You know all those Cults in Gotham?
Bet at least ONE of them could spring for both a Legit Magic User and a Cloning pod.
Because The Wayne's? Hearts of Gold. Long standing pains in the asses. Probably the only thing standing between this gods forsaken wasteland of a city and Their Dark Lord. For GENERATIONS no less!
It's sooooo obnoxious!
So they want to Curse Um dead. Just a good ol fashioned bloodline curse. Destroy um from within, etc. BUT! To do THAT? You kinda need a blood relative to sacrifice!
And Bruce is... well... rather infamously An Orphan With No Biological Kids (at that point).
So? What do you do? Make one, obviously. You send in some of your own on a Holy Mission. Honeypot that playboy! Get us a kid to sacrifice! Our God will reward you etc! But... FFS! What? Are brunettes not your TYPE or something?! Pretty lady! Throwing herself at you!!
TAKE THE BAIT!
But he DOESN'T. Because he's both really used to that behavior, as The Wayne Heir and a False Playboy, AND because? He's fuckin Batman. He can see through your schemes.
Okay.
Okay!
Plan B!
Get us some DNA. We'll CLONE the sucker. That should be doable, right?
........OH COME ON! How?!
Batman: [REDACTED] / Cultists: 0
Fuck it! This is impossible! How are we supposed too... *eyes drift over to the Wayne Family Private Graveyard* .......Idea? Ideeeeaaaa~! Someone get us a shovel!
So they, cultist bastards that they are? Fuckin rob a grave for some DNA.
OBVIOUSLY though, it can't be one of the more RECENT graves! He probably VISITS those! Watches them! No we gotta be SNEAKY! Get one a bit further back! Mwahahahaha! We're so brilliant! Our God is gonna give us SUCH a Good Grade in follower!
A thing that is both REAL and possible to achieve!
So, while a Weirdly FURIOUS Batman? Is just... VIOLENTLY breaking ALL of their bones? Cultist 17 is furiously digging like his life depends on it. Either somebody snitched or Batman was hunting them down! Either way?
Gotta! Get! That! DNA!!! *digs faster*
Ah HA! Got it!
Fucking SCATTER! Run you fools, RUN!!! *everyone bolts*
And AT LAST! They have it! Wayne DNA! Now? Pop that sucker into the machine and make us a baby! Too sacrifice! *relieved noises* Man, that was hard work you guys. But we DID it!
Except??
Theoretical Babies? And "Real, slowly forming in front of me and becoming a human child" type babies? VERY DIFFERENT psychologically. It's ONE thing to sacrifice a HYPOTHETICAL baby... but when you're the guy running and monitoring the Cloning machine? Watching it slowly form and come together into... into a CHILD?
You start asking questions of yourself. Of God.
Of what, EXACTLY, you are willing to do.
What lines you find yourself unwilling to cross.
And yeah, your life was SHIT before the cult. Yeah, you were alone. Adrift. Without purpose. Angry at the world for all of its ugliness and failings. But... sitting, alone, in a dark room? Nothing but the steady hum of machines and the cool light of that pod? You are left with nothing but time... and your thoughts.
And the baby.
The one... the one YOU made.
Almost... he's almost like a son, in a way. Your son. Floating there, innocent and unknowing. Destined to be born, only to die painfully, for a cause he could not even begin to understand. Because he's too young. Too small. Just... just a baby.
The baby YOU made.
Doubt seeps in like mist. Creeping into the cracks forming in your faith. Surely there's another way, right? Why not save up for a better magician? Or... or hire a hitman? Why involve a child? Surely... surely your God would not WANT this, right? Or if He did! Surely, he would want the boy to be able to CHOOSE, right? A noble sacrifice, for the cause?
The pressure builds. Batman is tearing the city APART looking for your fellow Believers. Leadership is pressuring you to get "It" ready all ready.
He's not an "it".
They are dismissing your questions. Threatening and posturing, as you grapple with your faith. Where? Where is the COMMUNITY that you joined? The camaraderie? Every day, Believers are being torn down. The faith has lost so many!
How can this be WORTH it?
Your faith is slowly, cruelly, strangled in your chest. A death, by ten thousand silences, and ten thousand more cruelties.
Your son is ready.
You do not tell them.
The Clone of Bruce Wayne's great-grandfather is small, but healthy, in your arms. A tiny warm body, with a strong beating little heart. You call the police. Leave your phone, call running, on the desk. No one thinks to stop you, as you calmly walk out the back door.
Why would they doubt?
You are Faithful.
