bigger König was. “F-fuck!” 

He tried to yank his fist back, which König let go of as he hooked one boot behind the man’s foot. He chuckled as the man flailed and fell on his ass with an undignified scream. Before the man could get back to his feet and run away, König planted his boot on his chest and leaned down. 

“What should I do with you, hm?” König hummed playfully while leaning down and pressing his weight onto the man’s chest even more. He had been planning on taking the man to a secondary location, an out of the way warehouse at the edge of town, so he could take his time. But even now he was aware of a second set of eyes on him.

“N-nothing! You can have her, let me go!” The man struggled against König’s boot, and struggled to breath as König pressed down again. 

“Her?” He looked over his shoulder at you, hunched against a wall with blood slowly forming a puddle around you. 

You should have been crying for help, or trying to get to your phone that he could see a few feet from you. You should have been trying to save your life. But instead you were watching him. Your eyes were glazed over as your life slowly drained away, but you were watching him. No. You were watching him kill your attacker, waiting to see what happened. And a shiver of excitement ran down his spine. He never had a witness before…

Then he looked down again, “what use is a dead woman?” 

That’s when the man screamed, using what little strength he had to try to punch König’s leg. 

“Ow.” König deadpanned, but removed his foot from the man’s chest anyways. 

He let the man scramble to his feet, but when he turned to run away, König grabbed him by the back of his head, his giant hand making a viscous grip in the man’s hair, and yanked him back. The man screamed, hands flying to the back of his head to try to pry König’s hand off of him. König lifted the man into the air before slamming him face first into the brick wall in front of them.

Not even the muffled and gurgled screams could drown out the sickening crunch of bone. While still holding the man’s face into the brick wall, he turned to look at you, looking for the familiar fear that should be in your eyes. There was none. Again, you weren’t even looking at him, not really. You were looking at the man, weakly struggling against König’s hold. 

Hm. There was no fear in your eyes. But you were alert to…something. Too close to Death, maybe? He wondered what it would take for you to react.

Without even looking back at the man, he pulled his fist back for a moment, the man gasping for air through broken teeth, and slammed him back into the wall. It was at that point that the man went limp in his hand. Your only reaction was to cough, blood spraying from your mouth and down your chin.  

‘Nothing?’

Returning his attention to the man, König pulled the back from the wall again and with his free hand grabbed the side of the man’s face. In one quick motion he pulled and snapped the man’s neck. That earned him…a cough for sure, but, was that a laugh turned to a cough? 

He dropped the man and kicked the body over, making sure that he was really dead, when he noticed you moving out of his peripheral. You had wrapped both hands over the handle of the knife protruding from your stomach.

“You’ll only bleed out faster.” He raised his voice and turned his head enough to look at you again.

You froze and looked up at him as he slowly turned from the man to you. From where he had planted himself, he took  in more of your appearance, of your wounds. Your hands, now resting weakly in your lap, were cut from a blade and scraped up from the brick wall you were pushed into and cement below you, proving that you had at least attempted to fight back before being overpowered. There was a large gash below your neck and over your collarbone that leaked blood onto your nude chest. A shame, a quick thought crossed his mind, that such a pretty pair of tits is going to die.

His eyes followed down the rivulet of blood from your chest to your waist. Oh. Cherries. What he initially mistook as blood splatter all over your pretty white dress was in fact part of the dress itself, a pattern of cute little cherries. What a vision you were, must have looked like a little angel before you met your fate. 

“Hey,” you croaked out in a heavy, wet, sigh. 

Since it seemed to take so much effort to get one word out, he did you the favor of moving closer to you. Once he was near enough to you, his eyes drifted down to the knife. He didn’t kill that man to save you. In fact, it was his intent to let you die. He could finish the job. Do it quickly too, as a mercy. 

“Can you-” You breathed out another heavy sigh, attempting to curb a cough. “-kiss me?”

König’s eyes snapped up to your face, blinking and his head tilting even more as he processed your question. Did he hear you right? “What?” 

“I want,” you paused and licked your lips that were both dry but slick in blood. “My last kiss to be my choice.” 

Ah! He blinked once more as he looked at your pathetically small body and the puddle of blood under you. You knew you were going to die. 

He never had a witness to one of his killings. He also never fulfilled someone’s dying wish. An odd night of firsts. He dropped down to one knee next to you and nodded. “Alright.” What was the harm in it?

With one gloved hand he gently tilted your chin towards him and lifted the bottom of his hood with the other. His eyes slid shut as he softly pressed his lips to yours. He meant for it to be chaste, just a small peck to honor your wish, but the metallic tang of your blood slipped into his mouth, and he liked it. The coppery blood was tinged with a hint of what he could only describe as sweet. He had never tasted blood like that. His own was acrid in comparison. He wanted more. 

He leaned down closer and pressed his lips just a bit harder against yours, agitating the cut on your lip. He swiped his tongue across your bottom lip, gently sucking on the cut in your lip to draw more blood into his mouth and he had to hold back a moan. As tempted as he was to shove his tongue further, a pained whimper from you stopped him. He pulled away, licking his lips as he dropped his hood back in place.

You coughed out a muttered “thank you,” and sighed, like you were ready to accept your death. 

Too bad he hadn’t met you earlier in the night, he thought as he looked at you again. Then, and he’s not sure why he even tried, he pulled a knife from his belt and began to cut away at the top of your dress that was already hanging off of your body. “Remain calm, Engel.” 

Once he had a sufficient amount of fabric he pressed it around the knife wound. “Keep pressure here.” 

Your hands, small and weak, took over and despite the pained cry, you did as he said.

He stood up quickly and picked up your phone, or what he simply assumed was your phone. The screen was cracked but still lit up as he pressed a side button. The emergency number was just one press away from being dialed. 

He hit dial and returned to you, helping you stem the bleeding once more, and held the phone up to your mouth. “Tell them where we are. You might live if they’re fast enough.” 

You coughed out an answer to the operator, barely managing a weak “help” with a street name and the name of the club you stepped out of. 

You were unconscious by the time he saw emergency lights, but at least you were still alive. He remained with you as long as he could, daring even a few seconds too long, and slipped away before police and paramedics found you. And the body of the man who attacked you.

Even as König sat in his truck, forcing himself to relax, he knew it would be better for him if you died. 

He hoped you lived. 

[Death’s Touch] 

A week ago he met a dying angel with sweet and pretty blood. He expected the police to show up within a day or two. Even if he hadn’t shown his face to you, or done something so stupid as to give you a name, how many behemoth men with Austrian accents were there in the city? That simple description of him was the reason why he was careful there were no witnesses to his killings. That simple description was why he had considered letting you die in that alley. 

But the police never showed up. 

König frowned as he fit the last piece of the gun he had been meticulously cleaning in place. Did the police not show up because you…died? He waited too long to help you and now he’d never even get to know your name.

Of course, he didn’t know for sure that you were dead, and that had him anxious. He had to know.

A few days later, and an I.O.U to Hutch, König was able to read the police report from that night. He learned three important things. The first was that you were still alive. The second was that there was no mention of him, or even a rescuer. No description of a large man. No APB out on him. And lastly, he learned your name and address.

You lived in a modest flat, the worst thing about it was its utter lack of security. There wasn’t even a gate. It was too easy to find various watch points that looked into your flat. Or would have. You apparently weren’t in the habit of opening your curtains. Only a good thing, as far as he was concerned, who knows what kind of creeps could be watching?

For a day, he wondered if he had the right flat. He’d been watching all day and didn’t see you once. Just before his patience wore out the next day, however, food was delivered to your flat and he finally caught a glimpse of you again. 

That was it. The confirmation he needed. You were alive and for whatever reason you didn’t tell the police about him. Both good things. 

He could leave. He could forget about you now. 

…

It was two days later when you finally left your flat. Yes, he was still watching your flat, a sense of relief flooding him every time you opened the door for food. 

He followed you until you parked at a clinic. He knew there would be cameras all over the place, so he continued driving and didn’t pull into the same parking lot as you. Instead he drove to the next light, made a u-turn and parked at the drug store across the street. 

An hour and a half later he saw you leave the clinic. You were fast, one might even say you were lightly jogging. As he started his truck to follow you, he realized that you walked at that same speed when you left the flat. 

“Oh, my little angel. Are you frightened?” 

Too scared to leave the safety of your home most days, and barely leaving to see a doctor. Well, he couldn’t blame you.

A part of him was content knowing that he would be able to easily find you now. 

Just his luck, though, his leave was up and he had to ship out to a new base. Hopefully, by time he got back you would still be holed up in your little flat, safely tucked away for him.

-

By the time he was granted leave again, it had been four months since you were attacked. It didn’t take him long to find you again. Of course you were at home, and that morning he followed you to an office, then back home. A routine. Having a solid routine helped with his own anxiety, of course it would ease yours. 

The only thing that did surprise him was that from his old vantage point, and with the help of a scope, he was able to see into your bedroom now. Not a full view, but the curtains were cracked just enough. The weather had been getting better, had you opened your window at one point and weren’t so diligent with the curtains when you closed it? 

Blue light softly illuminated your room as you settled into bed that night. He could sympathize with you. He knew plenty of men who could not sleep without the aid of some kind of white noise. But as he watched you through his scope he realized that the tossing and turning he thought was keeping you awake was more intentional than not. There was no mistaking the way you were rolling your hips.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath as he leaned forward in his truck, as if that could somehow get him a better view through your window. 

His dick twitched when you turned to lay flat on your stomach, your hips rocking faster against the pillow (or blanket?) that you had between your legs. He thought about you in that alley, looking all pretty so close to death, “-kiss me?” and tasting so sweet. 

You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, your head hanging down but still turned away from him. Not that he could really make out your figure fully, his mind was filling in what he could not see. One of his hands dropped to his crotch to adjust his pants, but didn’t touch his semi-hard dick. He liked to think he had more self control than that. Until he remembered that little whimper you let when he kissed you too hard and he needed to hear you again.

Before he could stop himself to weigh his decision, he was already out of the truck and halfway across the parking lot. He was called a human battering ram, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be stealthy, or pick a lock. In fact, he was already trying to think of a way to get you new, better, locks since it was so easy to break into your flat. 

The lights were all off and in dark clothes and his sniper hood, it was easy to blend into the shadows. The place was small, the door opened into an open concept living room to kitchen. He paid no mind to furnishing, focusing instead on the light that emanated from the bedroom. 

As he got closer to the door, left slightly ajar, the sound of heavy breathing got louder. It was a sound that sent an excited thrum through his veins as he leaned against the wall and peeked into the bedroom.

In the time it had taken for him to enter your flat, you had switched positions again. You were sitting up on your knees, back towards him (the door, rather), with a blanket pooled around you and a pillow between your thighs. You weren’t wearing anything provocative, just a large tee shirt from what he could see, but it was bunched up around your hips just reaching your bare thighs. 

He could feel his body getting hotter, his dick getting harder, but he was trained well enough to keep his breathing steady, quiet. Fuck though, what he would give to see you from the front, or below. To have you riding his cock like that, your soft hands planted firmly on his chest as you were now bracing yourself on the bed. 

You let out a gasp, such a sweet sound that went straight to his dick, and arched your back, one hand flying behind you to steady yourself while the other pulled the pillow harder against you. He closed his eyes for a second, savoring your breaths, as he imagined gripping your hip, you’d probably cry out from how rough his hands were, but you’d like it anyway. He imagined watching his cock stretching out your little pussy while his other hand played with your clit.

When he opened his eyes again, he glanced over at the laptop (the source of light that he initially mistook for a television) but it wasn’t angled right for him to see what was on the screen. It was obvious, with the way you kept your eyes on the screen, though. There was no sound that he could hear, so he figured you were wearing earbuds. What kind of porn did his little angel like to watch? Huge cock, perhaps? Did you fantasize about taking a cock as big as his? 

Underneath his hood he had to bite down on his lips to keep from groaning, especially when you started to moan as you started to bounce and grind your pussy harder onto that stupid fucking pillow. He could give you something so much better to rub your pussy on. 

One of your hands snaked under your shirt to play with your tits, your whines getting a little louder and he squeezed his fists hard. If he touched himself now, he wouldn’t stop until he came, and that was a little too risky right now. 

Just as he was about to give in and stuff his hand down his pants, you let out a muffled moan, one hand covering your mouth, even though no one was (supposed) to be around to hear you. Your hips slowed down to gentle rolls as you leaned forward, slowly stretching out and riding out your orgasm. His hips jerked forward, seeking friction against nothing, and his eyes rolled back at your moan. 

Your little whimpers still filling the air only made his cock throb painfully hard in his pants. He remained still, watching as you slowly got up and moved to the other side of the room. Judging by the light suddenly flooding the room for a second only to fade when he heard a door close, he assumed it was the bathroom. He sighed, leaning against the wall, and took a deep breath, hoping to catch your scent. 

He quickly left while you were cleaning up, and took extra care to make sure your door was locked. 

As soon as he made it back to his truck, he tore off his gloves, shucked his pants down just enough to pull his dick out and spit in his hand. He leaned back, eyes closed as he recalled what he had just seen with vivid detail. 

"Mmm, fuck. Engel." He mumbled under his breath as his hand pumped fast strokes up and down his cock. 

He could still see you humping your pillow, still hear the symphony of your moans filling the air. He squeezed harder, rolled his hand over the tip of his cock and spread the ample precum down the shaft. He was so close already. His hips bucked up as he fucked his fist, picturing you bouncing on his cock. He groaned, your name slipping out of his mouth, even though you had yet to formally introduce yourself to him. 

His whole body tensed, his breath coming out in desperate ragged pants, as he stroked himself faster. A litany of curses, in both English and German, filled the cabin as he came. He continued to stroke himself slowly, with a loose grip, as he eased himself down, just as had. He even imagined himself burying his nose in the crook of your neck, or resting his forehead on your shoulder, making you whimper from lazy and sloppy kisses.

He finally opened his eyes, a spark of sadness in his heart as he saw nothing but the roof of his truck instead of the vision that was you. He sighed and reached the hand that wasn't covered in his own cum around the passenger seat to grab a few napkins he'd thrown there earlier. 

Once he cleaned up, as well as he could, he returned home. He just needed a few hours of sleep. He knew your schedule, he'd return later.

-

He arrived back at your flat after you should have left for work. He scanned the car lot to make sure your car was gone (it was) and made sure the coast was clear to break into your flat again (it was). This time he did take a moment to take in the space. Everything was meticulously clean, spotless, not even dust in high up places. He wondered if you were like this before the attack, or if this was a result of self isolation. 

Then he moved over to the bedroom. Just like the living room, everything was nicely in order and the bed was perfectly made. Excited warmth spread through him when he saw two pillows sitting on your bed. He slipped his hood off, hooking it in his waistband, and dropped onto the bed. He took a deep breath and nuzzled his face into one of the pillows. An incredibly intoxicating mix of perfume and detergent and you filled his senses and he hummed in delight. 

One hand reached up and gripped the other pillow, feeling the softness, about to bring it to his chest when he paused. He spotted your laptop on the nightstand and sat up. He picked it up, a tube of cherry chapstick rolling to the other side of the nightstand, and opened it up. He watched the screen as it loaded. 

No password? Well, he supposed that made sense considering you lived alone. 

Now, he tapped away, what had you so worked up last night? 

His eyebrows shot up, eyes a little wide, as he made his way through your browser history. “Oh, Engel.” He felt himself getting excited as saw various types of CNC and rape porn. “You still think about that night.” Honestly, he did too. 

Before he got too turned on, he made sure to clear the history and set the laptop back where he found it. Then he got up and straightened out the bed. 

If that was what you wanted, he would be happy to help fulfill your fantasies.

-

It had been four months since your attack. Everyone around you had been sympathetic at first. It was a bit overwhelming, having people you barely talked to go out of their way to make sure you weren’t feeling unsafe. It only took two months for them to move on. It was a blessing in that you felt like you finally had space to breathe, but now people were unpredictable, unwanted casual touches or getting too close to you, and it had you retreating back to your cubicle every time. 

When you declined invitations to go out, people would joke that you were being boring. Maybe it was time you moved on too?

The next time you were invited out, you agreed, on the condition that you didn’t have to go home to change. 

“Yay! That’s fine! Trust me, it’ll be fun!” Your friend and coworker said as she slapped hand on your shoulder.

You winced and moved out of her touch with the excuse of needing to get back to your desk. The rest of the day was thankfully uneventful and you soon found yourself at a new bar.

Thirty minutes in, once the appetizers were gone and the alcohol flowing freely, your work friends got to be a little much. You didn't want to drink, you were assured that no one would be getting drunk. That was wrong, of course, and you silently wondered if you were invited just to be designated driver and get everyone home safely. You were not going to do that.

