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"You're going to hurt your shoulder with that stance."
Horangi is out on the sniper range. He’s crouching, the stand of his rifle on the edge of a wall. He looks over, sunglasses shoved to his forehead and eyes unfocused from turning his head too fast.
"Huh?" Not the most graceful thing he could say, but he blamed it on finally hearing the larger man say something.
"The way you're holding it against your shoulder. The recoil isn't going to be dispersed right," König says. He’s standing nearby, his own rifle in his arms, obviously looking for a place to set up.
The sniper range at this base is better than most, with the usual setup for prone sniping position but additional terrain for practicing in urban and forested settings.
“Oh,” Horangi says simply. He knew the man was Austrian but hearing the accent is completely different. “How do I adjust?”
“I’d have trouble describing it. May I show you?” König asks, inching forward.
Horangi nods and the larger man set his rifle down. His hands are gloved and this close Horangi can see that he’s got black paint smeared around his eyes under his hood. He had been briefed on the man prior to him joining KorTac at their current base but seeing him in person was entirely different. The man stands at a massive two meters and his frame is every bit proportional.
He gently pushes Horangi about, moving his hands and bringing the heel of his rifle to a different position. He steps back when he’s done, looking a little proud. Horangi can even feel the difference before he begins shooting, the rifle more sure in his hands.
“Ah, thank you,” Horangi says.
“You are Horangi, yes? From ROK Armed Forces?” König asks and it occurs to him then that he’d never been formally introduced to the larger man.
“Oh, yes, sorry for not introducing myself,” he says with a sheepish laugh. KorTac hadn’t been as organized as he had hoped it would be. He had met a few other operators, some were even introduced to him, but it was much less formal than when he had been serving in the armed forces.
“Quite alright. I know we have all been a bit spread out,” König says. There’s a casualness to him that surprises Horangi. “I’m König from the Kommando Spezialkräfte.”
“Nice to meet you. I hope to work with you soon,” Horangi says. He’s smiling under his mask, hoping it translates to his eyes.
König waves goodbye as he retrieves his rifle and moves farther down the range, toward the forested setting. Horangi watches him go, noting how he’s so tall his vest doesn’t reach the top of his pants, leaving a gap protected only by his black undershirt. The sudden embarrassing thought of how he wants to climb him like a tree races through his mind and he’s grateful for his maks and his solitude. He reminds himself that when it comes to anyone he works with, everything needed to stay professional.
Horangi shakes his head to try and clear it before turning to the range before him and beginning to knock down targets.
The next few days, Horangi sees more and more of König around the base.
Their current location is temporary. A place for KorTac to stay while three operators are on a mission and four others just returned. Horangi has been informed he’ll be sent on a mission soon, the details of which are still yet to come. He stays waiting, alternating between working out, practicing his shooting, and reading quietly in his room.
König starts to appear near him, inching closer silently. Horangi doesn’t mind it. He knows that making a friend, while emotionally compromising in the long term, was promising in the short term. He tried not to get too close to anyone he worked with, knowing one wrong move or ill-timed shot would take them from him in an instant. But loneliness was a heavy thing to bear and having someone to lift it from his shoulders, even for a brief period, outweighed the potential grief later on.
They sit across from each other at meals and side by side during meetings. König shows him how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble every gun in the armory. Horangi shows him how to play card games. It’s nice to have someone there beside him, even if he had never seen the other’s face. In a way, that made it easier to be friends with him. He wouldn’t be haunted by his visage should he watch him die.
(It also helps that when his dreams start to get dirty, he can pretend that the veiled man above him, grabbing his thighs, whispering sweet things in his ear, and moaning his name is nothing more than any faceless person out there.)
There’s a small sparring ring on base and although Horangi wasn’t much one for hand-to-hand combat, he had been coaxed there by König.
“Everyone else is such sore losers,” he complained as he stepped into the ring. “And I can’t practice alone.”
