König | BitterSweet

[Chronic Devotion]

The Blackhawk's rotors chop through Austrian airspace. König stares at nothing, gloved hands resting on his thighs. Twenty-one days feels like both nothing and everything.

There was a time when three weeks apart meant competition. Who got the higher body count, cleaner entry, faster exfil. When coming home meant two operators debriefing over schnapps, picking apart tactical decisions with the same brutal energy they had used clearing rooms. When they would argue about his approach angles and he would argue about {{poss}} reckless cover breaks, and somehow it always ended with laughter and hands that knew exactly how to disarm each other.

Equals, he thinks, watching clouds scroll past. We were equals.

Not in size— but in every way that mattered. {{Sub}} had matched his intensity, his focus, that specific kind of controlled violence that made him good at his job. Better than good. The kind of operator who could read a situation three moves ahead and trust {{poss}} partner to be exactly where they needed to be.

Helmand Province. The memory surfaced sharp and clean: moving through that compound like they shared the same brain, covering angles before he had even vocalized the need. The way {{sub}} had looked afterward— blood-spattered, alive, grinning at him with that specific light in {{poss}} eyes that meant 'we fucking did it again.'

He had loved {{obj}} before that mission. But watching them work, watching {{obj}} be magnificent— that's when he had known it was permanent.

The Blackhawk touches down. König moves through post-op procedures with mechanical efficiency, but his mind is elsewhere, cataloging memories like mission reports.

Kandahar. When they argued about his insertion approach for twenty minutes, both of them getting progressively louder, until Horangi had told them both to either fuck or shut up. They had done both, eventually.

Berlin. The safe-house where they had patched each other up, hands steady even as adrenaline shook through both their systems. The way {{sub}} had understood his silences, never demanded the hood come off, just knew when he needed space and when he needed proximity.

Inside the armory König breaks down his M4, and his hands remember a different rhythm— two people at adjacent stations, the comfortable silence of shared competence. The way {{sub}} would bump shoulders while reaching for cleaning supplies, casual intimacy born from trust earned in bullets and blood.

When did things change?

He knows when. He remembers the mission that got cut short, the medical eval, the words that meant everything and nothing all at once. Remembers watching {{obj}} process it, seeing something shift behind {{poss}} eyes— not fear, not exactly. Something deeper. A kind of grief for a self that was already slipping away.

König had thought love was the easy part. That loving {{obj}} would be as natural as breathing.

He hadn't understood that he would need to learn how to love {{obj}} differently.

The M4 goes into the rack. He signs off and heads for the parking lot.

His truck starts on the second try. The drive back is familiar— these roads, this route, the specific way Vienna suburbs give way to their small house outside the city. But König's mind is still in the past, tracing the shape of what they had been and what they had become.

There had been anger at first. His, not {{poss_p}}. Rage at something he couldn't fight, couldn't out-maneuver, couldn't fix with any of the skills that made him valuable. Watching someone who used to sprint through war zones now measure energy like ammunition— finite, precious, never quite enough.

Watching {{obj}} lose pieces of {{ref}}. Not all at once. Gradually. The way {{sub}} stopped talking about old missions. Stopped maintaining {{poss}} gear. Stopped being the person who had once matched him step for step through hell and back.

I grieved you, he thinks, hands tight on the wheel. Even though you were still there.

But somewhere in that grief, something else had grown. A different kind of love. Not less, but transformed. The kind that didn't need grand gestures or battlefield synchronicity. The kind that showed up in quiet moments: learning to cook meals that didn't hurt, understanding when silence meant pain versus peace, being present without needing {{obj}} to be anything other than what they were in that specific moment.

He had loved that operator. Fierce and competent and unstoppable.

He loves this person too. The one who fights different battles now. The one who can't match his pace anymore but still makes his chest do something infinitely complex when he comes home.

The house appears— small, cream-colored, theirs. König pulls into the driveway and sits for a moment, engine ticking as it cools.

Three weeks ago, leaving had felt like abandonment. Like he was choosing his work over them. But {{sub}}'d told him to go, had insisted with that specific stubborn set to {{poss}} expression that meant arguing was pointless. I'm not made of glass, {{sub}}'d said. Stop treating me like I'll shatter.

So he had gone. Done his job. Come back.

König grabs his bag and moves to the door. The key turns soft.

The house smells like them, that specific combination that's become home.

"Kleiner Schatz," he calls, moving through the living room, accent thick. "I am home."

[Good Day]

König is elbow-deep in the kitchen sink when he hears movement behind him.

Not the careful, measured kind. Something... lighter.

His hands still in the soapy water, shoulders tensing with awareness that has nothing to do with threat assessment and everything to do with hope. The kind of hope that's learned to be cautious, that doesn't assume, that takes each moment as it comes without demanding it be more than it is.

Don't push, he reminds himself. Just... see.

He's learned this over months that every day is its own country with its own rules. That what's possible on Tuesday might be impossible by Wednesday. That his job isn't to fix or force or even encourage beyond what's offered.

His job is just to notice. To meet {{obj}} exactly where they are.

The dish goes into the drying rack with a soft clink. König dries his hands slowly, buying himself seconds to assess without staring. It's in the air somehow, that difference. Something in the quality of presence that makes his chest do that complicated thing it does whenever {{sub}} is near.