It was easy to slip away unnoticed. You just needed some space and so headed towards the back where the bathrooms were. 

For a Friday night it felt oddly empty. Maybe because it was out of the way, maybe because it looked like an employee only area. Whatever the case, you’re thankful for-

You didn’t even have to catch your breath before you were suddenly pushed into a wall, a large hand clasp around your mouth preventing you from screaming. Fear and panic shot through your body as memories of the night you were attacked surfaced, fueling your struggle. Not again, not here, not with so many people around. 

Both of your hands pulled at the hand on your mouth and you finally looked up only to freeze. Even the panic in you seized up, unsure whether or not you were being threatened. Piercing blue eyes stared at you from underneath a black hood. The bleach stained tear streaks are a frightening illusion of humanity that you’re not certain is even there. 

“You!” Well, at least that what you tried to say, his hand still muffled your voice.

This man, the man who saved you that night, held you up against the wall, your toes barely scraping the floor, with one hand covering your mouth. It was almost the exact same position your attacker held you in right before he stabbed you. Part of you wanted to panic still, had your heart racing and breathing quickly. But another part of you was just…confused. He wasn’t doing anything else but holding you. If he had wanted to kill you, among other things, he could have done it back in that alley. Instead he saved you. He killed the man who attacked you. He helped you call an ambulance. He stopped you from bleeding out. You didn’t even say a word about him to the police. So why would he want to hurt you now?

You tried to calm your breathing as you stared up into his eyes. Cold blue locked you into place, but the danger in his eyes wasn't malice. It was something else entirely. 

Finally he lifted his hand from your mouth, you drawing in a gasp of air, and set you fully back on your feet. His free hand remained firmly planted on the wall beside your head, keeping you in place flush between him and the wall. Then he gently traced your bottom lip with his thumb, landing where a now healed cut once split your lip. Your heart raced, heat blooming across your face, as you remembered his kiss. That kind of intensity in a kiss, in any other situation, would have been erotic. Really, you had been on the verge of death and it was still probably the best kiss you'd had in years. 

You whimpered at his touch. He had been so rough even though he thought you were going to die and now the pressure of his thumb on your lip sent an arousing wave of fear through you. 

He leered down at you, eyes starting to dilate, "tell me to stop." 

With your heart hammering in your chest, it took a moment for you to register his words. What? 

You opened your mouth, no words forming, and his thumb slipped past your lips and grazed your teeth. You whined, which only seemed to spur him on, and he pushed against your jaw even more, forcing your mouth wider. “Speak up, Engel.” 

He was so close to you, his knee slid between your legs, rubbing against your core and pushing you higher against the wall again. You let out a shuddering gasp, your hands flying from him in an attempt to stabilize yourself against the wall, but you made no move, made no demand, to stop him. He rocked his knee up, grinding slowly and gently into your pussy, drawing a quiet moan from you. Your pussy clenched when he put pressure on your clit and you bit down on his thumb, hot tongue brushing against the invading digit. 

König grinned, though you could not see it, and chuckled. He leaned even closer to you, hood pooling over your shoulder and growled in your ear. “Fucking slut.” 

This time your gasp was cut short as he slapped a hand across your mouth again. He lifted you with ease, tucked you against his body and dragged you out of the bar through the back door, not one person seeing the quick departure. 

You struggled against him, hands flying to the one over your mouth and you clawed at him, you kicked your feet but he was so big and tall that he easily held you above the ground. He wanted to chuckle. You reminded him of a feral kitten caught by animal control. Just as cute, or cuter, even.

He didn’t drop you until he reached the side of the bar. There was a gate separating the dingy little alley and the parking lot, decorative trees planted near the gate. It was unlocked, he made sure it was before he approached you, but it still would still provide the illusion that you were trapped.  

You grunted when your feet hit the ground, stumbling forward into the brick wall. You tried to duck around the man, but he easily swung you back in front of him, pushing you against the wall, though he cushioned the back of your head with one large hand.

You looked up at him as you drew in panicked, quick breaths. Just like before, he leered down at you as if he was waiting for you to say something. You bit your lip, his eyes flicking down to watch as your teeth worried at your bottom lip. “Wh-what do you want?”

His eyes looked back up and slowly he lifted a knife you hadn't even seen him grab to your throat. You stilled and tipped your head back, attempting to get the blade away from your delicate skin. There was a scar on your neck that you usually kept covered up, but like this, it was exposed to him.

He traced the scar with the tip of his knife, “what do you want, Engel?”

You swallowed thickly, holding as still as possible so he didn't slice through your skin. And you didn't answer him.

He huffed, “do you want me to stop?” The knife dragged down the scar to the collar of your shirt. “That's all you have to say, my dear.”

As much as you tried to control your breathing, your chest was heaving, drawing his eyes down to it for a moment before he looked up again. That hood made it difficult to read him, but his eyes were so expressive. You knew what he wanted. The heat in his eyes matched the nearly overwhelming heat his large body gave off. The same heat you could feel swelling in your body. You swallowed again, your mouth refusing to answer his question.

“No?” The knife slipped underneath your collar and he tugged, slicing through the fabric. 

It was so similar yet different to the sound of fabric being torn apart and ripped off of your body. It was cleaner, sharper and the definite but soft scratch of the tip of the blade on your heated skin sent your pulse wild. He hummed as he cut open your shirt, revealing the plain bra underneath.  

You hadn't even realized just how hard you were breathing, how much your chest heaved with every breath, until his blade bounced on the swell of your breast and he sucked his teeth. “Stay still.” He growled out, eyes flicking up to your eyes and away from your exposed chest.

You bit back a high pitched gasp, holding your breath as he dragged the blade across your chest, until he reached the left bra strap.

You shivered as you heard the soft ping of the knife slicing through the strap. He once again looked up from your chest to your eyes, his own narrowing in disapproval. “Perhaps you want to be hurt, hm?”

You whined and squeezed your eyes shut, attempting to hold your breath again to remain as still as possible. He slowly moved the tip of the knife across your chest again, this time angling it so more of the edge touched your skin. Another ping and you flinched as the other strap of your bra was cut.

He was silent for only a moment, the flat of the blade resting near the middle of your chest, just by your left breast, every beat of your heart making it jump ever so slightly. You could hear his heavy breaths, almost feel them against your face, even through that terrifying hood. For a moment, in that silence, you thought you were safe. That he was done.

Until he quickly shoved his free hand up the back of your shirt and unhooked your bra clasp. You squealed, eyes flying open, and jumped as he ripped what remained of your bra off of you. You only caught a glimpse of his eyes, blown wild with lust, before he spun you around and pushed you face first into the brick wall.

Your hands, which had been covering your chest in an attempt to save your dignity, were now bracing you against the wall so you didn't smash your face into it. You shivered again, remembering how he killed your attacker months ago, by shoving him so hard against a brick wall that he lost consciousness.

The hand holding the knife came to rest to the right side of your face against the wall. The metal gave an unnerving scrape against the brick that caused another shiver to run down your spine. His left hand snaked around to grope your left breast. His large hand, hot and rough, cupped your soft flesh with ease.

“Such pretty tits,” he hummed as he pinched your nipple, drawing another distressed squeak from you as your nipples hardened under his touch.

Your eyes were screwed shut once again and you attempted to wriggle out of his hold. You pressed your body as close to the wall as you could, but that only made him close in on you more, his crotch now firmly resting on your ass. He moved his hand to grope your other breast and bucked his hips forward with a deep grunt, the hard bulge of his cock rubbing against your ass. You bit back a whimper as your pussy clenched around nothing, arousal starting to pool in your panties.

His hand traveled down, grabbing what was left of your shirt and tearing it, leaving it hanging open on your shoulders. Your body welcomed the sudden partial nudity. The air was hot and thick and it felt like a cool relief to be free of even the light cotton. He pressed his hand against your stomach, pulling you against him even more, and for a moment he froze.

All the roughness in his touch disappeared as his fingers gently traced the nasty scar on your stomach. You whined, not from desperate arousal but shame. After what happened to you, you should be trying harder to fight this. You shouldn't want this, no matter how deep down it was, or how hard you tried to deny it. You dropped your head against the wall, resting your forehead against one hand as you waited for him to finish his assault.

König growled at your reaction to the scar on your stomach. You had looked up at him with growing lust, as tentative as that was, when he traced the scar on your neck with his knife. But the scar on your stomach, evidence of how close your brush with death had been, had paralyzed you. You were too quiet for him to enjoy this. He wanted to hear you cry and whimper, wanted to feel you rocking your body against his as you had been only a moment ago. Most of all, he didn't didn't want you to fear him.

He steadied you with his left hand, his hand heavy on your bare shoulder, and used his right to rip the rest of the tattered shirt off of you. You gasped and cried, and not in the way he wanted to hear, as you stood facing the wall with both arms crossed over your chest and your eyes squeezed shut. Then he removed the simple field jacket he was wearing and draped it over your shoulders.

You froze again as you were suddenly enveloped in warmth and spun around to face your savior/attacker. He roughly pulled the jacket closed, deft fingers fastening the button that fell just over your belly button. You were still somewhat exposed to him, but the scar on your stomach was now once again hidden underneath a layer of clothing.

Your mind barely registered the glint of his knife before it was pressed to your neck once more. He dug the point of the blade into the scar, not enough to puncture, but enough to draw your attention back up to his face.

His eyes were narrowed, furrowed brows peeking beneath the crudely cut eye holes of his mask. If you could see the rest of his face, he would probably be scowling at you.

As much as you wanted to grip the jacket closed, you kept your arms stiff at your sides. One wrong move could open up the scar on your neck again. 

He leaned down, his face inching closer to yours, his blade biting just a little bit more. "Say it." His voice is half a whisper, half a frustrated growl. 

Your lips part, tongue darting out to lick them, but you remained quiet, afraid to give him the wrong answer to his riddle. 

He growled again and pushed you harder against the wall. "Say it!" He practically screamed, and his knife finally pierced your skin, drawing just the slightest bit of blood. 

You flinched, as fear and pain laced adrenaline rushed through your veins, to your core, your clit throbbing as the knife stung your skin. Unconsciously, you steadied yourself by bracing your hands on his sturdy chest. His eyes flickered down at the movement, at the way you were clutching to him and squeezing your thighs together and he grinned under his mask. Oh you were scared of him alright, and you wanted it.  “Filthy fucking whore.” 

Your gasp, perhaps a protest of his words, if you even understood them, is strangled as you find yourself facing the wall again, his thick jacket protecting your hands and arms from the rough brick. 

His right hand holds his knife against the left side of your neck, still pressed against the old scar as his left is shoved down your pants. You whine and gasp and squirm as he circles your clit with two fingers. He groans behind you and his hips jerk forward, the motion causing the blade to cut your skin some more, a thin trail of blood starting to stain your skin. 

You cry, biting your lip and dropping your head against the wall, at the mixed sensations, the stinging pain blending with the pure pleasure of his fingers slipping up and down, around, your clit.

He groaned as his fingers slipped further down and spread your slick around your pussy. You squeezed your thighs around his hand and he pants in your ear before shoving a knee between your thighs, preventing you from closing them. 

His knee between your legs pushes you up against the wall and your toes barely find purchase on the ground. “You want this, ja?” He says as he starts to rock your hips against his thigh as his hand continues to play with your pussy. 

His fingers, hot and thick, slip into you as his palm rubs your clit. “Ja.” He grunts as he sinks a second finger into you, slowly pumping them.  His fingers pick up their pace and you moan when he inserts another digit. He curls his fingers just right as he pumps them, drawing out whines that you try to quiet. You hide your face in your hands, finding odd comfort in the warm scent that lingers on his coat, and choke back a moan as your hips are rocked against his thigh faster.

He pulls his fingers out, soaked in your juices, and goes back to focusing on your clit. “Of course you want this,” he half chuckles and half pants as finally removes his hand from your pussy, strings of cum sticking to your exposed skin as he nudges your chin with the knife so your head leans back against his chest. 

He held his hand up, spreading his fingers to show you your own arousal. "You wouldn't be this fucking wet if you didn't want this." 

You tried to turn your head away, so you didn't have to look at those lust clouded eyes in soft darkness, but he tuts and shoves two cum covered fingers into your mouth. He hummed as he watched you gag on his fingers, at least he relented enough that you were no longer deepthroating his fingers. “Wouldn’t be fucking my thigh like a desperate whore if you didn’t want this.” 

You froze, as if just realizing that with one of his hands still holding a knife to your throat and the other stuffing your mouth with his fingers, the eager grinding of your hips on his thigh was entirely you. He laughed and rocked his knee up into your aching pussy, “don’t stop now.”

The drag of his knee puts perfect pressure on your clit and you whine around his fingers as your pussy clenches around nothing. “Keep. Moving.” He growled in your ear as he glides the knife down the old scar down your neck to just above your collarbone, a thin line of blood beading against your skin. It stings and your cries are smothered by his fingers and he rocks his knee up again and you slide against his thigh just right that the pain becomes pleasure. 

He moans with you as you start to grind down in his leg again, back and forth and you even do your best to bounce while your feet barely touch the ground. His hips start to move with you, his hard cock on your ass adding fuel to the fire that burns within you. 

He’s grunting now, everytime you bounce against his dick, and he drops his hand from your mouth and starts to grope your tits again, making your shudder as he squeezes, his grip is bruising but your clit still throbs, your pussy still flutters with every touch of his rough hands.

The knife finally drops from your neck and he holds it against your waist then leans down, the mask he is wearing falling over your shoulder and you feel his breath on your bare skin.

“You belong to me now, Engel.” 

You gasp and shiver as he mumbles darkly into your neck, head lolling back so you can look at him, but all you see is the black of his mask. His grip on you tightens, the handle of the knife pushing into your hip painfully, his hand fondling your breasts roughly, his thigh pushing up against your pussy pleasurably. 

His tongue, hot and big, laps at your shoulder in a smothered kiss before he bites down, his sharp teeth catching the edge of the cut on your neck and that’s enough to push you into orgasm. You pussy wildly, almost painfully, clenching as you cum against his leg. 

He hums, strangely gentle, and slowly rocks you back and forth on his leg, letting your orgasm fade until your wanton moans are no more than the occasional whimper. 

You stumble forward into the wall when he drops his knee. Your clit is still throbbing as you pull the jacket closer to you and hide your face in your hands. You’re mostly just trying to catch your breath and calm down, but somewhere in the back of your mind you still feel shame at the way your cum gushes down your thighs, soaking into your pants. 

You barely register the shuffling behind you until you feel his hands on you again. You flinch, expecting him to be rough, but his touch is gentle as he rubs your arms. “You did good.” He mumbles his compliment into your hair. “Let’s go.” 

You can’t exactly say no to him, as he easily swoops you up off of your feet and carries you through the rickety gate to the bar parking lot. You absently note how easy it was for him to push the gate open, but do not let your thoughts linger on it once he unlocks a truck and sets you down in the passenger seat. 

He’s kind enough to adjust the jacket to cover your chest entirely before he buckles you up. His hips brush against your leg and you break out of the dazed reverie when you feel how hard his cock still is. 

 “Where are you taking me?” 

The man, your…savior (you feel hesitant to label him as your attacker, even after what just happened), slips off the hood before he looks up at you. His hair is disheveled and matted down with sweat and even in the faint street lighting you can see a few scars scattered around his clean shaven face. His eyes, icy cold blue, the only part of him you could see before, shine with something…soft? Unexpected, certainly. 

“Home.” He answers and drops the hood in your lap before shutting the door and walking around to the driver side. 

You hold the mask up in your hands as he starts the engine. The bleached tear stains and empty eye holes stare up at you suggesting danger and pain and death, and safety.

-

When he said home, he apparently meant his home. You felt silly for thinking he knew where you lived. The place he pulls up to is nice. Much nicer than you expected for a man so dangerous, more importantly you supposed, it’s spacious. There was some good distance between his house and the last house you saw and that has your pulse speeding up as he opens the door for you.

He doesn’t even wait for you to move, for you to second guess everything, before unbuckles you and carries you inside. You want to insist that you can walk on your own, but you are sticky with cum and dried blood and honestly, he’s so warm.

When he mumbles something about cleaning up you just nod and let him place you in a shower. You only react when he strips down and steps into the shower with you. 

It could have been a sensual shower, it was certainly big enough and as you catch a glimpse of how big his dick is when it is soft, your clit twitches at the memory of it hard and rutting against your ass. But he is quick to wash himself, and though he spends more time washing your body (or maybe he was just taking his time to feel you up), it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. 