Horangi knew this would end badly but tried his best anyway. He had been taught taekwondo like everyone else in the armed forces, but he hadn’t practiced in years, choosing his close-range fights to be won with a blade rather than a fist.
He loses the first three times, pinned within two minutes. The fourth, he gets the upper hand briefly, but slips up and gets lifted into the air once more. Horangi feels his back hit the practice mat and knows he's lost even before König presses his weight into him. His massive palm locks around his throat but that's not what makes his breath hitch.
He has the sudden startling realization that he's hard and König's thigh is dangerously close to making the same discovery.
He makes a choked noise, something between a groan and a gasp, trying to shift his lower body away. König doesn't help at all as he leans in so close Horangi can see the individual lashes along his eyes.
"Yield?" he asks. Horangi swears he can feel the heat from his breath.
"Yield," he gasps. He tries again to shift away, hoping and praying König won't see, that he'll be able to make a quick escape and—
His movement makes his side brush against König's groin and he feels it. He’s hard too.
They both wear similar looks of shock, König's eyes so wide his irises are surrounded by an ocean of white. Horangi opens his mouth to say something but before he can say anything König is pushing up off of him and escaping the gym. Horangi has barely pushed himself into a sitting position before he sees the metal door swing shut.
For a moment, he's panicking. He feels like he's seventeen again, being caught pressed chest to chest with a classmate, lips locked, and thinking they were safe hiding in the closet at a party. But he takes a few deep breaths and reminds himself that spiraling was not a good coping method and that the responsible thing would be to talk it out.
So he sighs, and gets up, his hard on dying off as he walks to the showers.
A knock on his door a few hours later reveals a sheepish-looking König standing in the doorway, looking everywhere but his eyes.
"I want to apologize for earlier," he mutters. Horangi imagines he's bright red under the hood. “I have a tendency to get a little, uh, excited when I spar, and I know that can make some people uncomfortable.”
Horangi feels himself flush under the mask. "Oh, it's alright! I understand it happens as a response to, um, working out." He purposefully does not mention his own similar condition.
There’s an awkward silence between them and Horangi breaks it by joking, “Is that also why no one wants to spar with you?”
He hopes his tone is clear and he’s watching König’s eyes carefully to ensure he didn’t offend him. To his relief, the man just laughs before scoffing, “Nein, they’re all just sore losers who can’t handle getting their asses handed to them.”
Horangi laughs and it's easy and casual and so unlike anything he had with a fellow soldier before. “It’s about dinner time if you want to head down.”
König nods and they set off. The rest of the evening is uneventful, quiet, and something Horangi knows he’ll miss when it’s gone.
“It’s a simple mission. Get in, grab the intel, and get back out. Exfil point is a few clicks south. Nothing should go wrong.”
If Horangi had a hundred won every time he heard that, his debts would've been paid off long ago.
What went wrong was the guards calling for backup they didn't know they had access to. Although König had been quick with dispatching the five guards inside, it hadn't been enough as someone had been able to make the call. The truck arrived outside the warehouse as Horangi had been putting external hard drives into padded pouches. He could still feel the wind as the bullets barely missed his head and embedded themselves into the concrete wall.
A nasty fall down the stairs left him incapacitated for a few seconds. He knew how deadly that time span could be and he scrambled to get up. By the time he has his hand around his gun, three of the five backups are laying on the floor, dead. König's got a knife buried into the throat of the fourth and Horangi doesn't hesitate to put a bullet in the temple of the fifth.
The warehouse has fallen silent save for their heavy breathing. Horangi draws near, standing beside König, looking into his wide eyes. He can almost feel something pass between them at that moment, some unspoken question wordlessly answered as Horangi inches forward and presses his front flush with König's own. He hears the Austrian's sharp breath as the realization of their mutual arousal hits them both.
They're broken apart by the crackle of a radio. One of the backup guards, their radio quietly asking for them to come in.
"We need to move," König says as he surges forward, bringing his rifle up. Horangi nods as he follows close behind.
