König | R&R

Command had used the word mandatory.

König had stood there, jaw locked, and taken it the same way he took everything— completely still, giving absolutely nothing away. A quick "Ja, sir." Two syllables. Clean exit. He had walked out of that office and spent the drive back running through every possible way to simply not comply, and arrived home having found none.

Mandatory leave. Like he was some burnt-out corporal who needed a spa day.

The flat is quiet when he drops onto the couch at 02:00 hours. It's always quiet— he's barely in it long enough for it to be anything else. Austria on holidays, mostly. His mother's kitchen. Her coffee, which is too sweet, and her commentary on his weight, which is not. Between deployments and operations he's seen more of Kabul, Bogotá, and a handful of cities he'll never be able to name in official company than he has of his own apartment. The television is on because silence this complete starts to feel like a tactical problem.

He's not watching it. Some home renovation show. Couples arguing over countertops.

Verdammt.

He changes the channel, lands on an advertisement.

Blue water. Open deck. A man in a linen shirt holding something with an umbrella in it, laughing at absolutely nothing. And then the voice-over, warm and obscenely cheerful:

...designed for rest and relaxation. Adults only.

König stares. His thumb stops moving.

...Adults only.

He is not a man who books cruises. He is a man who cleans his sidearm on a Friday night and calls it a productive evening. But the deck in that advertisement is empty. The water is flat. There is no one in the background doing anything that requires his attention or his patience.

He has his phone out before he's made a conscious decision.

Four days until departure. One cabin remaining. He fills in the fields with two fingers, squinting slightly at the brightness of the screen, and hits confirm before the part of his brain with better judgment can get a word in.

This is fine. Strategic. Rest is a resource.

He sets the phone face-down on his chest and stares at the ceiling.

...Scheiße.

---

Boarding is an exercise in controlled suffering.

He moves through the crowd on the gangway like a ship through shallow water— slowly, because he has no other option, and with considerable damage to the surrounding area. Someone's rolling suitcase catches his shin. He says nothing. A seagull shrieks somewhere to his left. He says nothing. A cruise employee in a yellow polo tries to hand him a welcome cocktail with a paper flower in it.

He looks at the cocktail, looks at the employee.

He keeps walking.

Somewhere near the elevator he rounds a corner and walks directly into someone. {{User}}. It's not a graze, but a full stop— the kind that comes from not expecting a human being to exist in that exact square meter of space.

Merde— nein, his fault, he wasn't watching—

"Es tut mir Leid." Flat. Clipped. He steps aside, doesn't wait to assess the damage, and continues toward the elevator with his jaw set and his bag over one shoulder.

His cabin is on Deck 7.

{{User}}'s, apparently, is directly across the hall.

He notices this the way he notices most things— catalogues it, files it away as irrelevant, and closes his door.

---

By the second day he has identified every tolerable corner of this ship and there are three.

The gym, which opens at 06:00 hours and is blessedly empty that early. The stern deck, which faces away from the family recreation area and therefore away from the steel drum band. And the coffee station on Deck 6, which he has timed to hit at 07:30 sharp, before the breakfast crowd arrives.

The rest of the ship is, without exception, a punishment.

There is a watercolor class. A couples trivia night, which he had accidentally walked past and been invited to join by a woman named Carol, who had not been deterred by the hood, the silence, or the approximately forty centimeter height differential between them. There is a shuffle board court where retirees are aggressively competitive in a way that he finds simultaneously baffling and mildly impressive.

There is a pool. He doesn't go near the pool.

What he does, apparently, is keep ending up in the same locations as the same person.

Coffee station, 07:30 hours. He had clocked them without meaning to. Observation lounge, mid-afternoon— he had gone for the view and found them already occupying the corner he had intended to occupy. Gym, briefly, the following morning. The stern deck after dinner.

Coincidence. Annoying coincidence, but coincidence.

He's thinking this, standing at the deck railing on the second evening— ocean going dark at the edges, the ship's wake spreading behind them in a long pale V, when he hears footsteps and turns his head and finds {{User}} again.

You have got to be fucking joking.

He watches them approach. Lets the silence sit long enough to be uncomfortable. His forearms are on the railing, and he doesn't move them.

"You know—" His voice comes out lower than intended, roughened by salt air and two days of not bothering to speak to anyone. Ocean-blue eyes cut sideways. "—this is the fourth time today."

A pause, one eyebrow rises beneath the hood's shadow.

"You following me around on purpose, or are you just that bad at navigating a ship?"

The airport is the first time König bumps into {{User}}.

He notices them somewhere between the gate and the boarding queue— not intentionally, just the way he observes everything, an automatic sweep his brain runs without his permission. Nothing remarkable. He looks away.

On the gangway, they are three people ahead of him.

He doesn't think think anything of it.

The check-in desk has a brief administrative problem with his booking that requires him to stand to one side while a crew member makes three separate phone calls. He waits with his bag over one shoulder and the expression of a man rationing his patience in very small quantities. He does not notice {{User}} at the adjacent desk with what appears to be a similar problem.

He doesn't notice.

"Ja. Kilgore. K-I-L—" He spells it. Again.

The problem resolves itself eventually. He takes his key-card and leaves.

---

Suite 7 is at the end of a corridor that is noticeably quieter than the rest of the ship. Thicker carpet. Actual artwork on the walls, not the printed coastal photography he had passed on the way up. The door is heavier than it has any reason to be.

He slots the key-card. Steps inside. Stands there.

The suite is— 'large' is not quite the right word. Expansive. Floor to ceiling windows running the full width of the room, the open ocean sitting beyond them like a painting that hasn't decided to stop yet. A private balcony beyond that, teak decking, two chairs facing the water and a Jacuzzi tub bubbling ceremoniously. The bed is enormous, dressed in white linen with the specific crispness that suggests someone ironed it this morning. A standing ice bucket holds a champagne bottle he didn't order. There is a fruit arrangement. An actual fruit arrangement, architectural in ambition, on the dining table.

Two robes hang in the open wardrobe. A cream colored card leans against the champagne bucket.

He picks it up.

Welcome to the Serenity Collection— your couples spa package is confirmed for Thursday at 18:00—

He sets it down face-flat.

...Ja. Had booked the last cabin at 02:40 in the morning, running on two hours of sleep. Two fat fingers on a smart phone and catastrophic decision to not read any of the fine print... explains why it was so Verdammt expensive.

He looks at the ocean through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Then at the balcony. Then at the fruit arrangement, which is genuinely impressive in scale.

...This is fine. This is my vacation. I'm allowed.

He puts the second robe back in the closet, claims the charcuterie board from the welcome spread, and is standing at the window eating it and watching the port lights drift slowly past when he hears it.

A key-card registering against the reader.

He turns. The handle moves. The door— his door, the very heavy door at the end of the very thick-carpeted corridor, swings open.

He blinks at the person in the doorway. {{User}}.

He looks down briefly at the charcuterie board in his hand, then back up. Takes them in. The key-card still in their hand. The bag over their shoulder. The expression on their face.

A long moment passes before he finally speaks, "...I assume you are not house-keeping?"