You want to tell him there isn’t really a point in applying that ointment he is gently spreading along the scar on your neck. It’s already healed to an ugly scar.  But he is so gentle as he bandages the fresh cut and rubs you dry with a soft towel as you sit on his very large bed. 

“What’s your name?” 

Would it have been better or worse to ask for his name before he fingered you in some dirty back alley?

“König.” He doesn’t give more than that.

“König.” You repeat and he looks up at you from where he is kneeling on the floor in front of you. “Thank you. For killing that man.” 

He hummed as he continued to pat your thighs dry with the oversized towel that was wrapped around you. “You didn’t tell the police about me.” 

It’s not a question. Somehow he knows that you didn’t tell the police, so you just shrug. “I told them I don’t remember what happened after I got stabbed.” 

His hands stop moving and rest on the outsides of your thighs, playing with the hem of the towel. “But you do remember?” 

You nod. “Everything.” 

There’s a beat of uncomfortable silence between you, his fingers start tapping against your thighs and he shifts his weight. The towel that he has wrapped around his waist threatens to fall loose and he uses the excuse to secure it as an opportunity to break his gaze with you.

“What you said back there, that I belong to you now. What does that mean?” 

This time he meets your eyes, “what it sounds like.” 

“...Does that mean you’ll protect me?” 

He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.” And he drops a small kiss to your knee, letting his lips linger on your skin.

You reach out and gently cup his cheek to push him away from your legs. “Can you be gentle?” König moves his face just enough to kiss the inside of your wrist. “Yes.” 

Whether he takes your question as a suggestion, or he simply decided that it was time to move onto other activities, he leans down again and places another kiss to your knee, gently spreading your legs and moving his mouth to your inner thigh. As he moves his mouth to splay a kiss on your other thigh, one of his large hands comes up to remove the towel on you body, brushing against your covered breast for just a moment before he tugs on the towel. 

You don’t let the towel drop completely, holding it tight to your chest, and he pauses his sweet kisses.

“Look at me,” he demands, stretching up and leaning against the bed, one knee between yours as he grabs your chin and forces you to look at him. His grip is firm but not painful, not even close to how tightly he had grabbed you earlier in the night. 

Your eyes jump from one scar to another before settling on his steely eyes. “Good. Now,” he leans in closer, lips hovering over yours, “trust me.” 

His kiss starts off gentle before his tongue finds that spot on your bottom lip where it was once split, he nibbles and sighs as if he can still taste the blood that was once there. Your lips part when you feel his teeth and his tongue glides against yours. It’s slow and gentle and has you melting into his touch, dropping the towel that hides your scars from him. He wastes no time in tossing it off the bed, his lips never leaving yours even as he slides his hands over your waist to pull you closer to the edge of the bed.

You let out a little squeak at the sudden movement and he grins as he pulls away from the kiss, breathing against your lips. “Remember. Trust me.” 

You can only nod as he moves his mouth down your neck, placing soft quick kisses over the fresh bandages before he moves to the other side of your neck. His kisses on the juncture of your neck become sloppy, his tongue lapping at your skin like it is covered in something sweet. He bites down hard, teeth sinking into your soft flesh, turning your quiet little pants into a gasping moan. 

“You belong to me now.” He repeats his claim between gentle soothing kisses on the fresh bite mark he just made. 

You nod, accepting your fate, as you grip onto his shoulders. He hums and trails his mouth down your body, gently kissing the bruises that started to bloom on your breasts from how hard he groped you before. Your soft whimper, born of pleasure and pain, makes his cock twitch underneath his towel and he shucks that off too. 

He lays you down on your back and swirls his tongue around a nipple, enjoying the way you arch into his mouth. “Look at me.” He reminds you when he sees that you have closed your eyes.

When you look at him again he grins and playfully bites your nipple, laughing at the little squeak you let out before. Your giggles turn into a soft sigh as he moves to your other breast. His touch has you sinking into a cloud of lust. You want to throw your head back, close your eyes, and surrender to him, but you remember his order and keep your eyes on him.

You go tense when he trails his kisses down to your stomach. His eyes shoot up at you, making sure you are still watching him, as he traces the horrid scar with his lips and tongue. Eventually, with the help of his big warm hands running soothing touches up and down your body, you stop squirming uncomfortably. You’re still squirming, but for entirely different reasons. König notices and with a grin he pushes himself up, pulling you up with him and placing one of your hands on his stomach.

Admittedly, your touch and mind is drawn to the hard muscle, padded with a healthy layer of fat, flexes under your hand. You want to touch the rest of him, explore the rest of him. It is only after a second that you realize what you are touching. A scar. Raised skin in a jagged pattern, like someone attempted to twist the knife that stabbed him. You gently trace the scar as if you are afraid to agitate it. 

He senses your hesitation and laughs as he presses your palm against it even harder. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, Engel.” Then he reaches out to touch the scar on your stomach, smaller and cleaner, but fresher and still tender if pressed too hard. 

You look down at his hand on your scar and yours on his. They’re almost in the same place. He leans forward and presses a small kiss to your lips and rests his forehead against yours. “I should be dead. You should be dead.” This was simply proof that were meant for him, he was certain of that. 

Who needs matching tattoos when you have matching scars?

“König,” you breathe out, though you are not sure what you want to say to him. Instead, when his eyes meet yours, you kiss him. You wrap your arms around his broad shoulders and pull yourself as close to him as possible. 

He moans into the kiss and, tender moment over, pushes you fully against the bed again. He slides down your body again, stopping only momentarily to place a soft kiss on your stomach before he dives between your thighs. 

You don’t even have time to act shy before he’s spreading your legs and swiping his tongue through the folds of your pussy. He’s quick to circle his tongue around your clit, drawing out a soft moan between panting breaths, as your hips move up to meet his mouth. He groans, the subtle vibrations adding extra stimulation, and practically nuzzles your pussy, nose bumping against your clit as he sinks his tongue into your quivering hole. No matter what you do, hands pulling at his hair tightly or thighs clenching around his head, it only earns more moans from him. He laps at your pussy, your juices mixing with his spit and drags his tongue back up to your throbbing clit. 

He locks one hand onto your hip but the other travels up your body to your breasts. True to his word, he is gentle with them this time. No bruising grip sending you teetering on the edge of pleasure and pain. Instead he rolls your nipple, pinching just soft enough that it hardens under his touch. He moves his hand and repeats the action with your other breast, reveling in every little whine and gasp he pulls out of you. All the while he continues to eat your pussy like it’s his last meal.

He has you so needy and aching that it’s euphoric when he slips two fingers into you at once. Your pussy clenches around his fingers, reluctant to let him go but the slide of him pumping into you again makes you gush. One of your hands claws at his hair, gripping his locks to keep you grounded, but the other holds onto his hand that had been playing with your tits. Unable to properly play with your tits now, he laces his fingers with yours, holding your hand as he pulls and orgasm out of you,

Unlike the first time he made you cum, you don’t try to hold back your moans, you don’t hide your face from him, though at some point as he ate you out, you had thrown your head back and closed your eyes from how good it felt. He’d just have to forgive you for that.

König rests his check against one of your thighs as he watches you come down from your orgasm. 

It’s not until he gently squeezes his hand that is still holding yours that you look down at him. Somehow the sight of him between your thighs, face glistening with your cum, makes you blush even harder than you already were. 

“Ready for more, Engel?” 

You blink at him. “More?”

He chuckles and pushes himself up, first dropping a heated kiss onto your lips, his tongue sliding into your mouth and letting you taste yourself. As much as he could spend all night kissing you, right now he had another pressing need to take care of. He sat up on his knees, pushing your thighs further apart to accommodate him, and stroked his painfully hard cock.

Oh!

Your eyes are drawn to him and widen. You knew he was big. You’d seen him soft and felt it against your ass, but seeing it standing at full erection was another thing entirely. It’s easily the biggest cock you’ve ever seen, not even your favorite porn stars can hope to compete. 

You sit up and reach out to touch him, replacing his hand with your own and you swallow thickly. You wrap your fingers around the shaft, your pussy clenching when you see that your fingers don’t even meet. Still, you give gentle strokes, eyes glazing over at how much of his veiny cock you can still see around your fist. He’s already leaking copious amounts of precum, that you collect on your fingers to slick up your next stroke. You lean down and circle your tongue around the head, a shiver running down your spine when he moans wantonly as you wrap your lips around the head. 

You moan as you stretch your mouth around his cock and imagine what it would feel like stretching your pussy out. You let out a little gasp for air when you come back up, going from sucking to licking his cock, just so you can reach the base of it. König moans again and buries a hand in your hair. For a moment you think he’s going to force your mouth onto him again, but instead he pulls you up for another passionate kiss. 

“Another time. I need to fuck you.” He pants against your mouth when he pulls away.

You whimper and nod and throw yourself back onto the pillows, eager to accept the challenge of his massive cock. You drop one hand to your clit, rocking your fingers against the sensitive button. 

König produces a bottle of lube from the nightside and slicks himself up. In the future, he can take the time to make you cum enough times to take his dick naturally. But he is eager to feel you now. Besides, you look just as eager as he feels, as you watch him stroke himself. 

He nudges your hand away from your clit and replaces it with his own, rubbing lube along your pussy and drawing excited pants from you. He dips a finger in you, feeling your pussy clench around his finger and grins. “Engel?” 

You nod, “please, König!”

He slid the head of his cock through your folds, your pussy throbbing as the slick head rubbed against your clit. You whined at not being filled but the way his heavy cock bounced on your clit already had you desperately begging. 

He managed a strained chuckle, holding himself back from immediately fucking you was one of the hardest things he’s ever done, and pushed the tip of his dick against your entrance. He used his right hand to hold your hips, and used his left hand to rub languid circles around your clit. 

You choked back a garbled moan as you felt him begin to stretch you out.  Your chest heaved as you rocked your hips up, encouraging him to keep going. You were whimpering, writhing against the bed grasping at his shoulders as he sunk deeper into you. He was so fucking big and barely got the tip of his dick inside of you before you pussy began to frantically pulsate around him. He groaned and forced himself to stay still, for both of your sakes. You looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears and drool pooling at the corners of your mouth, and he almost lost it. He promised he’d be gentle though, at least this time.

He grabbed the bottle of lube again and squeezed some more out on his dick before thrusting forward again. Your pussy clenched around him, squeezing him desperately, as he slowly filled you. Though the size of his cock stretched you beyond anything you’d ever felt before, though it teetered to just the wrong side of pain, you couldn’t get enough of it. Especially with the way his thumb kept playing with your clit. You cried his name and tried to grind your hips up. 

He slowly dragged his cock out, moaning at the sight of your pussy clinging to him, and started another agonizingly slow push. 

“König,” you started with a breathy whine, “faster. Please.” 

He dropped down to one elbow and nuzzled his nose against the side of your face, missing your lips as he tried to kiss you and simply licking at your jaw. He muttered your name hotly in your ear, your pussy quivering at the sound of his strained voice. 

He snapped his hips forward, burying his cock deep in you and started frantic, rapid, strokes. You cried out, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his hips, he was so big and heavy and hard that your world was reduced to the pleasure he brought with every stroke of his amazing cock. 

He promised to be gentle, he knew he shouldn’t do it, but he couldn’t help but clamp his teeth down on your uninjured shoulder, muffling his own obscene moans as your pussy spasmed around him. His eyes rolled back in his head and his thrust became erratic, chasing an orgasm, as blood filled his mouth. Your blood was still so sweet, divine, enough to send him over the edge. His hips stilled as he cock twitched inside of you, spilling inside of you. 

You moaned, or screamed, when he bit you, leaving a second mark on you, and the string of his bite brought with it white hot pleasure. Hot cum filled you, your pussy convulsing rapidly, milking him and refusing to let go. 

He pulled out with a long groan, the two of you overstimulated and your pussy was still clenching around him, and collapsed to the side of you. He draped an arm around you and held you close to him, muttering something about angels in German that you didn’t have the faculties to translate at that moment. 

He was the first to recover, propping himself up on his elbows and leaning over to lick and kiss the fresh bite mark on your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

You gave a breathless laugh and lazily pulled his face up to kiss you. “Don’t worry, I liked it.” As if the mind blowing orgasm that followed the bite wasn’t a big enough hint.

“Now, can you let go of me?” 

“No.” 

Your laugh was sharper this time, and it brought a grin to his face. “Let go, I have to pee!” 

He sighed dramatically and grabbed your hand, bringing to his lips to press a gentle kiss on your knuckles. “Come back to me?”

Even as you pulled your hand out of his, you could feel the smile that graced his lips upon hearing you giggle. But at least he finally let you go. 

Your post orgasmic high wore off while you were cleaning up and your mind, having been clouded by lust since he grabbed you at the bar, was able to think straight.

You walked back to the room, feeling shy at your lack of clothing, and saw that he had changed the top blanket on the bed. The other soaked in cum, apparently. 

He looked up and smiled, bright and energetic despite how tired he was. “Engel, you came back!” He joked as he rushed over and pulled you into a hug. 

You kept still, but with his arms wrapped around you, you could do little else. He picked you up, much as he had done back at the bar, and set you down in the bed before he curled up next to you and pulled the covers over both of you.

“König?” 

He hummed as he nuzzled his face in your neck, inhaling your intoxicating combined scents.

“...I never told you my name.” 

[Death’s Promise]

“...I never told you my name.” 

König doesn’t answer you, only tightens his hold around you. It’s only when you try to shift, to put just enough distance between you that you can turn around and face him, that he speaks. His voice deceptively calm, if the way his arms tighten around you again is anything to go by. “I already told you, you belong to me now.”

You frown. That was no answer to how he knew your name. Or, now that you thought about it, how he knew that you didn’t tell the police about him. 

“It. It wasn’t a coincidence that you were at that bar tonight, was it?” You try not to stutter.

He doesn’t answer, instead starts to press his lips into the hickey on your shoulder. A reminder of his claim. 

“How long have you been following me?” 

His lips continue to move from your shoulder to your neck, stopping to nibble at your pulse point. You can feel the grin on his lips when your pulse speeds up.

Whatever he is making you feel, you repeat the question. “How long have you been following me?” 

“Go to sleep, Engel.” 

“At least tell me why.” 

“To make sure no one else touches you.” 

Well, it’s not like you wanted anyone to touch you anyway. And his touch isn’t unpleasant. Quite the opposite, really.

You should stop this. Get away from him. You knew he was dangerous, you saw it first hand, and who knows how long he’d been following you. Maybe since that very night you were attacked.

And yet, “...No one?” “No one.” 

That actually sounded kind of nice…

-

Work sucked. Mostly because of one person and the fact that you felt like you could do nothing about it. All you could do was race out at the end of the day and get home as quickly as possible. 

Home…It took all of a week for König to move you from your flat (he said it wasn’t safe at your old place and you weren’t going to question what he meant by that) into his house. Was it a rushed relationship? Sure. Was it a questionable, leaning towards dangerous, decision on your part? Absolutely. Did you regret it? Not at all. 

You let your frustrations out on a bunch of vegetables, your knife chopping through them and onto the cutting board with increasing force. You didn’t even realize how hard you were chopping until a large hand stopped your own before it hit the board again. You froze, König’s other arm wrapping around your waist as he leaned down to rest his chin on your head. 

“Careful, Engel. You don’t want to hurt yourself.” 

“Oh! König! I didn’t even hear you come in!” You crane your neck back so he could place a soft kiss to your lips. He does so with a pleased hum. 

His face is bare, a sight you quickly came to love. He leaves the simple mask he usually wears hanging in the entranceway. (His sniper hood he only dons when he’s deployed or when he’s “hunting”). 

“How could you with all that noise you were making? What did that poor carrot do to you?” 

You let out a sheepish chuckle, “sorry. Just thinking about work stuff.” 

You picked up one of the carrot rounds and held it up by your shoulder, where he leaned down and nibbled it out of your hand. 

“What about work?” 

You resumed your chopping, much less forceful. “Ugh. Nothing really. Just this guy keeps bothering me.” 

He tensed behind you, his grip on your waist getting tighter, not uncomfortably so, just more protective, as he growled out his question. “Has he touched you?” 

“No! Well, not like that…” The shoulder squeezes and lingering pats on the back were unwelcome, but, as your supervisor said, meant nothing more than that the guy was being friendly. “It’s really annoying to have to pick up his slack, especially after all of his little inappropriate comments.” 

König nodded as he listened to your rant, but all he heard was some man had dared to put his hands on you, even if you didn’t think it was sexual, and said something inappropriate to you. “Want me to kill him?” 

“Yes!” You giggle at the joke.