You drive. Pray to a God you have lost faith in, beg forgiveness for what you do now. Your beat up old junker of a car makes decent time, as you leave Gotham. Your son, asleep in a carefully made nest of blankets, on the seat next to you. You drive. You keep driving.
Past towns.
Past cities.
Out of the state.
Stopping only to feed your son and fuel your car. You... you can not bring yourself to care about what will happen to you now. You know they will find you. Know this is the end. But something ancient burns in your chest. A caring you never thought was REAL.
You are afraid.
But you will not let them harm your son.
Finally, a town. Far from Gotham. Quite and cheerful. It calls to you.
Here. It... it has to be here.
You find the hospital. Tears choking you. There is a place to drop of children. You've seen them before. How strange, that now you stand before it and HURT. Your arms not listening to your command. You... you have to do this. You HAVE too.
He is just a baby.
He is your son.
You have to keep him safe. And... and that can not be with you.
You gently put your baby boy into the drop off. Press the buzzer. And then? You make yourself walk away.
Get back in your car, and drive. The gun in your glove box will insure they can never pry from you, what you have done. Where he is. He is safe now. He has to be. You... you did your job. As his father. You made sure he was safe.
You can barely see the road, through your tears.
You take your secrets to the grave.
And Danny? He grows up. Is adopted young and never knows different. Both a Fenton and a Wayne. Knowing only one of these, to be his. But... that Wayne? Was a damn fine man. A pillar of his community and a champion of the people.
Got tossed more then a few blessings, in his life.
They weren't the STRONGEST. But they added up. And more importantly? Were hardly the refined magics of the more powerful. They were cast onto "Him". By blood and bone, more often then not. Which was all well and good!
When there was only ONE of "Him".
Cloning technology did not exsist. So why would you word carefully against it? Danny becomes a VERY lucky boy. Survives many things he should not. In fact, the kindness and hard work of his original? Gifted back in magically powered well wishes? By this, he survives something NO ONE could possibly expect him too.
It saves his life.
His template would be quite pleased, knowing that. That his life of good deeds, saved the life of the child he never got a chance to meet. That it protected his children, from even beyond death.
And in Gotham? At long, long last. The program Bruce made in his helplessness and despair, to search EVERY child until the child made of his bloodline was found? Spits out a match.
A Watchtower engineer.
Daniel J. Fenton.
@hdgnj @hypewinter @lolottes @babbling-babull @nerdpoe @mutable-manifestation
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Christian Woman
(König x Nun!Reader)
Word count: 6.4 k
Tags/warnings: Pining intensifies, religious despair intensifies, minor injuries, treatment of wounds, crying, enthusiastic kissing, König gets a few boners. 18+ for eventual smut in this story.
A/N: Don't tell me you wouldn't get horny scared too if you saw this tall guy suddenly emerging from the shadows in his full war gear :) There's a cute date night and a lot of angst in this chapter too, I tried to summon an actual plot here... As always, I need to explain why they’re bonking! But smut is coming, next and last chapter will be full of fluff and steamy first times (Reader is virgin!)
Part 2
You have a feeling that this is the last day you’ll see him.
The stranger from the Austrian Alps, the kindest mercenary you’ve ever met – the only mercenary you’ve ever met – the giant soldier who now carries a piece of your heart with him. You wonder if he even knows he owns it.
The morning prayers and mass are a chore and bring you no comfort, and the usual dawn bliss is gone. You find no delight in singing with your sisters, and withdrawing to your cell for solitary prayer feels like stepping back inside your own personal purgatory.
You’ve been in heaven and in hell for days now. Maybe since the moment you met him...
But at the same time, you know it must’ve been the Lord who brought you together. There must be a reason for God to make you two meet, you refuse to think it’s only because He wishes to tempt you. There must be a bigger plan; the connection, as sinful and carnal as it is, has to serve some higher purpose.
And you wonder if you’re going mad, because your most sinful thought is that you actually see God in him. It’s just your lower instincts speaking, a demon of some sort that tries to misguide you because no man is like Lord Jesus.
And yet, don’t they always preach that you meet Him in every person you meet? And that through you, other people meet God too…?
This reasoning feels much better. It solidifies the mercy you’ve longed for during the brief weeks you’ve known this man who brashly calls himself König. You want to believe that he carries a spark of the Divine in him, and that you hold a grain of the Virgin Mary’s compassion and love in you.