The truck the guards had arrived in still sits idling on the pavement outside. Beyond it, the remote wilderness lies, dark and silent, promising total coverage from overhead craft. It’s only once they’re below the cover of the trees that Horangi radios in, announcing their mission completed and en route to exfil point. The pilot of the heli getting them out answered, confirming, and stating ETA would be thirty minutes from then.
The exfil point is a run-down old hunting cabin at the edge of a large field. Their trek there had been silent but not uncomfortable. Horangi could feel something in the air between, like a charge waiting to be dispersed. They have seven minutes to exfil when he pushes open the rotting door to the cabin, revealing the musty interior.
He steps in, looking over everything, while König sweeps the small space to confirm it’s safe. Horangi waits for him to get back, standing in the center of the sole room. They stand, staring, waiting for one of them to move.
Horangi is the one to break the tension, tilting his head to the side like he’s daring the Austrian.
König responds by crowding him against the opposite wall. Horangi lets him and huffs quietly when his back hits the decaying brick. The larger man’s pupils are blown so wide his eyes look black. His hands are on either side of his head and he can feel the heat radiating from his body. His voice is low and gravelly as he whispers, "Tell me you want this."
Horangi chokes on his words briefly before whispering back, "I want you."
The larger man shudders, pushing in closer. "Exfil is five minutes out."
"That's not a lot of time," Horangi replies.
"Nein, but I have a request," König breathes. Horangi tilts his head in question and he continues, "May I kiss you?"
Horangi draws in a sharp breath. "Yes, please, you may."
He's not sure what he expects the other man to do. But he isn’t surprised when König lifts his hood and brings it over Horangi's head, encasing them both in the dark cloth. He reaches up and tugs his mask down and the scent of König consumes him. He'd smelled the man before, briefly when he exited a room, but now he smells him wholly. He smells of pine trees, like the scent used in soaps, and sweat, salty and deep, and the musk that's indescribably him. If he could bottle it up he would.
Horangi is the one to push forward, scarred lips meeting chapped ones. Their chins brush and he can feel the roughness of his stubble and hears the way he gasps quietly. Then König is pushing as well, opening his mouth, licking against his bottom lip, asking for entrance. Horangi concedes and he can only lay back and moan as König plunders him thoroughly, tongues brushing, teeth clicking, chins scraping. After what feels like too long and not long enough König is pulling back. Horangi realizes then he'd been panting and his hands had found their way to the other man's chest and tangled fists around his vest straps.
“Exfil is almost here,” he breathes, the words hot against Horangi’s lips. “We need to make ourselves presentable.”
Horangi hums in response, stealing a quick kiss before tugging his mask back up and slipping out from under the hood. He’s undeniably hard and even adjusting himself and the cold winter air does nothing to deter it. If the pilot notices him carrying his rifle low and diving towards his seat on the heli like his life depended on it, she says nothing.
“High winds so it’s gonna be a rough ride back,” she announces over their headsets.
Horangi can feel the wind pushing the heli side to side and the counteractions the pilot takes. König is sitting beside him, thigh pressed to thigh, and he reaches out, taking his hand in his. He rubs his thumb across the back of his hand. Although they’re alone, save for the pilot, he knows they can’t talk over the radio without her hearing and the wind would devour their words as soon as they escaped their mouths.
Horangi shifts closer, head resting against the larger man’s shoulder, and gently squeezes his hand.
“Your room or mine?”
The question is quiet and he likely would have missed it over the rest of the noise in the meeting room. They’re debriefing, König leaned in close for a brief moment on the pretense of passing a folder of papers.
“Yours,” Horangi whispers back, handing a pen in return. “You wouldn’t fit into my bed.”
That gets a quiet laugh before they’re parting again, putting a professional amount of distance between them.
The meeting drags on and they’re separated briefly so medical can check on Horangi to ensure his fall didn’t knock anything loose. It’s night by the time he’s released, the hallways quiet, the sound of medics puttering around with paperwork behind him, and the silence of empty offices before him. He moves quickly, finding König’s quarters swiftly.