“Ok.” 

You freeze and turn around to face him. “Wait. I’m kidding.”

He smiles and presses a soft kiss to the top of your head. “Ok.” 

“No,” you press your lips in a straight line. “I’m serious. You can’t kill him.” 

The way he tilts his head is far too cute for someone as large as he is casually discussing murder. “Why not?”

It had been a while since he killed anyone. Why shouldn’t he kill someone you hated? Two birds, one stone.

“Because he works with me!”

“Not for long.” 

You laugh and gently push him out of the kitchen and into the living room. Once in the living room, you make him sit down on the couch, having to resort to pulling him down for a kiss to get him to settle. His hands naturally fall to your hips as you straddle him, clutching at the fabric of the simple cotton dress you had changed into after work. 

“Now, you listen to me,” you start with a firm poke to his chest, only to stop when you realize you were still holding the kitchen knife in your hand. Oops. Knowing him, though, he probably liked you threatening him with it. You twisted around in his lap just enough to drop the knife onto the coffee table in front of the couch and return your attention to him. “As much as I want you to kill the bastard, you can’t.” 

He furrows his brows, and is practically pouting as he asks his question again. “Why?”

“Because, everyone knows I have a problem with him.”

“And he still works there?” 

You had to bite back a laugh. He had a point. You were not the first to draw unwanted attention from the guy. Why complaints from more than one woman didn’t lead to any disciplinary action was questionable. Still, you ignore his question and continue.

“When the cops find him dead, or missing, I’ll be a suspect.” 

König chuckles as he moves his hands gently up and down your sides, moving your dress higher up your thighs with each pass of his hands. “You? Little one?” 

This time you do laugh a little. “Let me finish!”

Schooling his face, he nods. “Ok, tell me how you will be suspected of murder.”

“Not me!” You answer with a faux exasperated sigh. “They’ll look at me and realize I have a hard time even hurting a fly. But one look at you,” you start to drag your hands on either of his forearms, fingers dancing along his veiny muscles. “My giant, strong, military trained boyfriend and they’ll get suspicious.”

His smile has dropped, either from your prediction, or the way your hands continue to tantalize him and move up his arms to rest on his shoulders.

“Even if they don’t find proof, they’ll at least surveille you for a bit. Do you really want the police looking into you?” 

For a moment he is quiet, no joking, even his grip on your hips is still. He can’t pretend that what you said is entirely unsound. No matter how careful he was to leave no trace behind, the personal connection to you would always be suspect. 

“So,” you lean in close to him, your lips hovering close to his. “You’re not going to kill him, right?” 

He averts his eyes and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to lie to you, and your reason, while sound, isn’t enough to deter him. 

“König,” your voice is stern and you grab his chin and force him to look at you. 

“This man has touched you.” 

You want to roll your eyes. You want to pretend like he’s playfully overreacting. Certainly a couple of lingering pats does not warrant murder, but if there’s anything you’ve learned about König, at least when it comes to you, is that he’s intense. He is one hundred percent planning on killing your coworker just because he touched your shoulder. 

Your hands slide down his shoulders to rest on his chest, just above his heart where you clench at his shirt. “Promise me you won’t kill him.” When he still doesn’t answer you frown and press your forehead onto his. “I need you, König. I need you to stay with me.” Your voice wavers a little as you lock your eyes with his. “I need you to protect me.” 

“Fine, my love.” He finally sighs and captures your lips in a gentle kiss; he can’t stand to see you looking so sad because of something he might do. “I will not kill him.” 

“Good.” You nod and smile at him, and your smile is so brilliant that it is enough to sate his bloodlust. 

You lean forward again to kiss him, with all intentions to pull away and go back to making dinner. But his grip on your hips tightens and he holds you close and deepens the kiss. 

He smiles against your lips as you giggle when he doesn’t let you pull away. 

“I am curious.” You start, voice dropping like it wasn’t just the two of you in the house.

He hums against your lips then starts to drag his kisses down your jaw to your neck, grinning as your next words come out a little breathless. 

“If you were going to kill him, how would you do it?”

He actually stops and looks up at you, wondering if this was some kind of test.

You smile and give him a small peck on the lips. “Just hypothetically speaking, of course.” 

König licks his lips nervously, only relaxing when you take his right hand in both of yours and start to idly play with his fingers. 

“He touched you,” he starts and pauses again. You nod and give a little hum to encourage him to keep going. 

“I’d start with his hands.” 

You shift your eyes up to meet his before looking back down at his hand. You nod and turn his hand over, palm down in one of your hands as your free hand gently traces the veins on his hand. His fingers twitch underneath your touch and you sweetly smile at him, “keep going.” 

“I’d crush one of his hands beneath my boot.” 

You place his hand on the top of your thigh as you nod once again. You let out a quiet excited breath as he squeezes your thigh, his large hands hot against your skin. 

“Just one hand?” You ask coquettishly as you drag his hand down to the inside of your thigh.

He hums again, eyes locked between your thighs, at his hand slipping underneath your skirt. 

“I’d take my time with his other hand.” His knuckles brush your clothed mound, putting the lightest pressure on your clit. “Break his fingers one at a time.” 

You bite your lip and lock your eyes with his as you roll your hips forward, turning his touch on your clit from feather light to firm. 

His eyes darken, blood thrumming with excitement, and he can hardly tell what has him excited more, watching you squirm against his hand or sharing the kind of thoughts he long ago learned to keep to himself. The fact that he was sharing these thoughts with you, feeling your arousal dampen your panties, makes his heart beat wildly. 

He shifts his hand, turning it so that his thumb can start to rub small circles around your clit while his fingers dip into the edge of your panties. The back of his fingers slide against pussy, collecting your slick and dragging it up to your clit. You jolt and let out a small gasp at his touch, grasping at his shoulders to keep you upright so you can keep your eyes on him. 

He continued to tease your pussy, reveling in every little reaction from you, until you were a wet whimpering mess on his lap. “Then I’d smash his face in, for thinking he was worthy of even looking at you,” you moaned as he slipped a finger into you, “of breathing the same air as you.” He slowly started to slide his finger out, a smirk on his face as you rocked your hips forward.

“Maybe knock his teeth out for daring to talk to you.” He slid in a second finger, breathing a little faster as you moaned and fell forward further into him. You kissed him, tongue lapping at his lips before finding his own, as he pumped his fingers faster.

His free hand moved roughly from your hip to your breast, squeezing hard enough to draw desperate whimpers from you. He groaned and shifted to sit more comfortably, mouth dropping from your lips to your jaw, and pulled the top of your dress down. His lips capture your breast, tongue circling around the nipple, while his hand continues to knead and squeeze your other breast.  

Your head falls back and you gasp when he inserts a third finger, using his palm to rub your clit. He takes the opportunity to leave a surprisingly gentle kiss on the edge of the scar that peaks above your neckline. You shiver, despite how hot your body feels, as he pulls you closer to the edge. Your hips rock against his hand, your breath coming out in a combination of desperate pants and whines, every stroke of his fingers winding you up.

“But I will kill him with my hands around his neck, so I can watch him regret ever looking at you, as the life fades from his eyes.” 

Your whole body shakes as you cry out and fall forward, holding onto him with all your strength, as your pussy convulses wildly around his fingers, coating his hand in cum. 

König stilled as he watched you come down from your orgasm, panting and making cute little whimpers as he withdrew his hand. You were...glowing. It could have been the single ray of light coming in from a crack in the curtains illuminating your half naked body. Or the light sheen of sweat coating your skin that he was tempted to lick off you. But, he knew it was something else.

You had just come on his fingers as he described how he wanted to kill someone. You were truly an angel. A fucked up little angel sent to him by the god of death. If the military wasn't going to reward his skills, at least the universe had.

You shivered again and giggled into his shoulder before looking up at him with a smile. You hummed, squeezing your thighs together momentarily before sitting up and fixing your dress. You grabbed the discarded kitchen knife from the coffee table and planted a sweet and chaste kiss on his lips, as if he hadn't just finger fucked you to orgasm. "I need to finish making dinner."

He knew the moment he laid eyes on you, covered in blood and all, that he wanted you. He had no idea that he didn’t just want you, he needed you. 

He needed you. And he was just sitting there with a painfully hard boner while you walked back to the kitchen, legs shaky and making you lean on the walls and counter. He let you have a moment to calm down before bending you over the counter, ripping your soaked panties off of you and wildly fucking you. 

-

Not deployed and not “busy”, König's world revolved around you (and if his last deployment was anything to go by, you were his center regardless). He insisted on driving you to and from work. It was all great until you mentioned you would be working late one night. 

He went stiff and barely managed to get through his question without shaking in anger. “Will Christopher be working late with you?” 

You sighed, already dreading the late night dealing with your annoying coworker. “Yea, he's on my team.” Then you grinned, “maybe he'll see you when you drop me off and think twice before approaching me!”

König chuckled and leaned down to kiss you before slipping his face mask on. Honestly, he hoped that wasn't the case. He wanted an excuse to kill the man. 

That morning, of course, Christopher was late and didn't witness your incredibly large boyfriend help you down from his truck (not that you needed it, but he was ever the gentleman) as he dropped you off. 

You did your best to avoid Chris, but as the night dragged on, he became more persistent. 

“Someone’s a pretty little liar.” 

You sighed. You were already packing up, getting ready to leave, and he had to come and bother you one more time. “What?”

“I talked to Deb, and she said you don’t have a boyfriend.” 

Deb, the office gossip. 

“She doesn’t know everything about me.” 

Your phone buzzed just as you picked it up, a part of you was worried it was your supervisor, but one glance at the screen and you smiled. “And that’s him. He’s here to pick me up.” 

“I was just heading out, I’ll walk with you.” He clapped a hand on your shoulder and squeezed as he smirked at you. 

You stepped out of his hold and hurried to the door, confused when you didn’t see König’s truck waiting out front. Oh no. 

Your phone buzzed again, König telling you that he was in the far parking lot. 

“Well, where is he?” 

“Parked back there.” You gestured with your hand, from that distance even the truck looked small.

“What he can’t come get you? Maybe I should walk with you, talk to the guy.” 

You rolled your eyes and sidestepped his hand again. Whatever happened next was Chris’ own damn fault for being so fucking predictable.

Disabling the security cameras in the parking lot was easy. König sat in his truck, the temporarily distressed engine running idle, knee bouncing and fingers tapping the steering wheel excitedly. 

You hadn’t told him much about this Christopher, but from what you did, it was pretty much a given that he’d follow you through the parking lot. And lo and behold, König saw you and a man walking towards the truck. Every so often you’d take a side step and whenever König saw the man make the same step, closing the distance between the two of you again, his pulse just beat faster. 

Finally when you’re close enough, he jumped out of the truck and rushed to the passenger side. The sight of him even had you tense for a moment. Sure he was big, and the black tee shirt he wore did nothing to hide how muscular he was. But it was the sniper hood covering his face that made you pause. 

“What the fuck?” The man next to you muttered under his breath as you walked up to König.

König was fast to reach out and pull you to his side. 

At least he leans down to let you peck his cheek, though you got his chin instead, as a greeting. 

“Get in the truck. And don’t look.” 

You frown and pinch the edge of his mask. You’d only ever seen him wear it once. “I told you-”

“I know.” 

To Christopher’s credit, he was smart enough to try to get away as quickly and quietly as possible. König wasn’t having it though, and all it took was one giant step from him and he clapped his hand on Chris’ shoulder.

“Not so fast, hm?”

A shiver ran up your spine as you stood next to the truck. That cadence in König’s voice…

Chris tried to wiggle out of König’s hold, but his struggle only made König grip down harder. 

“You touched her-”

“N-no! I didn’t! She lied!” 

König’s eyes narrowed and Chris tried to stutter out another denial but was thrown into the asphalt face first, with a pathetic cry.

As Chris was trying to push himself up, König grabbed him by the back of his shirt and turned him around, pinning him on the ground.

Chris, a man who was in considerably good shape, still thought he had a chance to get away. He struggled, attempting to punch König in the ribs to get him to let go, but König chuckled. He then punched Chris directly in the face, a delightful burst of happy adrenaline running through his veins as he felt and heard the other man’s nose break underneath his hand.

Chris screamed, blood filling his mouth,  and rolled away from König, well, as much as he was allowed to. König stood back up, though remained hovering over Chris, who was doubled over in pain. After a few minutes, in which he shakily turned around and looked up, he managed to gasp out another plea. “Ok! Ok! I’ll leave her alone!”

“Good!” König beamed, his head tilted just slightly as he looked down at the other man. “But that is not enough.”

“W-what!” 

König grabbed a fistful of Chris’ hair and easily hauled him up and dragged him to the front of the still running truck. 

“I promised her no one would ever touch her again. What kind of man would I be if I let you get away with touching her?” Through Chris’ screams, he shoved Chris’ face onto the hood of his truck, the engine still running hot and burning the man’s face. 

As satisfying as it was to watch Chris get his ass handed to him so easily, things had already escalated too far. “König! That’s enough!” You shouted over the engine, over Chris’ fading cries and over König’s jovial laughter.

König froze and looked up at you, standing some feet away from the two men, and let Chris slump to the ground. “I told you to get in the truck.”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes as you walked over to him, being careful to step around your barely conscious coworker. You looked up at him, his eyes were still wild, and his chest was starting to heave with how excited he’d become. If he had excess energy, you knew just what he could do with it instead.

You slid a hand up his chest to grip his collar, the fabric of his mask pooling around your wrist. He let you pull him down to your level and with your free hand, you lifted the mask just enough to kiss him. 

He moaned into the kiss, turning it heated rather quickly, his big hands on your ass and hoisted you up, your legs wrapping around his waist. 

It was only a pained weak cough from Christopher that stopped you. You pulled away from the kiss, his hood falling back over his face, and grinned at him. 

“I think you should get in the truck now.” You say with a seductive smile and a gleam in your eyes that he couldn’t quite place.

He nodded and instead of setting you on the ground, walked around to the passenger side of the truck, kicking Chris one last time for good measure, before gently setting you inside the truck and rushing over to the other side.

You’re careful not to hit the gear shift when he slides into the driver side and you slide up to him, lifting his mask to the bridge of his nose so you can kiss him again. His hands grab at you, pulling you as close as he could in the cramped space. One of your hands clutches at his shirt, landing on his firm chest and the other rests on his thigh. 

He breaks the kiss just for a moment, his breath starting to come out in a pant, and reaches up to grasp at the edge of his mask, but your hand quickly grabs his wrist and stops him, “leave it on.”

“O-oh?” He stutters as you palm his growing erection through his pants. 

“I like it,” you say as you lean forward and drop a kiss to his shoulder, then another below that, following the hem of the mask until you reach just below his collarbone. Your hand that sits on his chest has moved to his pectoral, where you give his nipple a little pinch, sending a shiver down his spine right to his dick. 

“Hah,” he breathes out half a laugh as you start to unbuckle his belt, “you like it?” 

“Mm-hmm.” Your hand drops from his chest so you can unbutton his pants.

He swallows hard when you take his heavy cock out and with a firm grip you wrap a soft hand around it, as much as you could, anyway. “It’s. It’s supposed to be scary.” 

“Oh, it is.” You look up at him, hand lazily stroking upwards, “that’s what I like about it.” 

He lets out a quiet groan when your thumb swipes across the underside of the head of his fat cock. Whatever other protest about his sniper hood he had is forgotten when you slide down the bench so you can put your mouth on him.  

He’s hard in your hands before you even lean down and his thick veiny cock throbs as you slowly part your lips. His left hand has an intense grip on the door, but his right hand flies into your hair, though he shakes a little as he tries to keep it gentle, so he can have a clear view of you. 

You start with small, feather light, licks to his swollen cockhead, one, two, and he’s already let out a soft whine and starts to nudge his hips forward, his cock following your tongue as it retreats back in your mouth. You smile and hum, giving in and swirling your tongue around the tip before pinching your lips just over the head of his cock, adding light suction as you do so.

“Please,” he whines, fingers starting to tighten around your hair. “Please, don’t tease me.” The way he has slipped back into his native language, his voice pitched higher as he thrusts his hips upwards when you sink your mouth further down his cock, makes your clit twitch and you have to squeeze your thighs together to help alleviate your neediness.

You moan around his cock, tongue continuing to circle the head of his dick, flickering at sensitive spots, as you take him into your mouth as far as you can. You don’t deep throat him, not yet, so your hand makes up for it by adding firm strokes in conjunction with the bob of your mouth. The cabin is filled not only with moans but the sound of wet suction, especially when you pop his cock fully out of your mouth and give greedy sloppy licks down his entire shaft. 