You decide to hold on to this thought: that you were meant to meet so that you could come to know God through each other. For in König, you see a suffering God, a crucified Christ who rises against evil by offering himself to the cruelty of men. Somehow, the image of him as a mortal man starts to twist into a divine, dark trooper, someone who battles the forces of the evil in this world.
And this reasoning leads you to think that it is only natural that you, a Sister of the Faith, have helped him find some rest and relief in the middle of his work. It’s pretty clear that König has found some solace in your company, and even if things have ventured into a forbidden area of low, simple lust, it’s not dark enough to taint the beauty and grace you've felt together. As long as you hold on to this purity, nothing can go wrong.
While praying for both of you that morning, you find yourself replaying the smiles and touches König has given you these past weeks. You know you will drown yourself in memories after he's gone because they are all you’ll ever have of him.
And they're more than enough.
Or at least they should be…
You feel a tiny dagger of guilt push into your heart, the place reserved for Christ, when you’re assigned to do some spiritual reading instead of helping out in the kitchen or organizing the small library. The appointed texts are about falling into temptation and sin, reminding you about the consequences of such actions. You read the passings with a heavy heart and then slip out to meet König, possibly for the last time.
You wear your everyday clothes to the café, and König says nothing about your sudden moral choice, only gives you another longing, enamored once-over. You keep him at arm’s length, both physically and emotionally, and the effects of this unexpected cold shower are immediate. The man doesn’t even try to disguise the sad, puppy-eyed stares he shoots your way.
You hate it that the bright, playful air of your meetings is gone, and your heart is tearing itself apart in your chest because the only thing you wanted was to spread joy into his world. Even the Lord seems disappointed in you being so cold-hearted, and you can’t bear to see His sadness and suffering in König’s eyes.
You get offered not one, but two coffees today, and a large piece of dark chocolate cake that tastes of pure sin. He talks about how he would love to write to you, but you tell him you can’t be in correspondence with a man who isn’t your brother or father. König isn’t even married, so it would only raise questions – you would find yourself reading spiritual texts about lust and sin until it drives you crazy.
“I’m leaving early tomorrow,” he finally reveals with a voice thick with sorrow. “Can I see you before I go...? One last time?”
“I’d love to, but… I’m sort of being watched,” you say, slowly coming out of your shell to make it clear that you’d want to spend the rest of your life with him, but you simply just can’t.
Your weak, apologetic look is like a dose of confidence shot through his veins because the face opposite of you brightens immediately. König’s whole posture gets a hopeful uplift.
“Just for a little walk...? To see what the city looks like in the evening?”
“I don’t know if I can make it… I have to work until six... And attend the evening prayer at seven. And then silence starts at eight…”
You’re wringing your hands under the table while you explain, hoping König will come up with a solution to this dilemma.
“We can go for a walk after silence, then,” he shrugs.
“I–I can’t just escape from the window.”
“...Why not?”
You look at König; he looks straight back.
The man’s serious about you sneaking out your window at night; he’s actually serious, even if there’s a dark, playful smile rising on his lips.
“I can help,” he grins.
Your heart cracks open, it shoots full of light only more and more with that smile. König doesn’t need to ram a door down and shoot his way through your chest; all he has to do is sneak inside your heart and take the place that belongs to God. You don’t even feel the difference as he makes himself at home.
Well, actually, you do... It’s like your Christ’s love and mercy have finally come to flesh and blood before you. They're materialized in the man sitting opposite of you, bouncing his knee excitedly and grinning like the most innocent little devil on Earth.
You find yourself whispering “Ok”, and the whole world shifts.
You take a step towards something forbidden but great, your whole heart starts to sing along with life. You haven’t even done the actual thing yet but you’re already filled with bubbling laughter and excitement. If only your friend could see you now, about to do things she probably did when she was fifteen...
But everything feels so right that it can’t be a sin – if it is, it just so happens to be the most natural, most divine thing to do too.
If this is the last day you’ll ever see him, you can surely steal a tiny moment for yourself and forget about rights and wrongs for a moment. Just forget about the rules, and live in the actual world for a few hours, breathe the worldly air, see what normal people do and pretend you’re one of them, for just one night.
…
You feel like Cinderella when picking clothes for the evening.
You rummage through the only closet in your room – during the time that should be spent in silent prayer before bed – and notice you still have your old jeans.
They’re light blue and still fit; actually, they fit more than well... You know that König’s eyes will be glued to your butt when you’re not looking.
You have completely forgotten how nice you look in jeans, and it’s the Devil talking, making you admire yourself in tight denim like this. You never cared about how you look before; you certainly never gave much thought to how men see you or if they’re checking out your butt or breasts. Now you’re grooming yourself like never before, trying to decide what to do with your hair as if your life depended on it.
