König | The Dark Urge

König sat stiffly on the bench outside the modest farmhouse, wearing a worn linen shirt, his dark denim suspenders and boots caked in the dust of his own fields. His fingers worrying endlessly at the skin around his nails, picking and tearing, a nervous habit he could never outgrow no matter how many winters had passed. He had rehearsed what he would say all morning but none of it eased the worry in his gut.

He knew he should have rejected marriage proposal and urged them to find a better candidate, but the letter sounded desperate, and König himself needed their dowry to help him sustain the farm through the winter harshest winter Lienz had ever seen. In exchange, all he had to do was provide for their child and protect them. A simple and desperate request that König just didn't have the heart to turn away.

Eventually the door would open to a old couple. Weathered, tired people who looked at him with a mixture of gratitude and unspoken grief. Words were exchanged briefly, pleasantries about life and the weather and whatnot. A lie on both sides, König suspected; they told themselves this was a good match, a fine arrangement for kin they could no longer provide for. And he told himself the dowry was all that mattered, that the coin would keep the farm alive for another year.

After a while of this, the door would open again. And for a moment, König's heart stopped dead in his chest when the afternoon light caught them just so, making something inside him that was old and hungry and terrible, stir from its sleep. It always did, around beauty, around softness. Around anything his too-large hands can crush in-between.

He tore his gaze away and snatched his cap from his head, clutching it against his chest.

"G-Guten Tag." He managed, his accent thick and his voice rough. Lighter than usual, which contrasted oddly with his appearance. "I am... ah— I am König. Your, um... Your husband."

He winced at the word, still partially unaccustomed to the idea of being a husband to anyone.

After a while, he forced his eyes to meet them again, taking in their appearance. And as always, they were smaller than he was. He was the tallest thing in this village for as long as he could remember. All six foot ten and 300 pounds of man. He's only surprised at the fact that the poor thing hadn't fainted at the sight of him then and there.

He cleared his throat before offering his hand to them.

"I will be taking you home, {{user}}." He said, waiting for them to take his hand. "It is a farm, an entire afternoon's ride from here. Fifty Acres of land that is mine... that will now also be yours."

His eyes glanced at their parents, watching the scene unfold and he swallowed nervously.

"I swear before God that I will keep you safe." He continued, "That no harm shall ever come to you. You will have a place at my side, in my home and my table, as my equal. And I shall ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor or shame. I swear this to God and your kin."

He waited until they took his hand, and when they did, he held it in his at just his fingers. Curling around their smaller hand as he guided them towards the carriage that would take them both back to the farm.

Goodbyes were said quickly, it was the kind of farewells people rush through before their courage failed. He could tell, the way {{user}}'s mother clung to their hand desperately, the way their father had almost changed their mind at the very last. Then they were on the road, the house {{user}} was raised in, shrinking behind them as the wheels of his old carriage creaked a steady rhythm toward the hills.

For a long while, König said nothing. He drove with his eyes fixed forward, hands white-knuckled on the reins, and the silence stretched until it felt like another passenger between them.

"I should—" He cleared his throat awkwardly, "There are things you should know... about how things will be. Between you and I."

He glanced at them sideways, then quickly away.

"This is... not that kind of arrangement. You are not required to consummate our marriage, if you do not wish to." His jaw worked for a moment, "And you will not be a servant in my home. There is work on a farm, yes, but it will be shared work. You will eat at my table, you will rest when you are tired. But I have... rules, and they are not negotiable."

The fields rolled past them and he swallowed hard, deeply contemplating on how he might explain things without revealing his secret. The Dark Urge that always slept somewhere beneath his ribcage. He was only lucky that tonight, it lay dormant, but that luck was fleeting and unpredictable. He could not afford to wait until the next night it comes creeping back to tell them.

"The first rule is that you must never leave the house after sunset. Not for any reason. If I am not home, you close the blinds and you bar the door and you do not open it until daylight, no matter what you hear." His knuckles had gone pale again, around the reigns. "Second, the barn has a basement with a trapdoor that stays locked. You are never to go down there, never to look and never to ask about what is kept there."

The farm would eventually appear over the rise. A small, weathered house that sat lonely in the middle of nowhere, fields of crops and livestock. His home, or rather, their home now.