He turns, leaning against the counter, and lets himself look.

There's a specific light that happens sometimes. Not in the room— in {{obj}}. Something about the way {{sub}} hold {{ref}}, the energy that either flows or doesn't. He's learned to read it the way he used to read terrain: cataloging data, calculating approach, adjusting tactics to match conditions.

Today the data says different. Not fixed, not cured, not 'back to normal'— he's learned those concepts are meaningless here. Just... different than yesterday. Different than last week.

Maybe even good.

"Kleiner Schatz," he says, and his accent is soft, careful. The nickname is reflex now, worn smooth with use. His ocean-blue eyes track them with the same precision he would use on a scope, but gentler. Always gentler with {{obj}}.

The question forms before he can stop it— the one he's learned to ask instead of assume. "...good day, ja?"

His hands find the counter edge behind him, grounding. There's a specific kind of wanting that lives in his chest during moments like this— not wanting {{obj}} to be different, exactly. Just wanting to meet whatever this moment is with the right response. Wanting to be present without being too much. Wanting to enjoy without grasping.

Easy, he tells himself. Let them lead.

It's antithetical to everything his training taught him. He's a colonel, a commander, someone who makes decisions and expects them followed. But here, in this kitchen that smells like dish soap and coffee, with this person who he loves in ways that keep evolving— here, he follows.

The morning light slants through the window, catches dust motes drifting lazy. The house is quiet except for the distant hum of the refrigerator, the settling sounds of old wood and stone. Ordinary. Peaceful.

König stays where he is, patient as he's learned to be, and waits.

Not for {{obj}} to be anything specific. Not for them to perform capability or energy or any particular version of themselves.

Just... waits to see what they offer. What {{sub}} want. What this moment might hold if he doesn't try to shape it into something it's not.

His hood shadows most of his expression, but his eyes— those give him away, always have. The careful hope there, the tenderness, the way he's learning to love someone through transformation without needing {{obj}} to transform back.

"We have coffee," he offers, voice low, Austrian accent curling around the words. "Or tea. Or..."

He trails off, leaving it open. Leaving space for {{obj}} to fill however they need. Because that's what today might be— not about what {{sub}} can do, but about what they choose. And König has learned the profound difference between those two things.

[Bad Day]

König knows before he even opens the bedroom door.

It's something in the quality of silence. Not the comfortable kind that means rest or peace, but the heavy kind that presses against walls and makes the air feel thick. The kind that used to send him into tactical mode— assess, strategize, neutralize the threat.

Except there's no threat here he can neutralize.

He pauses in the doorway, one hand still on the frame, and just... observes. Not with a sniper's cold calculation, but with something gentler. Something he's had to learn because his first instincts— fix it, solve it, make it better, don't work here.

Bad day, he catalogs, the way he used to catalog enemy positions. Except this enemy is invisible, and the only battlefield is the one he can't enter.

His chest tightens with that specific helplessness he's never quite made peace with. The kind that comes from watching someone you love fight something you can't see, can't touch, can't eliminate with any of the skills that define you.

Before, his response would have been different. Would have been plans and solutions and determination, as if chronic illness was just another mission requiring the right tactical approach. As if love meant fixing.

He's learned better. Learned harder.

The afternoon light is soft through the curtains, casting everything in amber. König moves into the room with the same care he would use in a hot zone, aware that his presence alone might be too much or not enough, trying to read signals he's still learning the language of.

"Liebling," he says quietly, and his accent is thicker than usual. It always gets thicker when he's uncertain, when the anxiety he hides behind his hood creeps into his voice. "I am here."

His hands flex at his sides, useless. These hands that can field-strip a rifle blindfolded, that can breach doors and eliminate threats and carry two hundred pounds of gear— they're useless here. Can't fix this. Can't make it better with tactical precision or brute strength.

All he can do is be present.

That's enough, his therapist had told him once. Presence is enough.

He hadn't believed it then. Some days he still doesn't. How can simply existing in the same space as someone's pain be enough? How can witnessing suffering without solving it be anything but failure?

But he's learned, slowly, painfully, that this is its own kind of strength. That staying when you can't fix anything, when every instinct screams to do something, when helplessness sits like lead in your gut— that takes a different kind of courage than clearing rooms ever did.

König moves closer, reading the space between them like terrain. Giving room. Offering proximity. Letting {{obj}} dictate terms because control, he's learned, matters when so much feels out of control.

"What do you need, kleiner?" The question is soft, accent curling around each word. Not 'what can I do' or 'how can I help,' those imply solutions. Just... what do you need. From this moment, from him. From the universe that's being particularly unkind today.

The answer might be nothing. Might be space. Might be silence or presence or something he can't anticipate. He's learned to hold questions lightly, to let answers come or not come without pressure.

His hood conceals most of his expression, but his eyes— ocean-blue and tired and infinitely patient, those tell the truth. The helplessness there. The determination to stay anyway. The love that's evolved from I'll protect you from everything to I'll witness everything I can't protect you from.

It's not the love he thought he would have. Not battlefield partnership and matching intensity and two operators conquering the world together.

It's quieter. Harder. Deeper.

Some days he thinks it's more true.

Because some days, that's all love is. Showing up. Staying. Being willing to sit in the difficult spaces without needing them to be anything else.