König loses a bit of control and when your mouth envelops him again, sinking down as far as previously, his hand pushes the back of your head down even more. You had been expecting it, the tightness in his thighs, the way he whined even more and babbled incoherently, and even though you braced yourself, you ended up choking and sputtering around his cock. It only adds more spit, more slip to the already sloppy blow job.

You sit up a bit and take a breath, hand still stroking up and down, before you dive back down. This time you look up at him as you sink your mouth on his cock, your eyes locking with his, even with his eyes so dilated they’re so blue in contrast to the black material of his mask that nearly blends into the darkness of the night. His eyes are wide, watering even, and when he sees you look up at him, mouth stretched around his big cock, his own eyes roll back as his hips start to buck harder, faster. He cries out his impending orgasm, first in German though, for your sake, he remembers to repeat it in English as well. 

Not that it matters, you offer him an encouraging, “mm-hmm” around his cock, letting him know that you wanted him to cum in your mouth and it drives him over the edge with a loud obscene moan, shooting rope and rope and rope of cum into your mouth.

You swallow what you can, the rest sliding down the side of your face as you sit up for air. His eyes are still closed as he pants for breath himself. Since he doesn’t seem to be paying any attention, you get a mischievous idea and lean in close to him, and use the edge of his mask to wipe your face clean.

He chuckles but doesn’t stop you, only taking your hand in his when he feels that you are done. 

Most of him is limp against his seat, except for the grip he has on your hand, his knuckles resting on your thigh. 

“Hey,” you reach over and gently tug at his hood, to which he leans down just enough for it to slip off. “You ok?” 

He gives you a lazy grin, face flush and hair starting to mat down. He doesn’t quite answer you though, instead pulls your hand up to his lips and places a gentle kiss across your knuckles.  

You smile and, blushing strongly at the innocent gesture despite the fact that you’d just swallowed a load of his cum, take your hand back so you could buckle up. “Let’s go home.” 

The ride home is somewhat odd. He hasn’t said a word since you had his cock in your mouth and that silence is a little worrying. It’s not until you’re back home that you finally break the silence.

“König? What’s wrong?” You stop him before he can retreat into the bedroom.

“Nothing, Engel.” 

“Then why are you so quiet?”

It’s almost comical to watch a man so big try to shrink away from your gaze. He’s squeezing one fist over and over, trying very hard not to twitch under your gaze.

You gasp, hands flying to cover your mouth, as you put two and two together. “Wait! Did you not like- Did I…Did I give you a bad blow job?”

König’s head snaps up. “What! No!”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” 

“My love-” “Do you hate all my blow jobs?!”

He shakes his head vehemently and shouts your name, but you still talk over him. 

“Is it because I choke? I can’t help it! Your cock is just so big!” 

“No! My Engel,” he finally stops you with his hands on your shoulders, “I love watching you choke on my cock!”

You take a breath, forcing yourself to calm down and pout up at him. “Then what is it?”

He sighed and rubbed your shoulders for a moment before taking your hands in his. “I was just thinking about the first time we met.”

There had been a look in your eyes that night that he wrote off as you being so close to dying. But he saw it again tonight…

“Oh.” Your pout morphs into something much more stoic. “When that man…” You trail off, you both know what happened that night.

“Yea.” 

“What about it?” 

He glances away from you and chews on his lip before changing the subject. “Tell me, my love. Did you enjoy watching me kill that man?” 

“Yea.” You tilt your head, “why wouldn’t I? He got what he deserved.” 

He nodded. “Did you enjoy watching me almost kill your coworker?” 

This time it’s you that blushes and looks away. “Yea. I. I suppose being annoying doesn’t quite deserve that much violence, but…” what can you say? It was hot watching him so easily break the other man (oh and defending your honor too!). 

“And,” he paused, licking his lips, “did it turn you on?” 

Your face burns even more, “well,” you chuckle sheepishly, “that is why I blew you.” 

He frowned and dropped your hands, though remained somewhat hunched so he could properly look you in the eyes. “I kill people.” 

You squint at him, “yea…?” This wasn’t news to you…Why was he saying this? 

“Not just the man who tried to rape you. Not just in my capacity as a soldier.” 

Maybe you could understand where he was coming from. He never explicitly told you of his activities. You simply knew based on your first meeting and the way he spoke so casually about killing. “...Yea, I know…”

“I need you to know that, Engel.” 

You nod, “ok. Got it.” 

“But I would never hurt you.”

“I know. I trust you.” Which was a peculiar thing to say considering how just very recently you didn’t even know his name. 

Upon hearing your answer, König glanced away from you, face dusted pink and chewing on his lip. He was right. You were an angel made just for him.

You frowned, “what’s wrong?”

He was quick to pounce on you, giant hands on either side of your face and threading into your hair as he pressed his lips against yours in a passionate kiss. He swallowed your surprised little yelp, his tongue sliding against your lower lip and teeth nibbling at a particularly sensitive spot on your lip before slipping into your mouth. 

He pulled you close, one hand solidly wrapped around your waist and the other pressed into your back, as you melted into his embrace. He only let go slightly when he moved his kiss to your jaw, down your neck, nipping at the scar below your neck. 

You sighed, resting your hands on his shoulders as he continued to sink lower, pressing gentle kisses over your clothes and dropped to his knees. 

He finally pressed a lingering kiss to the scar on your stomach, hands on your hips, and looked up at you, your name falling lovingly past his lips.

“You are perfect. Marry me.” 

You really didn’t think he was a marriage kind of man. You assumed that when he told you that you belonged to him, that he would protect you from then on, that it equated to marriage in his mind. But with the way he was looking up at you now, looking both very serious and very vulnerable, to him, this was more than that.

“Oh, König,” you reply softly, your hand drifting from his shoulder to cup his face. He leans into your touch and never breaks eye contact with you.

You bend down and place a soft kiss on his lips. “Yes.” 

He laughs happily when he pulls you into another strong kiss. He’s still laughing when he picks you up and carries you to the bedroom. 

[Death’s Haven]

Your husband was a killer. Not some vigilante with a twisted sense of justice. No, he simply needed to kill. For most of his life, this need was satiated through his career in the military. However, now that he was in the private sector, he had more time between jobs. Which led to the current reason you were home alone late at night.

He'd been between deployments for four months now. Yelling at recruits and paperwork was nearly driving him insane. When he started disappearing at night, when he spent his free time in secret, you knew what he was up to. You didn't ask him about it. You just made sure he had dinner and a clean home to come back to.

You were already asleep in bed when he came home tonight. When you felt him crawl into bed, hands sliding across your waist so he could hold you to his chest. He was very tactile like that, once he had you, he always had to be touching you in some way.

You let out a quiet sigh and shifted to get comfortable, vaguely aware that he was only wearing his boxers.

"I'm sorry, Engel. I did not mean to wake you."

"What time is it?"

"Three."

You grunted. Much too late (or perhaps, too early). Though you supposed coming home at three am was better than him coming home at five only to wake up at six to go to work.

You yawned and shifted, turning around so you could kiss his cheek. "Welcome home." You sighed, eyes already closing again as you cuddled up to him and started to fall back asleep.

König hummed, his hand gently moving up and down your hip, slipping underneath the tee shirt that you stole from him to use as a nightgown.

His soft touch chased away your sleep as his fingers dragged up and down your lower back. You wiggled your hips, attempting to get away from his touch by pressing your body further into him. "That tickles."

"Sorry," he muttered, lips brushing against your temple. "I missed you."

If your eyes weren't closed you'd roll them. Your big, strong, serial killer of a husband was sweet, cute even, acting like you hadn't seen each other for weeks.

But then you felt his hard on pressing against your thigh. Oh. He missed you like that. Yea. That made sense. Even though he slipped in late at night or early in the morning to see you before you left for work, you hadn't had sex since he started his recon a few days ago.

You nuzzle against his chest and smile, "did you?" You slide a hand down his stomach and fiddle with the waistband of his boxers. "I'd never be able to tell." 

He groaned and pushed you onto your back, knocking your legs apart enough for him to settle between. His kiss is rushed, tongue pushing past your lips eagerly, while he starts to grind his hips into yours. You let out an airy gasp when his kisses trail down your jaw to the scar on your neck. A scar you were once ashamed of, once associated with a moment of indignity. König insisted that your scars weren't ugly or shameful, they were proof that instead of taking you for himself, the god of death had given you to him as a gift. 

“What?” You rolled your eyes when he first told you such. “Is he a king and I'm one of his kids he can just give away?” 

He threaded his fingers into your hair and pulled, forcing you to expose your neck to him. “I am your only King. And you are my Angel.” 

Your leg hikes further up his waist, one of his hands splaying across the back of your thigh as he ruts into you again. Your hands tangle in his hair, pulling his face back towards you as you attempt to kiss him again, instead he opens his mouth to mumble words against your lips.

“There was a witness.”

And you froze. The only witness he’s ever left before was you. For a moment you’re worried. Was this another damsel in distress that he saved? Was there another broken girl in his truck right now, waiting patiently to become your sister-wife? 

You push a steady hand against his chest that he ignores and continues to suck hickey onto your neck. “What?” 

He hums against your skin, moving his kiss down, where he nips at one of your breasts through the fabric of your chosen nightgown. He mistakes the concern in your voice as concern for him. He returns to your mouth, an eager heavy kiss pressed to your lips until he pushes his tongue into your mouth that you respond to tentatively. 

“I killed him too.” 

His hips grinding into yours, with his hard cock teasing your pussy through layers of thin fabric, draws out a needy whine from you. "O-oh?"

He grunts, breathing quickening as he starts to push your shirt up. "That's why I'm so late, my love.” He was quite eager, it seemed, as one of his hands slipped underneath your back to lift you so he could quickly pull the shirt completely off of you. “There was a lot of blood.” He finished his explanation (not that you asked for one) as he nuzzled his face between your breasts. 

You wanted to giggle, both because his slight stubble on your bare chest tickled and how silly you felt that he basically just motorboated you, but with the way he was already licking and sucking at your tits, your giggle quickly morphed into a moan. And then you finally registered his words. 

A bloodsoaked König, with his sniper hood hiding his face, looked like a monster straight out of a horror movie. The thought of it turned you on so much. “Yea?” Your arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer to you as you lifted your hips to meet his, pressing against his hard dick. 

He chuckled as he sat up on his knees, still between your thighs, and tugged at your panties. You raise your hips enough for him to pull them down and toss to the side.

He leaned over you once again, propping himself up on his left arm, while his right hand found its way to your thigh again. You sighed as he all but had you pinned between his large frame and the bed. There was something frightening about his size, he was almost too big to be human, and yet he also possessed the uncanny ability to make you feel safe, no matter how vulnerable you were.

His fingers dipped between your thighs, his chuckles fading into a low groan when he finds how aroused you are. “You like that, Engel? Want to see me covered in blood, hm?” 

A gasped, “uh-huh!” is all you can offer when his fingers, coated in your slick, rock against your clit. 

König pulls his hand away all too soon, and the frustrated whine you puff out isn’t missed by him. You almost think he is going to tease you, that he is going to revel in the way you’re so desperate for him already, but there is a vulnerable sincerity in his eyes when you look up at him. 

“...Are you proud of me?”

Your lust is momentarily forgotten as you slide a hand to his face, gently cradling his face. His eyes closed as he leaned into your soft and touch. 

It was one thing to know that you accepted his proclivities, another entirely to know that you loved that part of him.

You gently run your thumb over his cheek bone so he could look at you again. You supposed you hadn't shown much enthusiasm for his activities since he nearly killed your coworker. You pull him down for a gentle kiss, whispering your answer against his lips. "Yes."

You even have a surprise for him, but the kiss that followed was much less delicate and much more needy on his part. It’s like he’s trying to mold himself to you, trying to fuse your soul to his. It’s as if he doesn’t want to let you go. And you give into him, forgetting about the little gift. You don’t want him to let go either. 

You’re so pliable under his touch, the way you so easily give your body over to him reminds him of the first night he met you. When you were too weak to stop him from ripping the shreds of your dress off of your body, too weak to stop him from moving your hands to stem the bleeding of a knife wound that should have killed you. The memory of your body, pinned underneath him now, covered in the sweetest blood has him biting down on your shoulder roughly. You gasp and whimper underneath him, only squirming not to get away from him, but to get closer to him. 

He drags his mouth down your body, trailing searing kisses along your skin. As always he pays special attention to the scar that dips below your collarbone, tracing the contours with his tongue as if he hasn't already committed every inch of it to memory. As always as well, he takes his time with your breasts, switching between rough nips into your flesh and gentle swirls of his tongue around the nipple. Every little hitch in your breath, every whine that pushes past your lips, alights his blood on fire.

His hips buck forward, seeking relief in the friction of his hard cock against the soft warm plush of your thighs. You whine, one hand resting on his shoulder and one tangled in his hair, as you feel the hot velvety skin of his cock rubbing the insides of your legs, pre cum smearing on your skin and you're not sure whether to pull him back up so he can stuff your pussy with that massive cock of his, or to push him down so he can lavish his attention elsewhere on your body.

König makes the decision for you as he continues to kiss and nip and lick his way down your body. He attempts to repeat the loving kiss with the scar on your stomach, attempts to trace it with his lips, but you become impatient and push his head, making him chuckle into your skin, which in turn has you also giggling.

He presses a lingering kiss to your pubic bone with a grin plastered on his lips, "so eager for me."

You huff, and make sure to exaggerate the little pout you throw at him. "Don't tease. It's been too long."

This draws another chuckle from him, though he spreads your thighs further apart so he can comfortably fit between them. "Less than a week, my angel."

You prop yourself up on one elbow and reach for his face, forcing him to look at you as you hit him with a trembling lip and the saddest eyes you could muster in the moment. "You promised to take care of me, König."

He stills at your words, muscles tense and eyes so wide that even in the dim light you could see the whites of his eyes. You were right, of course. How could he deny his sweet angel what you desperately wanted, needed? Especially when it was him that you needed. He gently places a hand over yours, never breaking eye contact with you, as he pulls your hand from his face and gently kisses the inside of your wrist, taking your little teasing to heart. “I will.” 

That is all the warning you get before he is diving between your thighs. His breath is hot on your skin as he kisses and licks his way towards your pussy. He doesn't ignore any part of you, his left hand both massaging your inner thigh, kneading at the sensitive flesh and keeping your legs parted wide enough for him.

By the time he draws his tongue through your folds, you're already a quivering mess. His long, deliberate, slow licks have you moaning and gripping his hair. His right arm anchors your hips to the bed, keeping you in place as his tongue circles your clit. You try to muffle the obscene moans that fall from your lips, but König knows you, knows what you like, and drags his tongue down your slit, curls his tongue inside of you to lap at you juices. His own moans fill the air with yours, the subtle vibrations only driving you crazier.

His name is a chant on your lips, your hands gripping his hair even more as you try to fuck his face. He groans and releases the iron grip he has on your hips, right hand snaking up to your chest where he roughly gropes at your tits.

He holds you down for your sake, so he can lick and suck and nip without losing his place between your legs. But as you near your edge, he lets go because there's nothing he loves more than when you shove your pussy into his face. His mouth parted, tongue dragging over every inch of you and pushing into your pussy. His nose bumps and rubs against your clit as he enthusiastically moves his head, his stubble scratching pleasantly against the inside of your thighs.

He could, and probably should, stretch you out a little with his fingers, prepare you for the girth that is his cock, but he’s selfish and wants you to come on his tongue. He switches his pace, frenzied flicks of his tongue on your clit, followed by long firm strokes through your folds until he pushes his tongue into your pussy. He moans again, savoring the ambrosia that he pulls from you with every swipe of his tongue. 

It’s when he starts to rock his hips into the bed, seeking to relieve his aching cock, that it feels like a final wave pushing you to your orgasm. Your thighs squeeze around his head as you pussy clenches wildly around his tongue, aching to be filled and stretched out even more. He continues to slurp at your pussy, his tongue covered in your cum as he gently offers small and gentle licks to your clit, following the movement of your hips without holding you down. 

König is liable to spend too much time between your legs. Liable to ease you down from your orgasm only to pull another one from you. And you’re liable to forget that you were supposed to give him his gift before fucking.

“S-stop! I! I!” You cry and whine and try to push his face away from your oversensitive clit. 

With a grunt, he finally relents and drops a few soft kisses to your thigh before propping himself up on his elbows and running the back of his arm across his face. “What is it, Engel?” 

After a moment to catch your breath, you finally look at him and smile softly at the way he's looking up at you so adoringly. "I have something for you."

A grin breaks out across his face as he kisses your thigh and moves as if he's about to start eating you out again.