You choose a simple, black t-shirt to pair with the jeans and not make it too obvious that you’re trying to flaunt yourself. It hugs your form but is otherwise plain, and for some people, your choice of clothing is probably their regular work outfit. To you, it feels like you’re about to go out to seduce everyone.
Everything’s so tight and earthly; everything’s so… there. Visible... Touchable.
Lord, have mercy on me. I know I’m weak. But please let me have this, just this once…
And König has seen you without makeup all this time, so what on earth has possessed you to lament the fact that you don’t own a single case of lipstick? You’d kill for a few sweeps of mascara, too, just to bat your lashes at a silly man.
It’s not a date, you remind yourself.
It’s not a date... It’s not a date. You’re just going to have a short walk with him.
And you fear that accepting König’s “help” was a mistake. If you get caught with a man on the convent perimeter, you’ll get your ass thoroughly whooped…
Can a man of his size even keep quiet?
He probably suggested it so that you wouldn’t chicken out of this. If König is at your window by 8 and there’s no sign of you, he’ll probably just come in, throw you on his shoulder and jump out. He knows where your window is located now, and surely has some questionable skills due to his profession, skills you know nothing about, but you’re still about to have a panic attack from pure excitement when the clock strikes 8.
You push the window ajar and settle on the sill to keep watch, gasping when you hear his familiar accent down below as soon as the window is open.
“Kätzchen...”
“König…?”
You peek down and meet his stupid, grinning face – God, he’s so happy to see you kept your promise. His eyes are shining, his fingers interlock to help you have something to place your foot on.
“Here, kitty, kitty…”
You could easily jump out the window without hurting yourself, but of course he wants to help you since you were so kind to tell him where he could come and "pick you up".
But to see that playful smile and hear him trying to coax you out like you’re some skittish little kitten…
Could a grown man get any more silly?
You wiggle yourself out the window, trying to ignore the fact that he’s probably staring at your butt, still grinning like crazy while you do it.
SupportING your entire weight like it’s no trouble at all, he helps you down. You’ve never been this close to him since you bumped into him: you have to take support from his shoulders as you search for a footing, and he scoops you in his arms the minute both your feet are safely on the ground.
“I knew you’d come,” he purrs with joy, and you place your hands on his chest – not to keep him at bay, but to touch him in a way that is as appropriate as possible when a man is hugging you like this.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” you whisper, still unsure if this is the best or the worst decision of your entire life.
“Kitty… Live a little, hmm?”
You have to crane your neck to look up at him – you’re not sure if you’re in the embrace of Jesus or Lucifer because the warmth of those eyes compare to the love of God, but they also make you weak and helpless. Whenever you’re with your sisters, the feeling is pure, pristine love, not a surge of complex emotions and thrill like it is with König.
“You’re a bad influence,” you breathe – König only laughs, and the grip around you tightens.
“My lady. You’re the one who climbed out the window.”
“Because someone would’ve probably thrown small rocks on it if I hadn’t…!”
“Natürlich. And if that didn’t work… A serenade or two. Do you like love songs?”
You look down at his chest, smiling, heart fluttering at the thought of a silly Austrian man serenading under your window. You have no trouble imagining him singing something syrupy in German, waking everyone up with his racket.
“You’re crazy, did you know that...?”
“Sure. They tell me that all the time at work. Aber du… Du bist süss.”
“...What’s that?”
His smile only widens as he takes in your lips, your neck, the tight shirt that finally gives him something more to look at.
“You’re cute.”
…
The whole evening is heavenly.
It’s everything you’ve ever wanted from a date and more.
He doesn’t take you for a short walk, oh no. He takes you out to eat, at some lively restaurant where they serve delicious, artisan, wood-fired pizzas. You have créme brûlée for dessert, and König gives you his strawberries when he notices you eat them first, but only on one condition: you have to let him feed them to you one by one.
He buys you a rose: a big, red, plump one. No man has ever bought you flowers before, and even if you love lush, abundant bouquets, the fact that he chose you a single red rose after you’ve spoken about the beauty of simplicity, doesn't escape you.
König hasn’t only listened to you these past few weeks: he gets you. And how symbolic is it that he chose a rose that’s also tied to all the mysteries of God?
You walk the streets with a flower in one hand and his palm in the other. It's a holy trinity of him and you and the Great Mystery, it’s passion and it’s thorns, it’s blood and beauty and pain, and you feel like he just gets you; he knows you through and through.