He hesitates outside the door for a brief moment. His sunglasses are gone, tucked safely into their case, but his mask is still up. The scars along his back tingle in anticipation as he realizes the larger man has never seen his face.
His creditors had a cruel sense of mercy. His face had been somewhat untouched compared to the rest of him. That didn’t mean he had been wholly spared though. The scar tracing from the edge of his left eye down to the corner of his mouth hadn’t healed right and too much skin had been cut from his right nostril to heal into something unnoticeable and the lines carved into his right cheek were too symmetric to be accidental.
Others always had a look when they saw him unmasked. Shock, pity, confusion. He didn’t like being looked at like that. He didn’t want to have to explain the scars on his face or the ones racing down his spine and over his arms and ribs. Talking about them always brought back memories of when he got them. The smell of burning fleshing and agonized screaming would fill his mind and seep into the real world and he would lose himself for a few minutes.
He knocked himself back into the present, reminding himself that König was reasonable and experienced. He knew to take things at face value without pushing. And he would always let Horangi retreat if he needed it.
His knuckles knocked against the door three times and he heard footsteps approaching. König filled the open doorway, dressed only in a worn t-shirt and boxers. His hood is gone, his overgrown hair framing his face.
Horangi isn’t sure what he had been envisioning, but this face seems perfect. His nose is large and crooked in a few places from being broken. His jaw is sharp, dusted with stubble, and he’s got small fading scars on his bottom lip. His eyes are deep set and despite appearing to have showered, Horangi can still the remnants of black paint clinging to his waterline and eyelashes. He smiles at him, pulling those scars taunt, before stepping aside to let Horangi in.
The room is like most on base. Small but cozy. Clothes draped on the chair in the corner, bed made but crumpled, knives laid out on the desk. The only difference was the bed was longer and wider than his own.
"Sit where you like," he says with a gesture to the room. Horangi sits down on the bed, feeling very overdressed. He takes his vest off, discarding it on the floor and toeing his boots off. He's down to a thermal long-sleeve shirt and cargo pants.
König watches him the whole time, eyes tracing over his body. He's sitting in the chair, not too far away but feeling so far out of reach. Horangi picks at the skin around his fingernails. He knows the skin of his neck is exposed, the one place his creditors didn't touch. After all, a dead man couldn't pay back debts.
He pats at the space beside him and König wordlessly moves over to him. He feels the bed dip with his weight but does not meet his eyes.
“Are you okay? You seem tense,” the larger man says. His voice is soft and his tone is gentle.
Horangi takes a shaky breath as he says, “When I was younger, before the military, I got into trouble. I gambled a lot and got myself into a lot of debt with the wrong types of people. To show how much my creditors wanted their money back, they left their mark on me. All of me.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see how König tenses and hears him draw a sharp breath in.
“I’m not ashamed of them. They remind me of my mistakes and the life I left behind. But, they can be…difficult to discuss.”
König reaches out but stops his hand in midair. “Horangi, we don’t have to do anything.”
Horangi shakes his head. “No, I want to. I want to do this, I want you. But I need you to have patience with me. The scars bring back bad memories and it hurts to talk about them. You can touch them but please don’t ask me about them.”
He finally lifts his gaze to meet the other man’s eyes. König nods, his hand still frozen midair, and whispers, “Of course, Liebeling.”
Horangi reaches out, taking the outstretched hand into his own, and brings it to his face. He kisses his knuckles through his mask before using his free hand to remove his mask completely. König inhales sharply and it takes everything in Horangi to not put the mask back on and flee out of the room.
Instead, he puts the hand against his face, letting the other man's calloused fingers trace delicately over raised and puckered flesh and the few rare patches of smooth untouched skin between them. A thumb swipes under his eyes and he lets them flutter shut, succumbing to the gentle touches. König's other hand comes up, cupping the other side of his face, murmuring to him in soft quiet words he can't understand.