"Not that!" You laugh and lightly push his face away from your still sensitive pussy. "Come here," you pat the bed next to you, inviting him to sit down for a moment.

"I got you something," you say as you give him a quick peck to the lips when he sits down beside you.

His hand slides to your waist and you know he's about to pull you on top of him, but you pull away quick enough to turn to the nightstand and flip on the lamp.

There’s some shuffling beside you as you open the drawer. The first thing your hand catches is a bottle of lube, that’s not what you were looking for, but you set it on the table anyways.

One of his hands lands on your thigh and squeezes as he leans with you, his mouth dropping small kisses to your shoulder. “Do we have to do this now?”

“Oh, I guess not.” You say as you put a rectangular box on top of the side table and turn to face him again.

He’s shucked his boxers off, instead of shoving his dick through the opening in front, and has his left hand holding the heft of his hard cock. Your eyes drop down to the wide pink mushroom head and immediately forget that you had been trying to gift him something. 

His right arm wraps around your waist as you kiss him and he pulls you atop one of his thighs. You whimper into his mouth as you grind down on his thigh, your already slick pussy making the glide easier and the friction electrifying. Even as you rock your hips back and forth, one of your hands wraps around his cock, next to his own hand. You both groan at the contact, Him at the way you swipe your thumb over the tip of his cock, collecting pre cum and spreading it over down as you give him sensual little pumps. You groan as you and your pussy clenches achingly at the reminder of how big his cock is, the way there’s enough length for the both of you to stroke down, and the way your fingers don’t even meet around his girthy width. 

As you rest your forehead against his, lip tucked between your teeth as you continue to ride him, you notice his eyes flicker to the side table for just a second.

“You want to see it?” You ask with a breathless laugh, still chasing the pleasure grinding down on his thigh offers. 

He grabs the hand you have wrapped around his cock and makes you squeeze him harder, speaking with a groan as he thrusts his hips up. “Just tell me what it is.” 

“And ruin the surprise?” 

He grunts and grabs your hips, halting your gyrating, while simultaneously smashing his mouth against yours. The kiss is rough, aggressive even, as his tongue tangled with yours, preventing you from further teasing him. Still you moan and giggle into the kiss and blindly reach behind you until you find the box.

“Just open it real quick.” 

He sighed and reluctantly let go of your hips as he took the box from you. “What is the occasion?” 

The real reason? You wanted him to remember you. You were afraid you were nothing but a novelty to him. He wanted you for now, but soon he’d get bored of you and send you away. If you were lucky, he’d kill you, but you were never that lucky in life. He’d provide a safe home for you, make you feel safe standing next to him at the grocery store, or as he picked you up from work. Then he’d leave you, leave you fearing every shadow and bump in the night. To live in the hell that was his absence. 

“A hunting knife?” He unsheathed it, admiring the sheen and sharpness of the hooked blade.

It was deadly sharp, meant for skinning game. It wasn’t anything fancy. Perfectly utilitarian. 

You hummed and stretched out again, this time to grab the bottle of lube you set aside earlier. “You’re the one that asked me if I am proud of you.” You pour some lube into one of your hands, “I was thinking about what you do, and thought you might like this.” You wrap your hand around his cock, spreading the lube along his thick shaft, “at the very least it can make a cute paperweight for your desk.” 

König groans and shuts his eyes, leaning forward to rest his head against your shoulder, as you pump his now very slick cock. His hot breath fans over your skin as he mutters your name and nips at your shoulder. But he pauses when you lean to the side and expose the top of your scar to his mouth.

Suddenly he pulls away from you and looks back at the gifted blade. “You wanted to see me covered in blood, Engel.” 

It’s not a question, though you give him a quiet little “mm-hm" before you’re sitting stock still with a blade pressed against your throat. His cock throbs in your hands as your eyes flick up to meet his. His eyes, blown wide with lust, flicker between your own gaze and the knife he holds to your throat. 

“I have never seen blood as beautiful as yours.” 

Your heart thumps in your chest, and pussy, at his words. Did he think of your blood often? Did he still think of that night? 

You squeeze your hand, giving a tantalizing grip to his cock, and tilt your head to the side, whispering a loving taunt. “It belongs to you.” 

You see droplets of blood splatter across his face before you feel the sting of your flesh sliced open. You gasp, eyes squeezing shut, as pain catches up to you. There’s a clatter of the knife being tossed onto the nightstand before you feel his large hands digging into your hips and moving you so that you are fully straddling him. 

The head of his cock slides through your folds before nudging your clit and sends a wave of pleasure through you that distracts from the pain. You whimper and shudder when you open your eyes to see the look on his face. You imagine that this is what he looked like the night he saved you, but now you see him unmasked, see how the sight of you bleeding before him is nearly driving him insane. 

König moaned when he felt the first drop of blood hit his face, his cock jumping out of your hand and pulsing wildly. Your pained little gasp that followed did not assuage his desire, if anything it fueled it even more. He quickly discarded the knife and pulled you over him, his lubed up cock running along your slick pussy drawing moans out from both of you. 

He looked up at you, lost in bliss as you rocked your hips into him, rubbing your clit onto his cock, and snaked a hand into your hair to pull you down. He breathed in the air around you, filled with the scent of your combined arousal and sweat and, as he pushed his face into your skin, the light coppery scent of your blood. 

You whined again when he disturbed the cut on your neck, the fresh wound following the exact path of the previous one, only to cry out when he drug his tongue through the blood. 

“You have the sweetest blood, my angel.” 

And with a quick, rough, grip to the back of your head, he pulled you into a searing kiss. His tongue immediately found yours as if he was intent to share the taste of you, of your blood and cum. 

His face is smeared in blood when you pull away from his hungry kiss and look at him again. You rest your forehead against his and pant for breath, eyes locking with his as he lifts your lips and properly lines his cock up. 

You whimper when you feel the head of his cock start to spread you, but even his lust filled haze he’s aware enough of himself to go slowly, letting you sink down onto his girthy length at your own pace. 

“König,” you cry when you take him fully, your entire body hot and desperate to be close to him. 

You wrap your arms around his shoulders, his face tucked into your neck as you start to move your hips up, sliding back down with a moan as he fills you. 

He’s not quiet when your pussy squeezes and pulses around his cock, it feels too good to hold in the moan that rips out of his throat when you start to bounce on his cock. Slick. Your blood and sweat against his skin, your wet pussy around his cock, it’s all heavenly slick and he wants more. He groans and roughly guides your hips down to meet his own thrusts. You cling to him and moan as he easily lifts you only to slam you back down.

“My angel,” he growls hotly into your ear, his eyes rolling back when your pussy flutters tightly around his cock. 

He’s quick to shift positions, cradling the back of your head as he throws you onto your back. You only get to mourn the loss of his cock inside you for a moment before he is throwing one of your legs over his shoulder and bullying his cock back into your pussy.

The new angle allows him impossibly deeper, your moans are so loud you’re nearly screaming at this point. He moans loudly along with you when he glances down between your bodies and sees as he feels how your pussy clings to his cock, doing its best to not let go of him every time he pulls out. 

Your pussy aches and gapes when he pulls all the way out, slipping and accidentally brushing the head of his cock over your clit. You cry out, from the sensation of his slicked cockhead on your clit and for him, even this second without him filling you up is too long without him. You hook the leg he doesn’t have over his shoulder over his waist as he thrusts his cock back into you. It feels like he hits every nerve in your pussy, his pelvis grinding against yours and rubbing your clit and you can’t even say his name as your entire body begins to shake. 

Your orgasm is overwhelming, you claw and grab at König, yet at the same time the consistent grinding of his pelvis on your clit and his huge cock pistoning in and out of you has part of you wanting to push him away. He doesn’t let you, instead he continues to fuck you through your orgasm, chasing his own release. 

König’s head drops to your shoulder, chin hitting the cut on your neck, and groans loudly as you come on his cock, your pussy clenching around him dizzyingly tight. He growls and groans when you begin to struggle against him, sending him over his own edge. He breathlessly stills as his cock throbs, filling you with his cum as your pussy continues to clench around his cock. 

Eventually his hips slow down to a slow, sensual, grind, meeting your hips in the lazy aftermath. He drops your leg from his shoulder and braces himself on his forearms while he continues to nuzzle his face into your neck, sloppy open mouth kisses licking up blood and sweat.

“König,” you sigh and nudge him. He may be holding most of his weight off of you, but he’s still crushing you into the mattress and at this point it’s so hot that it’s starting to become difficult to breathe.

He grunts, his cock giving a final pulse as he pulls out, and rolls to the side. His hand lands heavily on your thigh, “give me a moment, Engel, and I will clean you up.” 

You whine at the sudden empty feeling and, with considerable effort, turn on your side and cuddle up to him, moving his arm around you. He embraces you, eyes closed as he basks in his post orgasmic bliss. 

“You look like a vampire.” You say with a light chuckle and brush a thumb across his chin.

He grins and opens one eye to look at you, “if I could live off of your blood, Engel, I would.” 

Your laugh is cut short with a grimace as you feel his cum leak out of your pussy. “Ok, I need to get up.” 

He sits up with you and pulls you into his lap before standing. “Let me.”

“You don’t always need to carry me to the bathroom!” 

“Can you walk?” 

Actually, probably not. 

König leaves the shower first, letting you relax under the hot water a little longer while he changes the sheets on the bed. There was too much cum, sweat and blood to ignore for the night. 

He’s waiting patiently for you when you finally get out of the shower. He’s thoughtful enough to lay one of his shirts out on the clean sheets for you to wear when he’s finished bandaging you up. 

“It’s not even that bad,” you say as you let him apply an ointment and a gauze bandage on the cut that’s barely bleeding anymore. 

He doesn’t really respond, just grunts and makes sure to secure the bandage properly before he turns around to set everything down on the nightstand. 

“Ah! König!” You gasp and slap a hand over your mouth when you see long scratch marks on his back, small beads of blood surfacing on his skin.

“What!” He turns quickly, eyes wide, afraid that he hurt you.

“I’m so sorry!” You squeak out behind your hand.

“What?” 

You hang your head and hide your face in your hands. “Your back is bleeding!”

“What?” He cranes his neck to look at his own back. 

“How embarrassing,” you mumble to yourself as you take the towel that’s wrapped around you and dab the bit of blood off of him.

His chuckles turn into a laugh, a full loud sound deep from his belly, as you fuss over him. He barely lets you touch his back before he is reaching behind him and pulling you onto his lap.

He stops your protests with a kiss, a smile still pulling at his lips even as he runs his tongue over your lips. “I cut you with a hunting knife, Engel, and you’re worried about little scratches?”  

“Fine,” you hum and pull away from him enough to slip on the tee shirt he laid out for you. “But if it scars, it’ll be the least cool story you’ve got.”

He turns off the lamp as you climb under the blankets. “I disagree. It’ll be my favorite. Next time, I will make you scratch my back even more.” 

König grinned at your little laugh as you settled into his embrace for the night. No, you didn’t hurt him and no he didn’t mind a tiny bit of blood spilled. He’d drown in your blood if he could, how could he not offer you the same? 

[freudianshade]

So I watched Logan...

...and BOY was it a raucous good time! AMIRITE? AMIRITE?????

*ugly cries as she continues typing*

Anyway. Ahem. More of my thoughts under the cut.

So I have always been interested in the X-23 storyline. If you don’t know, well now you know because I’m going to tell you, X-23 was a mutant created from the genetics of Wolverine. She was raised in a lab, deprived of love or human intimacy, and trained to be nothing more than a killing machine. There’s something very inherently tragic and sad about a person forced to grow up this way. I think there’s something very compelling when you decide to tell the story of X-23 (Laura Kinney) and how she eventually learns to relate to her “father,” a man who struggles with his own humanity.

Logan tells the story of Laura but changes it to fit an altered retelling of the Old Man Logan storyline. In this new world order of 2029, mutants are all but extinct and an evil scientist (aren’t they always?) has been growing mutant children in Mexican women in order to train them to be weapons. It is implied in this story that the Mexican surrogates are then disposed of in their own gruesome, dehumanizing ways. Dr. Rice, the man behind the plan, reveals later on that he was also the reason why mutants stopped being born. He poisoned the food supply with transgenetic corn syrup.

Halfway through his monologuing Logan shoots him square in the face. 

Because smart people are morons and evil scientists are megalomaniacs who will tell any and everyone about their stupid master plans, even if it means giving the hero enough time to kill them. It was pretty hilarious. 

Logan was like that throughout its lengthy two hour runtime. I honestly didn’t notice how long the film was because I was so gripped by it the entire time. Seriously. I was so into this movie. This film had me invested in every damn character from the big players to the brilliant Stephen Merchant as Caliban and that poor farming family who were just trying to pay it forward. It vacillated unexpectedly from character drama to laugh out loud ridiculousness, and I enjoyed every minute. The film had everything I love about action movies. Deeply felt character beats, heroics steeped in real pathos, creatively choreographed stupidly bloody violence, and kick as women. Well, little girls in this case. 

Logan might, superficially, make people think of DC in its melodrama but unlike the DC films, Logan has earned your empathy and your tears. DC tries to trick it out of you with contrived conflict, but Wolverine and the man who has played Wolverine for nearly 2 decades (my God has it been a long time) has built a relationship with his audience and deserved the tears I begrudgedly shed. I mean. Can you guys believe Hugh Jackman has played this character for this long? In all the years he’s been playing this character, I think Logan is his finest performance. It’s unfortunate that voting bodies don’t take action films seriously because Jackman turned in a truly award winning performance. You feel Logan’s fatigue, his absolute weariness at still being alive, with every word. You see it in his face. His fight scenes are visceral. This is the Wolverine we fans have been wanting since 2000 when that first X-Men movie came out. 

Logan’s R-rating means that we can finally see the carnage those claws can cause. People lose limbs. Blood is everywhere. There is a scene in which Laura literally decapitates a dude and throws his head to her enemies as a warning of what she’ll do to the rest of them. It’s magical because it is so terrifying and so absolutely ridiculous that it shocks the laughter out of you. 

Laura as a character is just pitch perfect. She was raised to be a killing machine and in that sense she is an absolute animal. She kills with screams of rage. She crawls on people, stabs them without flinching, and is both precise and deadly. The sheer violence she is capable of exacting is so preposterous sometimes that I really just could not stop laughing. Yet she is also just a child. You see how she looks at people and things with curiosity. You see how she longs for caring human interaction, how she longs for Logan to be a father to her. You see her confusion about who she is as a person and what her place could be in this world. She behaves in bursts, responding on the defense rather than the offense. Her violence comes from rage and self defense. when Logan sees her in action for the first time you know that it’s not just surprise at seeing another mutant. It’s terror at seeing this little girl reflecting back to him the animal he is always fighting within himself. Laura, after all, is not truly an animal. She is a human child forced to respond with primal instincts because the world she has been forced to live in gave her no other choice. Like Logan, she was hobbled from the start.

When Laura comes to be in his care, Logan is forced to confront his own shortcomings as a human being. There is his inability to provide intimacy. There is his absolute crippling fear of closeness both out of fear for himself and out of fear for those he chooses to love. How can he be a father to her when he doesn’t even know how to love himself? How can he teach her to be a better person when he’s a piece of shit? 

There is a part in the film where Logan, Charles, and Laura share a dinner with a family on their farm. Charles asks Logan to pause and just feel what it’s like to be in a place where people love each other, where they feel safe. Logan refuses, but in his last breaths he finally allows himself to feel that with Laura, and it is gut wrenching. The other children look on and you have to wonder. Are they sad for her? And are they perhaps a little bit jealous? After all, Laura may have just lost her father but at least she was lucky enough to spend even the smallest amount of time with him. The others have nothing. 

Professor X is another fantastic standout in this film. You know that Patrick Stewart was going to be able to handle whatever drama was required of him, but he was absolutely hilarious and tragic as the 90-years plus Xavier dying of some unknown degenerative brain disorder, refusing to take his medication, and nagging Logan with every breath. The film begs us to wonder: if the most powerful psychic mutant in the world suddenly lost control of his mind, what would that look like? Well. It’s pretty terrifying and also kind of funny. Charles has outlived nearly all of his protege. He is bitter, guilt ridden, and living from day-to-day moving from self-awareness to a foggy denial. When Laura comes on his radar, he knows this is a chance to do something good one last time. 

Logan knows it too and he is tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of living. Tired of everything. 

As a side note, that poor family’s blood is totally on Charles’s hands. He just HAD to stay for fucking dinner. Like. If they’d just kept going they would still be alive. Logan should’ve made them both shut up and kept driving. For fuck’s sake.