You pass by an outdoor bar with live music, and the place is so crowded that people are dancing on the streets. No cars honk as they slowly pass by the scene, the music and the laughing, dancing pairs make even the grumpiest passersby smile.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that König pulls you to him before you get to escape the scene. You’re drawn flush against his chest, hips colliding with his, hands finding each other in a slow sway that has never even seen the steps of Latin dances.
“Nuns are allowed to dance, no?”
He smiles dreamily, enveloped in the same sweet haze as you.
“Not with a man,” you correct, but don’t even bother to push him away. Instead, you let König guide his hand down your waist and draw you closer. If this isn't a date, you don't know what is...
“I can take the blame,” he says. “You can tell everybody it was me.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” you laugh.
“Why not?”
His eyes are glued to yours, making you warm all over, so much so that you feel like you’re burning from the neck up. You guide your stare down to his chest, then over to the quick heartbeat on his neck.
He's nervous, too... Your cruel soldier is nervous, and kind, and shy because he's pressed against you.
You rest your head there on his chest, watching the golden sunset far away, painting the rooftops with a genial glow. Your heart is made of molten gold, too, as you allow yourself find a home in his embrace.
“I can take your sins,” he promises above you. “Jesus did that too, right?”
“You’re not Jesus,” you smile against his shirt – black, always black...
“Are you sure? I would go to hell for you.”
Your dance comes to a halt as you swallow and lift your gaze. The smiles are gone now, both yours and his. He’s so close now he could touch your lips with his if he wanted to.
And he does want to.
You don’t shy away as he leans down to kiss you. It’s chaste at first, a slow exploration, but then he opens your mouth with his, demanding, hot, intoxicating. You melt in his arms, and he somehow supports you through it all, turning the dance into an embrace and the decent little kiss into a full French one.
It’s hot and wet and slow, so, so passionate that your knees are about to give in. You devour him back, feel how he grows hard against your stomach – the swelling erection makes you dizzy before you come to your senses, but only barely.
You break away an inch, panting into his mouth while he’s panting into yours. What a blessing that you don’t own any lipstick; both of your lips are red without it…
“This is–”
“Inappropriate?”
His voice is husky, and sends a flood of wetness down between your legs. Your heart is racing, but you can’t even note how terribly alive you are before he attacks your lips again.
The kiss is even more desperate than the first one, and the slow urgency is gone. His mouth leaves you without air, and then – he wraps his arms around you and picks you up from the ground like you weigh nothing. Your hands get squished somewhere between you, naturally coming to cup his face as you kiss him back.
It’s eager, pure lust, so powerful and needy that it scorches through your chest and ties your heartstrings into tight little knots, makes your brows knit together, too.
He grunts into your mouth, sensing you’re more than up for this after all. You let him see the full depth of your hunger and your lust, just waiting to be released and taken – made love to until you’re both sore and messy and limp.
God… This is better than God…
You hear whistles and whoos in the distance, some men yelling, “Let’s go!” and “Get a room” while they pass by. Realizing you’ve fallen into a dream trap of strong arms and needy lips about to depart tomorrow, you know it's something you could have had years ago, perhaps, but not anymore. You'll lose everything if you break your vows tonight: basically, you’ve already broken them, but no permanent damage has been done.
You can still turn back if you turn back now…
You push yourself away, push him away, heart clenching when you see his adoring, love-drunk, half-lidded stare.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, fighting back tears as you come down from your high. “I just–I can’t…”
He breathes labouriously, still clutching you against him, holding you in the air like you’re the thing he has searched for his entire life and now, finally discovered… Only to be told that he now has to put it back where he found it.
You’re crying by the time he sets you down, and you have no heart or will to pull away. Instead, you bury your face in his chest and cry your fill in his shirt. It’s soon damp from your tears as König hugs and supports you through his own stoic heartbreak.
“I’m sorry... I’m sorry…”
You repeat it until you can’t repeat it anymore, bawling in his chest while the world around you continues to spin despite your heaven and hell, despite your vows, despite your stupid devotion. The world revolves like it always has, as you choose a crucified man over the one who’s flesh and blood and holds you through your pain.
“Kätzchen, don’t cry,” he pets your hair while you sniffle and tremble in his embrace. You know this is not the last time you will cry your heart out over him, but knowing it doesn't help you when he offers you his last, bittersweet comfort.
“It was a good dream while it lasted...”
…
The rose withers in your cell.
You turn it upside down and tie it to the curtain rod to prevent it from dropping its petals. It dries beautifully and keeps its bloodred colour, now reminding you of both Jesus and him.