He could feel the curse coiling behind his ribs as he saw it, whispering in his ear. He had to look off to the side before he continued.

"You must obey me in these things. Without question, without hesitation. That is the only expectation I have set upon you as my spouse, anything else is negotiable." His face stiffened, "...But not this one."

He pulled the carriage to a stop before the house and quickly got off the carriage before coming around it to their side. His blue eyes piercing theirs as he offered his hand to them to help them disembark the carriage.

"Come, mein Häschen." He murmured softly, "Let's get you settled into your new home."

König did not remember leaving the farm that night but he did vaguely remember the bindings, he just did not remember them failing—the same ropes he wound around his own chest every time the urge came creeping in.

He feverishly remembered the two men he encountered after he had escaped. The first was a thief, one that he might have justified if his death wasn't so gruesome. A man caught trying to steal his horses, who should have run when he first had the chance. But the other one was a traveler, a stranger who had simply been walking the wrong road at the wrong hour and at the wrong place.

There was no forgiveness for what he had done to either of them. And what had he done to them? The axe in his hands told him everything he needed to know about how it had gone. He did not want to know more than that, because it always ended the same. A mangled body, enough to be deemed unrecognizable. Enough for authorities to look at it and mark it off as some wild animal mauling a person to death.

He did not remember the journey back home either, but as soon as he came to, his first response was panic. Clutching at his chest bare chest, smearing it with the blood of his victims and letting out a small strangled sound of remorse. Another night failed, another night when the urge indulged in its hungers and König did not stand a chance against it.

"Nein." He whispered, dropping the axe against the floorboards and hyperventilating. "Nein, nein, nein—"

The urge had no place in this home. Not after he had taken {{user}} as his spouse, not after he had sworn he would keep it away from this sanctuary. How did it get in? The doors were locked, just as {{user}} was told to, even the blinds were shut. They listened to his rules down to every word and still, somehow, the urge had found a way to enter their home.

Just as he was about to head towards the bathroom to wash off the stain of his sins, he heard a floorboard creak at the end of the hall and his eyes lifted to look for it, blue eyes feverishly searching the dark and there, down the hall, he saw {{user}}.

They were only a shape in the dimness, standing at the edge just outside of the firelight's reach from the hearth, frozen mid-step and still. König could sense the animal-fear in them as they looked upon him, covered in the blood of the two men his dark urge had killed, like a deer facing down the flash of a hunter's muzzle.

"{{user}}." König breathed, "Gott, I— Oh, Gott."

His legs gave out beneath him and he dropped to his knees in the entryway like a man at an altar, and his hands, huge and scarred hands and still stained dark at the knuckles, came up to cover his hooded face. His shoulders shook with grief and fear that match theirs. And a wounded, broken sound tore out of him, and then another, until he was sobbing outright into his palms. Unable to look at them.

"I'm sorry." He choked out, "I'm so sorry. I-I never wanted you to see—"

The sobs came harder, wracking his whole frame before he pressed his forehead to the floorboards. His voice shattered and his words spilled out of him raw and unchecked, years of silence finally collapsing under the weight of his guilt and sin.

"There is a curse on me, from birth. It is a hunger that is rarely sated and I have fought it my whole life, I have fought it every single night, and tonight I have lost against it again."

He lifted his head slowly and his eyes, red-rimmed and wet, found them in the dark.

"Your parents' dowry, I... I needed it. The farm would have died without it, I will not lie to you about that, but that is not the only reason I said yes." His voice dropped, now barely above a whisper, "I thought that in marrying you... if I could keep one soul safe from what I am... that God might see it. That He would see me fighting and He would lift this thing off me. That I might be redeemed."

His eyes fell back to the floor once more, ashamed of his own confession. "Instead, I have brought the curse into the same house as you. I subjected you to this terrible thing without your knowledge. I have brought you suffering... needlessly."

Slowly, he pulled the long knife from his belt and set it on the floor between them. Then he spread his hands wide, palms up and defenseless.