Another standout was Fabio Wolverine. Dr. Rice created another Wolverine (because he is the most popular mutant I guess or whatever) and that Wolverine is still firing on all cylinders and has slicked back guido hair for some reason. It’s eerie watching him face off with the real deal. Logan now greyed, dying, poisoned by his metal skeleton, and decomposing is unable to defeat himself in that final battle. The film closes out Jackman’s truly epic career as one of the most beloved comic book heroes with pointed finality. It’s funny to think that years back, people doubted Jackman could play Logan. Now we couldn’t imagine anyone else in the role.

If Jackman is truly serious and this is his last appearance as James Howlett, then this is probably also the last we’ll see of Wolverine for a very long time. Well, at least a MALE Wolverine. I’d be pretty excited for a stand alone Laura driven Wolverine film where she takes up Logan’s mantle. WE NEED MORE FEMALE DRIVEN ACTION FLICKS. As for another James Howlett Wolverine? There is no way you could hire someone else to play the character, not with a swan song like that. We’ve definitely said good-bye to an era and while it wasn’t always the best, this final film certainly gave Jackman the send off he deserved.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2016, Part IV

No, it’s not mid-February, Jack. Part I. Part II. Part III.

GOOD MOVIES

48. Jackie (Pablo Larrain) Pablo Larrain's aesthetic is rooted in the desire to demystify history. For a lot of the movie, I wasn't sure the week after JFK's assassination was history that needed to be demystified. Was it something that deserved more than Larrain's experimentation? Especially after a scene with John Hurt's priest that seemed superficial, after Portman's whispery impression went a bit too far, I didn't believe this game of dress-up.

But the pieces add up, especially the piece that is Mica Levi's score, which establishes the film's eerie intimacy and is one of the year's best. That priest I mentioned comes back for the best scene of the film, one that cements Jackie's role as a shaper of history herself, and he proves that the film deserved my patience. In the end, this is a movie with a real point of view, and I preferred it to the more expected approach. 47. Midnight Special (Jeff Nichols) Especially at the beginning, the mystery of Jeff Nichols' script works really well. People wrote that the film is indebted to early Spielberg, and I think they mean the sense of wonder. But it really has more to do with the way the information is parceled out in the parallel action. Like, a character will know a police call sign for some reason, and fifteen minutes later, when someone asks him what he used to do back home, he'll pause for a few beats and mutter, "State trooper." That doesn't seem like a big deal on paper, but those buttons at the ends of scenes create a lot of momentum. And while most people just see menace or inscrutability in Michael Shannon's square jaw, Nichols keeps capturing love and sacrifice. I don't know what I wanted from the ending, but its power is inversely related to how pompous the movie is about it. The film kind of lost me in the final third, but there's something to be said for a filmmaker who, instead of joining the franchise machine, just decided to make his own version of X-Men. 46. Don’t Think Twice (Mike Birbiglia) After an invigorating and true-to-life first half, Don't Think Twice suffered from insisting on balancing the ensemble. Every character gets a full arc and equal screen time, even though there are at least two that I didn't care about and two that could have been combined. Plus, a character makes a huge romantic leap that I didn't believe at all. But I don't care about those fairly major faults because the film gets the spirit of what it's depicting right. The improv bits are funny, but they're also believable as unwritten bits. Birbiglia's screenplay masters the subtle mixture of pride, envy, joy, and resentment that comes when a friend succeeds in something you can't. It also nails the weary desperation of artists of a certain age. And, thanks to yet another honest, soulful performance from Gillian Jacobs, the film is able to depict the blurry line between contentment and complacency. 45. Wiener (Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg) Weiner is exactly the movie it claims it is, which is sort of at odds with Anthony Weiner's presentation of himself. In other words, it's a straightforward, honest portrayal of a serpentine, dishonest man. Or maybe dishonest isn't quite the right word--though he does lie all the way to the end, even when it's unnecessary. It's more that Weiner convinces himself of things that are untrue. As far as that notion goes, the film is a compelling character study of the type of person who gets into politics in the first place, the specific chemistry of idealism and cynicism that it takes to believe that one man can and should represent everyone in the biggest city in the country. The filmmakers shape that analysis with a tight tragic hero structure to complement his foibles. That shaping is what gives me a little bit of reservation. From the cutesy titles to music cues to their tendency to not shut up, the directors connect a few too many dots for my taste, all to serve a "can you compartmentalize public lives and personal lives?" question that I'm frankly tired of. But if that's the trade-off for capturing the exact, raw moment of Huma Abedin hearing about Carlos Danger for the first time, then it's fine with me. Sydney Leathers is the definition of thirsty. 44. Born to Be Blue (Robert Budreau) It didn't vault the hurdle of greatness for me, becoming more conventional as it went, but Born to Be Blue's conceit worked well. The "starring in a film about himself" idea plays with reality in a sticky way. Unlike something like Miles Ahead, Born to Be Blue gives us enough of what made Chet Baker great that we can see the hole in his life as he tries to overcome addiction and re-teach himself the trumpet. A lesser actor would have found scenes to overplay, but Ethan Hawke's performance is just like Baker's style, "below the center, almost flat." And I mean that as a compliment. Playing most of the film out from a concentrated low point allows it to crest at a bittersweet moment, maybe not the perfect ending for Baker's life, but the perfect ending for this story. The coda of the film states that Baker continued to work "and" remained a heroin addict. Not "but." Budreau goes out on a limb and allows that some of the artist's greatness arose from heroin. Which proves that this is a film interested in learning about the actual man, not excusing away what made him complex.

43. Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-Ho) Have you ever written a sonnet? You have to understand the form before you start writing, and part of the writing is understanding how powerless you are to the form. It's one of the only mediums of art that squelches originality: A great sonnet is one that exemplifies the form, not necessarily one that transcends it. Zombie movies are kind of similar, and Train to Busan gets the form through-and-through. The rules are clear about how people become infected and what the zombies can and can't do. Then we meet fully-realized characters, some of whom we're rooting for, some of whom we're not sure about, and some of whom definitely have a bite coming. The economy with which the film makes those divisions is breathtaking. "Oh, he let the girl go ahead of him at the bathroom. Cool guy." "He told that colleague to straighten her tie. He needs to die." The effects are SyFy channel quality, and everything runs a bit long. But the film barely ever missteps. The central character's journey to, ahem, humanity is a familiar one, but it's not like I would want the final couplet of a sonnet in lines three and four. 42. Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson) Mel Gibson stays an auteur of suffering. The first third is imbued with a broad, Capra-esque tone that I didn't respond to but that was definitely consistent and intentional. Of course there's a coda with the real-life Desmond Doss, which makes Hacksaw Ridge another casualty to 2016's worst trend. As an action director, however, Gibson delivers the goods with coherent, visceral conflict. Did I write "action" above? Because what I meant was "violence." Like all other Mel Gibson films, Hacksaw Ridge is marked by nearly pornographic violence. He gets the post-Saving Private Ryan irony of war, and he stages Japanese seppuku with almost the same reverence as American sacrifice. After an hour of environments that Doss can grasp or control, the horror and chaos of war hits even harder. (One of the most gruesome moments comes in an extraneous nightmare sequence, the epitome of an uncontrollable scenario.) And after Doss has been hurt himself, after the stigmata on his rope-burned hands, after the ablution with water, after the shot that makes his descent on a stretcher look like an ascent to heaven--only then can he be redeemed. 41. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier) As tense as it is realistic, Green Room does the hard work of developing the central band's dynamics before allowing all hell to break loose once that band is pushed. There isn't a wasted scene in the first half, and the characters and location seem lived-in and authentic. As the film became more grisly in its second half, it lost a bit of my interest. Part of it is that Saulnier isn't yet a skilled director of action, and part of it is that his script is trying so hard to be subtle that it sometimes sacrifices clarity. I'm of the minority opinion that he botched the ending of Blue Ruin, and I'll be of the minority opinion that he botched the ending here. (Excellent closing metaphorical note with the dog though.) Still, it's rare to see thrillers with such organic escalation of stakes and such committed performances.  40. How to Be Single (Christian Ditter) There's some good old-fashioned joke-telling going on here, and I laughed a lot. The film is light enough on its feet to be freewheeling in one scene and emotionally bare in the next. More notably, it finishes with the message that not everyone's happiness comes from romantic relationships, which is a refreshing note. Like many ensemble films of its type, it occasionally drops a character for way too long and treats that ellipsis as growth. And I would say that I want Rebel Wilson to do something different, but that's just kind of a nice way of saying that I want Rebel Wilson to go away. The rest of the cast, including potential Movie Star Dakota Johnson and undeniable Movie Star Jake Lacy, is aces. 39. Mustang (Deniz Gamze Erguven) At first I thought that the approach was too broad for what the film was trying to explore, but then it got more heartbreaking with each minute. The comparisons to The Virgin Suicides are obvious, (For my money, Coppola's film is a more lush and meditative work of art than Mustang ever is.) but there's a unique desperation at play here. Erguven's camera produces so much empathy that I felt active patriarchal shame when characters were asking to see a sheet stained with a girl's hymen blood on her (arranged) wedding night. That being said, I wish the film had ended two minutes earlier, on a note of tonal false security, rather than a note of narrative false security.

38. Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman) The marriage of Whit Stillman and Jane Austen makes almost too much sense because the pleasures of both of their works are entirely verbal. If you look up "droll" in the dictionary, it's Stillman giving Austen a behind-hug while she takes a selfie. The difference is that Austen uses superficiality as a jab, and it sets the reader up for a piercing moment of emotion. Think Darcy's proposal or (wink wink wink wink wink) Cher realizing that she loves Josh. Stillman never really gets there; he's content with the characters' vapidity, even if that vapidity is hilarious for the entire runtime. Beckinsale has been fighting werewolves for so long that it's easy to forget how enchanting she is. She slips right back into Stillman's rhythms, and the void of compassion that is Lady Susan might as well be an ancestor to Last Days of Disco's Charlotte. However, the real find is Tom Bennett, who plays Sir James Martin, a man labeled in one of Stillman's opening tableaux as "a bit of a rattle." Bennett fidgets on the periphery of each room, throwing in a silly walk, congratulating an author on writing "in both poetry and verse." Martin's motivations are simpler than any other character's, but Bennett does so much with the role. 37. Triple 9 (John Hillcoat) The rest of the movie never climbs back to the level of the gripping opening, but the exhilaration doesn't get that much lower either. Triple 9 is a bit overstuffed for its running time--there are actually two ingenious plots being developed when either one would have been enough. So sometimes you scratch your head about a connection that is most likely on the cutting room floor. But dammit if there aren't some actors punching way under their weight classes. (I'm particularly enjoying this stage of Kate Winslet's career, which I call "Yeah. Why not? I have bills.") A cast like this lifts the screenplay's twists because you end up going, "They're going to kill off X? Well, yeah, I guess it's him or that other famous person." In one of the filmmakers' smartest moves, Triple 9 takes place in Atlanta, avoiding other productions' habit of taking the city's tax credits and having it stand in for some other metropolis. The locations feel gritty and lived-in, and Casey Affleck provides a credible Georgia accent, not just a generic American South. John Hillcoat, a director I've been lukewarm on, isn't slumming it just because this is a genre picture. 36. Little Men (Ira Sachs) The best thing that Ira Sachs's films have going for them is that there are no good or bad guys. Here we have more characters trying to do the right thing and trying their best to get by. (The pet theme of gentrification is back as well.) Greg Kinnear nails two big moments, but the problem is that the kids are the main characters. And, not to be mean to pre-teen actors, the proceedings are kind of limited by their performances. One of the boys in the film might be gay--he's still figuring it out--and the between-the-lines writing of that idea is way better than the execution of it. It's unclear whether Sacks worked out the levels of camaraderie versus attraction versus confusion with the boys, and I think the overall piece suffers for it, though it is a type of character we don't see even halfway articulated enough. 35. Dheepan (Jacques Audiard) We've seen many films about surrogate families or adopted families whose members, against all odds, come together because they need one another. How about a loose, unofficial family that doesn't work? The adults never fall in love. The kid never feels protected or safe. No one is responsible for anyone else. Dheepan isn't as depressing as that might sound, but it is a slice-of-life that is exactly that matter-of-fact. As usual, Audiard excels with detail: He gets the daily challenges of immigration right. "Oh, people alphabetize by last name in this country, not by first name. How was I supposed to know that?" Some, uh, important stuff happens at the end--there's an almost Taxi Driver-like switch that gets flipped for Dheepan--but I needed more dots to be connected before that. I didn't want the characters' devolutions telegraphed, but I would like to trace them after the fact. 34. Blue Jay (Alexandre Lehmann) A modest but haunting production, expertly acted, that resists any temptation to go bigger and more movie-like until...the revelation that does just that. 33. The Wailing (Na Hong-Jin) Let's say you're watching a movie, and something bizarre happens, then the film cuts to a guy bolting upright in bed. It was all a nightmare, right? You've been taught to disregard the previous scene because it didn't actually happen. What The Wailing's style presupposes is...maybe it did, and the guy waking up is just an unrelated new scene? I spent most of the first hour wondering if I was even watching The Wailing correctly, and the destabilizing elements extend to the tone and the characters. In the way it threads the needle between scary and silly, the fluid tone reminded me of Bong Joon-Ho's Mother, to do that condescending thing in which a critic compares two movies from the same country. Do Won Kwak's police officer ends up trying on heroism, but for the first half he's a guy whose daughter has to meet him at the station with dry clothes. Eventually though, the film leaves the idiosyncrasy for the trappings of any other supernatural thriller. Granted, it's an artsy supernatural thriller--the cross-cutting exorcism sequence is a stunner--but the last leg of the film drags and amounts to something disappointingly literal. 32. Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller) The characters of Rebecca Miller's script are all academics and, in quite a shocker, she treats them like the intelligent people they are. There's some farce here and some bad decisions, but they're decisions founded on smart people's accurate self-reflection. Couple that with a three-year flash forward as audacious as it is effective, and this is a nice surprise. Bill Hader's character is ye ol' screenplay's sounding board flatline, and Maya Rudolph is wasted even more. As far as the leads go, Julianne Moore's performance feels too broad, and I started to wonder, for the first time, if Greta Gerwig is a better actress than even the best actress on Earth.