There hasn’t been a word from König in months, and of course there hasn’t. You denied his wish to write you, and the dried rose is the only thing left of your time with him.
In the first weeks, it’s hard to keep up a charade. You show up to prayer, work and mass with red eyes, revealing to everyone that you’re going through a loss of some sort. Somewhere during the first week, the abbess summons you to meet her and you brace yourself for a scolding.
God knows you don’t need the rebuke, and when you close the door and turn to face the symbolic mother of the convent, you end up breaking into tears right in front of her.
“Whatever you were up to, my child, I am glad that it is over now,” she says with all the gentleness of the world.
“Me too,” your voice breaks, and when the abbess extends her hands, you go to her, fall to your knees, and have another heartwrenching cry with your face in her lap.
You’ve denied yourself love and mercy for days, expecting to be expelled or shamed or ridiculed, but mercy is what you’re offered now, even after you’ve sinned.
The abbess caresses your hair just as softly as König did just days ago, and the fact that her kind gesture reminds you of some silly, infatuated soldier, only makes the breakdown worse. You bawl like a little child who’s deprived of candy, and you don’t even have the strength to berate yourself for it.
“I hope you haven’t done anything irredeemable...?”
“No... Nothing happened,” you sob and look out of the rose window, desperate for sun while your head rests on a gentle but distant lap.
Nothing happened except the most sinful, beautiful, lustful kiss of your life... Nothing happened except that you saw this man every time you could, held hands with him, swam in his smiles and affection, and went to bed with thoughts inappropriate for any human being.
“The world tests us in many ways... But Lord never tests us. He only loves us.”
Something in that sentence finally quenches the neverending flow of tears. Your muscles start to relax, and you remember that this is the eternal truth: to surrender, over and over again, to a power far greater than you.
The abbess never asks for details about what you have done. She never tells you you have sinned; you don’t need to be told that. The punishment has been dealt already: whoever ties herself to this world and its temptations will suffer exactly like this when the passion and excitement ends. The key to escaping its grip is to simply let go first, once and for all, surrender to the love of God, and trust that everything fill fall into place eventually.
“You must offer your mind and body to work now,” the motherly voice speaks above you. “Work, time and prayer will ease your pain.”
…
Work, time and prayer do ease the pain.
They ease all pains, but it takes almost six months to stop thinking about him every hour of every day.
You’re proud of yourself when you find out one day that you haven’t thought about him at all. He just now crossed your mind when you remember how he used to smell: of salty seabreeze mixed with intoxicating musk, the scent of excitement and safety all in one.
You could almost swear you catch a whiff of that particular scent in the yard when you go and water the flowers one evening, but it can’t be: he’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it, nothing you even want to do about it because you already made your choice. This path leads you to greater peace of mind in the long run, and you know you made the right decision even if it hurt you and König.
Sunsets still remind you of him, the colour of rose and gold mixed with endings, but the memories are now laced with bittersweet love rather than blunt despair and pain. The times you spent with him are a collection of brief, blissful moments, and you treasure every single one of them in your heart. You still pray for him, not every day, but nearly every day. You touch the rose when the hurt reaches its peak, but the last time you did that was almost a week ago.
And you thought you had forgotten his scent, but apparently, you have not. In fact, it seems to drift to your nose again, which is odd because you’re outside, after all…
“Kätzchen.”
A whisper is hissed from the shadows just as you’re about to straighten and investigate, because either you’re going crazy or then there’s someone here who smells exactly like him.
You startle and almost drop the watering can, staring straight into the shadows under your window. The tallest man you’ve ever seen steps out from the dark in full combat gear, and while you can’t see his face because it’s covered with a draping black hood, you recognize it’s him simply from the way he moves.
“Don’t be afraid. It’s me,” he rasps and tries to straighten from the slightly hunched position he’s in, but immediately falls back, then slants to lean on the wall. His gear is dirty, and he holds the side of his stomach with one hand, the lively blue eyes either drunk or very very tired.
“Dear God… What happened to you?”
You abandon the watering can and rush to him; it’s useless to ask if he’s injured when, clearly, he’s trying to prevent himself from slumping to the ground.
He’s enormous and intimidating even when wounded, a soldier loaded with ammo and weapons and protective paddings and guards, wearing a hood and a helmet and a radio of some sort, his tactical gloves bloody and eyes droopy. The weapon by his side is almost half as tall as you, and God – is that a grenade strapped to his vest?