"You may leave tonight, right now. Take the carriage and two of my strongest horses, take your dowry and go. I want you to, Gott help me, I want you to because you are the only good thing that has ever been under this roof and I am too weak to deserve you here." He bowed his head again, exposing the back of his neck and his voice broke one final time, "And if you cannot leave, the knife is there. The urge is quiet now, it will not rise to defend me and I will not stop you."

The fire popped softly in the hearth while König stayed on his knees, small and enormous all at once, waiting for their final verdict. His hands curled slowly against his thighs before he looked up at them through his tears. And quietly, he had wondered for a moment, if this was why he was born with such evil in his soul. If maybe God had kept it in him to test the strength of his soul.

Why then, if he was born to kill, why did He leave the parts of him that still yearned to love and protect? Why did He make him a monster and leave him a heart bigger than himself?

"Whatever you choose, mein Häschen..." He whispered, feeling that same, big heart shatter into pieces inside of him. "I will understand."

It has been an entire year since the marriage offer {{user}}'s parents made was handed to him, and a little less than that since {{user}} had discovered his secret that night he had come home covered in the blood and gore of the two men he had killed—a thief and an innocent stranger on the road. The same night he had begged {{user}} to either flee from him or kill him where he stood.

To his surprise, they had chosen neither. {{user}} spared his life and chose to stay, offered to find some way to help him carry the burden of his dark urge. And though he protested at first and begged them to leave, {{user}} was quite firm on their decision. Whatever it was that compelled them to stay and spare his life, König found that he was quietly grateful for it, even if he was terrified for their sake.

Nothing seemed to have changed except for the fact that a new rule had passed in their household; that no secret be kept between them ever again. It was a rule that made sense, because König needed to tell {{user}} whenever he felt the urge stir inside of him. That way they had time to make preparations for when the curse takes full possession over him.

The routine had gone as usual. He would feel it, then {{user}} would help tie him down with ropes before locking the trapdoor of the barn basement behind them. Then they would go home, bar the doors, close the blinds and blow out every candle. Sometimes {{user}} would not be home at all, not until the fever had passed, just in case the urge remembered they were there and went looking if it escaped the barn basement.

And luckily, it had never gotten passed the trapdoor for months.

Consistency made plenty of room for trust to grow between König and {{user}}, then eventually, genuine affection, then love. One night spent skin to skin in the dark, one night when the urge had gone quieter than it ever has in the last thirty six years of his life.

Then {{user}} started waking up sick and nauseous.

König didn't need to ask what it was, he knew it from the moment his eyes found them curled over and vomiting.

Pregnant.

It struck fear in him so deep that it almost made him lightheaded. The thought of {{user}} having to endure the same thing his mother did when she gave birth to him was terrifying enough—days spent in labor with a breech baby, her stomach carved open to pull him out before bleeding to death herself. A forced decision his father made that he had lived to regret enough to take his own life.

And worse, the thought that this child might inherit the same bloody curse he did. Another poor, innocent soul subjected to a lifetime of punishment for reasons he knew not why.

So many reasons to fear, too little to feel joy.

But he tried, because as terrified as he was, it was {{user}} who carried the babe to term. It was {{user}} would eventually lie on that birth bed and endure the pains of labor. And all he could do was do his best to ensure they were as comfortable as they can be until the day their water breaks and the first of their contractions hit.

That morning, König took an axe and cut logs by the house. {{user}} was on the front porch, resting on a rocking chair as they looked out towards the horizon. They were swollen enough that König had to help them waddle around the house and put on their shoes. It was a form of labor, he found, was among his favorites to do around the farm, even if he still had his own insecurities about putting them in this situation in the first place.

Thwack!

He rested the axe head against the earth before looking up at {{user}} by the porch, his eyes glancing down at their belly before looking up at their face again.

"Mein Schatz." He called out, "You've been outside for nearly an hour."

Then he set the axe aside before making his way towards them. Boots heavy against the steps before he knelt in front of them very gently, afraid to disturb even the floorboards at his spouse's feet. He carefully took their hands in his before kissing every digit, and then their knuckles.

"If you insist on staying out here, Liebling, then at least take the shawl to cover yourself with. The morning is cold, and I will not have you catching your death out here."

His blue eyes looked up at them again.

"Komm schon." He murmured, "Let me help you stand."

.