31. Tower (Keith Maitland) There's quite a bit of novelty at work here. Maitland uses animation to recreate events of fifty years ago in a way that I never even really imagined could be done. By interviewing subjects, iPhoneing the (largely unchanged) setting, and rotoscoping over those backgrounds, it's as if the younger version of those people are going through that harrowing day all over again. When the novelty wears off, however, I don't think the film asserts enough. There's the montage of all the other mass shootings at the end, but too much of that connection--this as the day we lost our innocence--is implied. Charles Whitman is never shown, and his name comes up only twice. But by making him a faceless madman, Maitland might be over-simplifying the issue. I feel bad for pointing that out since this is a wholly compelling, admirable film that just didn't cross  over into greatness for me. It pushes the genre forward. 30. Don’t Breathe (Fede Alvarez) After a refreshingly economical setup (being set in Detroit adds automatic desperation), Don't Breathe is Pure Cinema through the night vision-y sequence. Especially if you read Rocky's family member as a daughter, not a sister--as I do--the characters' motivations come through loud and clear, preparing us for a breathless (ha ha) and visually confident second act. I would say that Fede Alvarez shows promise, but that sounds too underhanded for something that actually is a cashing-in accomplishment.The rest is fine. Something happens at the hour mark that was ballsy, then the screenplay kind of backtracked on it. And I'm far from Mr. Identity Politics, but how much more interesting would it have been if the Hispanic kid with cornrows was the calculating one whose dad owned a security company, the girl was the destructive hothead with criminal connections, and the White guy was the young parent with the terrible homelife? As opposed to the way it is, the matching quiz that you totally just aced. 29. The Nice Guys (Shane Black) With its crackly dialogue, west coast cynicism, and convoluted plot, The Nice Guys is a typical Shane Black film at a time when a typical Shane Black film is what we need most. If only it took place during Christmas time. Black sifts in ideas about alcoholism and What It Means to Be a Good Person; bystanders get clipped by stray bullets to remind us that the violence has actual consequences. But still, perhaps because the left turns and reversals are so relentless, the film feels a bit weightless by the end. Is it wrong for me to think this role as some sort of arch greyhound is Ryan Gosling's best performance? Even though I've loved him in the same pictures everyone else loved him in and some of the ones no one loved him in? He has to shoulder acting nightmares, like pretending to be drunk, and entire sequences depend upon his physical comedy. For most of the movie, it's unclear if Holland March is even good at his job, but there Gosling is crafting a character from the very first time we see him, crawling to catch a phone that stops ringing just as he gets there. It's not an easy role--somehow both adrift and paternal--but he attacks it with expressive, exuberant invention. He does everything shy of singing and dancing, and he does that in a film higher up on this list. 28. Sing Street (John Carney) It's nothing we haven't seen before--in fact, John Carney is remaking his own films in pretty clear ways--but Sing Street is a delight. The film is set in 1985, and its pre-Internet inspirations really suit Carney's optimism and the characters' guilelessness. The film is built upon the sort of serendipity and inspiration that is exempt from the anxiety of influence that a bunch of kids starting a band would have today. I could have done without so much of the performance in the school gym (about ten minutes could be shaved off easily), but both the romance and the big brother relationship rang true for me. Sing Street is the perfect version of what Carney has been trying to do all along. Now pick something else please. 27. De Palma (Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow) The more demanding part of me wants to say, "No, tell me more about when you tailed your own father as he was having an affair! Tell me more before moving on so breezily." But that would be discounting how candid De Palma actually is in, professionally at least, this insular, warts-and-all retrospective. He's honest about his work experiences, ("Cliff Robertson was terrible to work with.") his own limitations, ("I don't care for car chases. I'm not a car guy.") and the direction of cinema ("So what do you get? Visual cliches.") If nothing else, it feels like a privilege to see some of these indelible images on the big screen when I hadn't before. More importantly perhaps, the film doubles as a portrait of a time when artists were allowed to make mistakes. De Palma's a survivor, but in the high stakes corporate hellscape of global entertainment, that's a privilege. 26. Pervert Park (Frida Barkfors, Lasse Barkfors) Many people who are upset about current events are using movies as palliative care: a silly comedy or a mindless horror film to numb one from the horrors of daily life. I went the other way on the night after the election: a haunting, brutal documentary about the ugly depths of cycles of abuse. Pervert Park is a lean film marked by candid interviews with sex offenders. Those interviews are unpleasant, sometimes because of the selfish, misguided, even evil betrayals that the subjects committed. Sometimes because of the miscarriage of justice lurking on the margins of the piece. But if nothing else, the film teaches us that these are people, not monsters, who deserve dignity even if they took it away from someone else. I wanted more at times; a few of the subjects don't feel fleshed out, even though they reveal a damning amount already. But the saddest part is that the people who need to see this movie, the ones making policy about mental health and recovery, will not see it. So I'm back at being upset.

25. The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker) (Yeah. What up?) The Birth of a Nation was independently financed, but it does what the best studio films used to: It rousingly hits its beats with power that is two parts sincere and one part overdetermined. It's far from perfect. There's a bit of me-first filmmaking, light streaming through slats type of stuff, and the less magic realism the better for me at this point. Maybe the final fifteen minutes are padded, and a crucial scene, in which Nat explains his plan, strains to connect the dots between his equanimity and rage. But Nat is more complex than he would have been in most hands, burdened by the same things that free him. Furthermore, the element of the film that feels new and sophisticated is his relationship with Samuel Turner, the slave master he has known since childhood. The two have an uneasy dynamic that they refuse to talk about; they would even be friends if, you know, Samuel didn't deny Nat's fundamental humanity. (The relationship is made more tenuous, of course, by--spoilers for history--the fact that Nat will eventually kill Samuel.) In what might be the first time I've bought him, Armie Hammer plays that plantation owner, who dances on the edge of benevolence but is capable of real hatred. He believes he isn't "one of the bad ones," but he has justification after justification for why Black anger, not White oppression, is the problem. It's one of the pieces that is meant to resonate sharply in 2016--like almost everything else, it's pushed right to the edge without feeling forced. 24. Gleason (J. Clay Tweel) There are a few times in the film when Steve Gleason and his wife Michel say that, rather than sainthood, they're just striving for authenticity and honesty. That's what this documentary is aiming for as well. I could probably nitpick, especially with the opening's stock footage or Scott Fujita's guyliner, but the film is founded on raw emotion and delivers with rare intimacy. I should note: I'm a recent father, and I know this film was poignant for me in a way that it wouldn't have been even a year ago. The closest antecedent for Gleason is Life Itself, but as articulate as Roger Ebert was about his illness, he didn't also have a baby to raise, a father to spar with, and as acute an awareness of the moments passing him by.

[upalldown]

Big Thief - Two Hands

Fourth album and second of 2019 from the indie rock quartet fronted by singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker and recorded live

8/13

Big Thief has amassed a large and devoted fanbase the old-fashioned way: by releasing four astonishingly good albums in just three-and-a-half years, by touring relentlessly and seemingly without rest, by Instagramming a lot of photos of themselves grinning and embracing each other in various bucolic settings. When the quartet’s latest album—and second from this year—first landed in my inbox, there was something else old-fashioned about it: The 10-song record, Two Hands, had been separated into just two lengthy tracks, like two slabs of vinyl. Was this a Lovesexy situation, in which CDs would be issued as one continuous 40-minute piece of music, unwieldy to all but the committed few?

Well, no. This was a stopgap measure, the promo email explained: The advance stream had created artificial breaks between the songs, and Big Thief “didn’t want this to be how people experienced the album.” It’s a small anecdote that reveals a lot about the sort of care Big Thief puts into how their music is consumed and experienced by others—as well as the level of goodwill the band has accrued, such that critics will willingly put up with such measures to hear the album. And their second album in five months! Who else puts out two studio albums in one calendar year without an obligatory dip in quality?

In 2019, much of Big Thief’s ethos feels like a throwback to the LP era: the prolific output (think Creedence circa 1969-1970), the album-stream-as-vinyl-sides, the band’s creative intimacy and affinity for recording live with minimal overdubs. Which is appropriate, since this band’s razor-sharp songwriting has always felt somewhat adrift in time, belonging as much to the 1970s or early 2000s as it does to the present. Two Hands does not dramatically depart from the mesmerizing folk-rock fusion of U.F.O.F., but its best moments emphasize the band’s gnarled electric energy, particularly on the career highlight “Not.”

The two albums, it should be noted, emerged from two distinct sessions: U.F.O.F. recorded in a cabin in Washington State, Two Hands in the middle of the sweltering Texas desert at Sonic Ranch studio, just miles from the Mexican border. The band’s sense of togetherness is palpable. These 10 songs were largely tracked live, and it shows in the immediacy of the production—the crackling arpeggios of the title track, the natural reverb on the opening chords of “Shoulders.” (If you squint, you can almost hear the snare rattle from the amplifier’s vibrations.) The latter song makes explicit the band’s ecological fixations, with one of Adrianne Lenker’s angrier vocal turns and lyrics that ruminate on environmental violence (“The blood of the man who killed my mother with his hands is in me / It’s in me”). Both are standouts that seem primed to become live staples as the band graduates to bigger and bigger venues.

Although Two Hands begins with a subdued number—the loping waltz of “Rock and Sing”—its best songs are louder and more visceral than just about anything on its predecessor. “Forgotten Eyes” recalls the uptempo crunch of 2016’s “Masterpiece,” and it has a gorgeous, trembling quality as its ringing guitars drift in and out of tune. The song is a gesture of compassion for abandoned or forgotten humans, and Lenker is the rare singer who can make a simplistic refrain like “Everybody needs a home and deserves protection” sound achingly profound.

Just when you expect Two Hands to start winding down, Big Thief unleashes a roiling six-minute barnburner. “Not” is a phenomenal thing. As it moves from pounding mantra (nearly every lyric begins with the word “not”) to show-stopping guitar freakout, every spare molecule of Big Thief’s energy seems to be drafted in service of a higher intensity. Notice how Lenker’s voice cracks on words like “hunger.” Then marvel at the guitar solo, which is like the goddamn indie-folk “Maggot Brain.” If it’s not Big Thief’s greatest song to date—which it very well might be—it’s a reminder that this band can deliver electric urgency as adroitly as hushed catharsis.

“Not” is a tough act to follow, and the album’s only real blunder is that it even tries. The record’s final three tracks—“Wolf,” “Replaced,” and “Cut My Hair”—are all pleasant in their own individual ways. (The first of them, a folky yarn, even provides some wolf-like howling from Lenker, perhaps a callback to a line from the band’s 2016 debut: “I’m a wolf in a city of women.”) But in the smoldering ash of “Not,” all three songs wind up feeling a little like bonus tracks.

When an artist releases two studio albums in one year, it’s customary for critics to grumble about hubris, usually accompanied by the suggestion that the two separate releases should have been whittled down into one. Often—as with Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience and its turgid sequel—this charge is accurate. With Big Thief, it won’t be. Both records stand as outstanding and individual statements from a band operating at some rare creative peak. Both records deserve to exist, and we’re fortunate that they do.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/10/big-thief-two-hands-review.html

[caveartfair]

Richard Mosse Is Using a Weapons-Grade Camera to Take Chilling Photos of the Refugee Crisis

Portrait of Richard Mosse.  ©2012.  Mark McNulty.  Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

One month ago, the renowned Irish, New York-based photographer Richard Mosse booked a last-minute flight to Lesbos. The Greek island, home to the notorious Moria refugee camp, had been hit by a snowstorm. Mosse had witnessed the squalid, overcrowded conditions at Moria a year prior, and the thought of Moria’s inhabitants braving snow and freezing temperatures compelled him to return and document the refugee crisis there again.

Non-refugees and journalists are rarely, if ever, allowed access to the Moria camp, says Mosse. “The authorities in Greece are ashamed; the conditions are so squalid.” So he climbed a hill nearby to take a huge panorama of the camp, using a special weapons-grade camera, which captures images by detecting thermal radiation.

“The camera reveals a lot of the squalor,” says Mosse, pointing to one of those photographs, now hanging in his new show at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. The crisp, incredibly detailed image reveals countless people standing outdoors in queues and huddles amid snow drifts. “It’s freezing cold, people are really struggling to survive; there’s no way for them to warm up.”

Mosse’s last-minute trip to Moria was the latest segment of a project that has stretched over the past two years and has seen the artist—accompanied by filmmaker Trevor Tweeten and composer Ben Frost—shoot some of the most overcrowded refugee camps in Europe. These include Idomeni, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Elliniko, and Moria in Greece, Ventimiglia in Italy, and the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. Mosse has created images as aesthetically stunning as they are technically unprecedented, the photos’ mesmerizing detail and visceral intimacy shifting into a darkly emotional space with prolonged looking.

Mosse became a household name in art circles following the release of his “Infra” series of photographs and accompanying film The Enclave at the Venice Biennale in 2013. The works, immediately recognizable for their fuchsia hue, employed infrared film, typically used for reconnaissance, to capture soldiers and war zones in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Richard Mosse, Larissa Camp, Greece, 2016. ©Richard Mosse. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 

His new series, titled “Heat Maps,” and film, Incoming (2016), similarly tap into an ongoing conflict and harness uncommon technology in order to communicate attacks on humanity. The photographs and film stills debuted on February 2nd in New York; and the film makes its premiere at the Barbican in London on February 15th.

Mosse began working on the series three years ago, spurred by the growing urgency of the situation for refugees fleeing the Middle East and Northern Africa. “This has become one of the big subjects of our time,” Mosse says. But he has by no means been alone in the effort.

As the refugee crisis reached a fever pitch in 2015—with over a million individuals entering Europe—increasing numbers of photographers traveled to document the struggle. The resulting images have been instrumental in bringing transparency to the the often-squalid living conditions, violence, death, and human rights violations that individuals and families are experiencing within the camps—and raising awareness around the dire need for action on the part of governments across the world.

“It’s over-photographed,” Mosse admits, “so over-photographed that people stop seeing it on some level.” He recalls being in a swarm of some 60 photographers during his latest trip to Lesbos, including the likes of famed war photographer James Nachtwey. But despite this, Mosse has been able to add to the narrative, in a way people haven’t yet seen. Through technology, he has also gained access that others have been denied.

Mosse’s camera was developed by a multinational weapons and security contractor and has the capability to shoot sharp images from as far as 30.3 kilometers (18.8 miles) away. “It’s pretty insane,” says the artist, adding that by comparison, the human eye can see a maximum of around five kilometers at sea level. Importantly, when configured to Mosse’s specifications, the camera isn’t able to render distinguishing facial features that could detect a person’s identity, something that has proven useful in gaining permission to photograph camps like the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin where authorities are intent on maintaining refugees’ privacy.

Richard Mosse, to be titled (film still from Incoming), 2016. ©Richard Mosse.  Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 

Richard Mosse, to be titled (film still from Incoming), 2016. ©Richard Mosse.  Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

 “I’m entering into the space of Western governments here—this is the technology used by militaries, police forces, border security forces,” says Mosse of the technique. “I’m trying to appropriate their technology and use it against itself.” He shot some portions of Incoming off the coast of Libya in the Mediterranean and in the Persian Gulf, near the Iraq-Iran border from aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.

Mosse first learned of the camera through fellow photographer Sophie Darlington, who help him gain access to the U.K. facility that developed it. “You walk in the door and there’s a cruise missile on the left, and a virtual war simulator on the right,” he recalls.

He went to the roof for a demonstration of the camera and was able to see two men who had been invisible to the naked eye welding far away. “You could see the light of the welding flame reflected on one man’s beer belly,” Mosse recalls, “It was just such an extraordinary new image that I’d never seen before. It was so crisp.” In addition to the incredible optical zoom, the camera uses medium-wave infrared, so it’s able to cut through heat haze. “It diffuses light; it shoots nice straight lines—that’s how it can see people from very far,” he explains.

Mosse quickly took steps to acquire a camera of his own, something that came with its own challenges. “It’s regarded as a weapon,” Mosse explains. The camera falls under the International Traffic of Arms Regulations (ITAR) due to its inclusion in advanced weapons targeting systems. In its military configuration, the camera can be used to track people and vehicles and launch precision guided missiles.

A dual citizen, Mosse purchased the camera with his Irish citizenship. He keeps it in Ireland because transporting the camera within Europe falls under a single agreement, whereas bringing it elsewhere requires significant permissions. “Every time I leave Europe with the camera I have to apply with an Irish export lawyer; he has to apply with the department of foreign affairs, and they have to talk to the appropriate consulate service,” he explains, adding that some sanctioned countries like Libya and Syria would never allow for the camera to enter. “If you do this without permission, it’s regarded as weapons smuggling.”

Richard Mosse, Idomeni Camp, Greece, 2016. ©Richard Mosse.  Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 

Mosse next worked with the camera’s designer to develop a way to use it to shoot large panoramic images. He explains that the camera shoots in a kind of tunnel vision, “so it’s not as good at telling the story as a conventional video camera. It’s like trying to shoot a feature film through a telescope.” (He essentially did that for Incoming.)

To shoot the “Heat Map” photographs, they developed a robotic arm on which the camera is mounted and programmed to move precisely on a gridded-out plane. All together, the equipment weighs some 175 pounds. Each landscape comprises nearly 1000 images taken over the course of 40 minutes, which Mosse later stitches together digitally.

“You can see people have been chopped off,” he says gesturing to a man’s head and torso, centimeters away from his legs. “I left them like that; I could’ve taken them out and faked it, but I really like the way it points to [the image’s] construction and reveals its unraveling.” The final photographs are printed on a shimmering metallic digital c-paper.

Mosse likens the images to the classical paintings of Bruegel and Bosch. “You see all these little figures living their narratives,” he explains. “Also the way perspective is—there’s something bizarre happening where there’s no horizon, it’s flattened space—also evokes those painters.” The effect is purposeful, resulting from his preference to shoot the camps from above.

Incoming, the three-channel 52-minute film, has a very different effect. “Both are very expressive, but [Incoming] is much more visceral, it makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck a little bit,” Mosse says. Some shots are fairly abstract, due to the narrow angle captured by the camera at any one moment.

Richard Mosse, Helliniko, 2016. ©Richard Mosse.  Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 

The film also unleashes the full power of the camera’s infrared technology to dehumanize its subjects. It renders their skin scrawled by blood vessels and zombie-like—and captures the retention and transfer of heat. “The camera sees a sort of patina of activity,” says Mosse, pointing to handprints left onto the rail of a lifeboat careening in high waves as it prepares to make landfall in Lesbos.

Countless small details like these handprints, or a young woman making a heart shape with her hands at Tempelhof, stand out among the huge panoramas. They allow viewers to grasp the individuals and humanity often lost in the immense scale of the camps and refugee crisis as a whole.

“That’s part of the strategy really, to refresh the visual language,” Mosse says, “to arrest the viewers’ attention, and to make them think about how we represent, and also therefore regard the refugee.”

—Casey Lesser

from Artsy News