“I got compromised,” König looks down at the wound but doesn’t remove his hand. He looks so different, like another man entirely when he’s not dressed in his customary olive green pants and a casual black t-shirt. He seems even buffier now, even taller, so terrifying that you wonder if you ever even knew this man.
You must look like a frightened deer because König mistakes your horrified look as sweet, simple concern.
“Don’t worry... They have it much worse, I assure you,” he says with his usual grin – you can hear it from the way he says it that he’s smiling. But it’s so weary now, so exhausted and frail compared to his confident, playful laughs and that husky voice with which he spoke to you after your kiss.
“I came to ask for help,” he continues under his breath, wobbling even when leaning against a wall. “You’re the only one I can… trust.”
“Of course, anything. I will do anything I can.”
His eyes smile down at you from behind the executioner’s veil. It’s that same devoted stare you’ve been trying to dispel for months now. You give yourself a quick mental shake, then tell him to wait here while you go in and call for an ambulance.
König bounces off the wall and seizes your hand, telling you he can’t go to a hospital and that, if anything, he must avoid any kind of public places. You don’t ask any further questions, even if you know you’re in a pickle now, and not only because those glacial eyes are making your knees weak again. There’s nothing much you can do: he’s wounded and still in danger, saying he can’t trust anyone else. Of course you have to help him in any way you can. If he says it’s not safe, then you must help him get somewhere where it is safe.
And besides, aren’t you a nun? You’re supposed to help those in need.
So when he asks you if there are any motels or a bed & breakfast nearby, you say you know just the place.
It makes your heart bleed that König takes support from you while you slowly make your way down the street. A man of his size, a body trained to withstand whatever his job throws at him, seeking support from a frail little nun… It’s a joke, indeed, and a horrid one.
When you get to the small place run by a humble old man, you don’t know who to feel more sorry for: the elder behind the counter or König, desperately trying to stay on his feet.
“I mean no trouble,” he says while pushing an unnerving amount of money across the table. “I just need a place to rest.”
The receptionist’s eyes dart to you, then back to König, who still has what you suppose is a loaded rifle dangling by his waist. The safety is on, probably, but there are also knives and grenades strapped to his person, and with that hood, he mainly looks like a terrorist of some sort.
“She’s here to help. See...? Bride of Christ. Even less trouble than I am.”
You try to smile reassuringly as the man risks a better look at you now instead of being fixated on König or his weapons.
You must make an odd pair, a soldier and a nun... The old man probably has a ton of questions in his head right now.
“No shooting,” he says to you, but his words are directed at König.
“No shooting,” he promises. “No mess if no one knows we’re here. Ok...? You’ve never even seen us.”
The receptionist nods. Then he extends a trembling hand and takes the money, and hands out a key without taking any check-in information.
You go to König and help him up the small stairs and into his room paid with bloody money and a menacing appearance. The fitted carpet is old, and floral patterned, the room small and adorable and meant for visitors far more petite than König. The bedspread is old-fashioned and floral too and has never even seen blood, of that you are sure when König lays himself down with a grunt.
You spend the next minutes – or hours, you can’t tell – in a tunnel-visioned fog as you do exactly as he says.
You help him out of his gear and weapons and lay them aside quickly but gently, you cut his shirt with an ugly-looking knife, then get a watered towel for him to press against the wound. You rush back to his tactical vest and search for a first aid kit and some medicine, and start to treat his wounds per his advice.
The sun sets in the window, and you patch up your injured soldier with care, trusting his word when he says it’s only a flesh wound and that it looks far worse than it is.
“I should get shot more often,” he purrs when you’re cleaning the rest of the blood off his skin.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” you scold, trying to focus on your task and not the vast plates that make his chest. Or the thick abs, right there under your fingertips… Or the fact that he has incredibly narrow hips, and a luscious breath of dark hair leading from his navel down and underneath the waistband of his pants.
You suppose this is what your friend calls a happy trail...
And it does make you very happy.
You don’t dare to look beyond that because the pants he usually wears aren’t as tight as these, and you fear he’ll catch you checking out his junk in an attempt to see if your friend was correct about his size.
To your blessing – or your curse – you don’t even have to look straight at it to see he’s having an erection. You can actually see from the corner of your eye how König grows hard while you’re treating him – it’s right there, a robust tent that rises beside you while you concentrate on wiping off the blood.
“Pay no mind to that,” he says thickly and completely without shame. “It just happens… Can’t control it.”
He breathes a bit too heavy for someone who’s lying down, and you fear it’s because of the blood loss. But then you start to suspect it’s probably because all the remaining blood has gone between his legs… He doesn’t even try to tone down the heated, obsessive stares he shoots your way, and you suppose he’s either missed you very much, or then there’s a fever rising after all. You’re not sure if you’re glad or disappointed that the bullet didn’t scrape his leg instead.
“I missed you,” he says like he just read your thoughts. He whispers the sentence slowly and with purpose, saying it like a long-withheld secret.
“I missed you too,” you whisper back.
Gosh… Here you are, a silly little nun who’s tried to get over a crush for six months, crying after him at night and caressing his rose during the day. You’ve been petting a withering flower some mercenary gave you in hopes of getting into your pants, you’ve fawned over memories of a few smiles and a kiss, all the while the said mercenary has killed people for money and now got shot. He came here to work again, but never sent a message, he only came to see you when he was injured…
...And you’re glad he did. If a bullet was needed to bring him back to you, then you’re grateful for it, no matter how horrible it is.
“Did you ever… find someone?” You ask while keeping your gaze fixed on his navel instead of the raging bulge in his pants.
“Someone, who?”
“Someone to hold hands with.”
He gives a strained laugh. “Ah. No. No time for that.”
You swallow, and slowly guide your eyes to his.
“Are you still happy with your crucified man?”
Ouch.
“I… I don’t know.”
His brows knit together; you can see it even in the dim light of the table lamp, you can see it even if there’s some godforsaken black war paint all over his face under that hood.
There’s a distant hurt in his eyes before he blinks softly, slowly.
“I wrote to you, Braut Christi... Many times. Never sent the letters… They’re still in my room, at the base.”
Your heart skips a beat.
He hasn’t had “time” for women, yet has written you letters all these months. He’s written letters while you’ve caressed a rose….
You wonder if hearts can find each other, even through a distance, and if you’ve felt the urge to go to the flower he gave you at the same time König has gotten the desire to write another letter to you. It’s bittersweet, like this whole thing between you two, the mystery that both brings you together and rips you apart.
“I wish I hadn’t… I wish I...” you start, but can’t bring yourself to finish.
“Liebling. I should’ve sent them anyway.”
You go get rid of the bloodied paper towels before you start to cry in front of him.
God… You’re not only in a pickle, you’re neck-deep in trouble, and you only notice you forgot to wash your hands when you return to him.
He reaches for your hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. Peace settles in, even if there’s blood on your hands and the man you adore is lying next to you, patched up with the help of a first aid kit when he should be lying in a hospital, receiving treatment and care.
There’s a knife and a pistol tucked under the bedspread, next to his hand, and the fact that he’s still prepared to fight anyone who tries to come through that door underlines the fact that you two come from very different worlds. König is more than just a rose buying, coffee offering gentleman, he's more than just a silly guy who threatens to sing serenades under your window if you don’t come out to play with him.
You’re not sure if you’re more enamoured or scared.
“You’re an angel,” he rasps from the bed as you try to swallow the tears that refuse to go down.
“No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
A teardrop falls on the innocent floral bedspread as you wish you were in this room as a married couple instead of an injured, horny soldier and a childish nun in love. Spending your honeymoon or something, getting some rest after an eventful day in town, choosing this absurd old Bed & Breakfast as your place to stay for the night.
You wish you were doing anything else than treating his wounds, lethal or not.
“Are you crying?”
His voice is gentler than you even remembered. Six months of despair have turned him into a dark, alluring trickster when he’s really just a man, a big, amazing, tender man who’s multifaceted, multitalented, and always kind.
He's about to fall asleep, and it’s no wonder. The events of the evening have left you drained, too. You kneel beside his bed, too tired to even sit on a chair, wondering if he’ll die from his wounds tonight or get hunted down by the people who still want him dead.
“I wish you would stop killing people... I wish you would stop getting killed.”
You must look silly, kneeling beside a giant soldier’s bed, crying and holding his hand between yours as if praying. But his eyes smile at you, and while you’d want nothing more than to see his face again, you realise you kind of like König this way. Masked and menacing and mean to his enemies, but stripped down to his soul when he’s with you.
“I wish you would stop praying... And start living,” he mutters gently.
“Praying helps sometimes,” you whisper.
In truth, you wish you’d start living, too. You always thought you were brave when you said ‘no’ to the world. Perhaps you were only running away from it…
The hand is warm but not feverish. His breaths start to even, and his lids get heavier; his thumb gives you a small caress before he drifts off to sleep.
“Perhaps that’s why I’m still here, Kätzchen.”
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