When Horangi opens his eyes again, König has inched impossibly close, eyes roaming over his face and breath so close he could feel it dancing over his own lips.
"Liebeling," he whispers and Horangi knows what he's going to ask and nods his head enthusiastically.
He surprises himself, pushing forward into König, kissing him deeply. His lips part easily, letting him in, and he groans into the warm wet slide of their tongues. It's as intense as their first but slower, more deliberate, almost hesitant.
König breaks away, panting as he shifts back onto the bed, propping himself up against the headboard, legs splayed out and lap inviting. Horangi follows after him, straddling his hips, chest to chest, and eye to eye. König gently puts his hands on his hips, fingers dipping below the waistband and brushing against the soft skin there. Horangi’s got both hands pressed to his chest and he can feel the thundering of the other's heart beneath his palm.
"What do you want, Liebeling?" König whispers. His pupils are blown wide and the look of hunger he has should scare Horangi. But it only makes the twist of arousal in his stomach tighten even more.
"Touch me," he whispers back before leaning in to kiss him again.
Large hands roam up and under his shirt, skirting over the light trail of hair on his stomach, up his ribcage, and to his back. He knows König can feel the scars there, the thick one that travels down his spine and arches out in stripes across his back, over his ribs and sides, tapering off over his stomach and chest.
But the other man says nothing, the only indication of his discovery is the soft circles he rubs into the raised skin.
It's too much and not enough. Horangi feels like he's on fire and pushes back long enough to tug his shirt off. König loses contact with him as he pulls the other man's shirt off as well and tosses it away. The press of skin on skin is a sensation Horangi had missed without knowing it. König is warm, a comforting radiating heat, and he pushes against him.
His search for contact brings their hips flush and Horangi gasps as he grinds down. He's painfully hard, his cock straining against his stiff pants. He glances down, choking out a moan at the sight of König hard in his boxers, the outline of his cock barely discernible in the dim light of the room.
"Can I take these off?" König asks. His hands have traveled downward, pulling at the waistband of his pants again.
Horangi nods frantically. “Yes, all of it."
König makes quick work of his belt buckle and zipper. He grabs the band of his pants and boxers together and tugs them down. Horangi shifts, helping him, and quietly moans as his cock is released into the cool air.
König's hands brush over his bare thighs before coming up to squeeze his ass, kneading his fingers into the soft flesh there. His face is buried in Horangi's neck, pressing gentle kisses to his sensitive skin and sucking a bruise over his pulse point.
Horangi bucks his hips, his flushed cock brushing against König's boxers, smearing precum over the soft cotton.
"Shibal, please, I need—" he gasps, his hands trailing down to König's boxers. He brushes his fingertips lightly over the bulge there, staring at the head, down the shaft, and resting softly over his balls.
König groans against his throat, pressing a kiss to his chin before pulling back completely and yanking his boxers off. Horangi bites his lip at the sight of him. Long, thick, flushed red at the tip and drooling precum. He needs König in him, filling him, claiming him, but it would have to be another time. Right now he's strung so tight that his impending orgasm feels like wires about to snap.
"Tell me what you need, Liebeling," König breathes against his ear. His hands are on his ass, digging into the skin there, sure to leave bruises that Horangi will proudly wear like medals. "Do you want me to touch you? Make you feel good?"
"Both, I want us both to be touched," Horangi gasps out. His mind is going blissfully numb as the only thing he can register, the only thing he can feel, taste, smell, hear, and see is König.
He gasps as König's hand wraps around his cock, palming the head briefly before stroking down gently, smearing precum down the shaft and helping his roughened palm glide.
It's been too long since Horangi has felt a hand on him that isn't his own. The last time he'd been able to get off base for a fling had been almost a year ago. Even that had been nothing more than a sloppy blow job in the dirty bathroom of a hole in the wall bar.
This is nothing like that. The build-up coupled with all the time spent brushing against each other and the satisfaction of it all finally occurring is unlike anything he'd felt before. He nearly sobs when König lets go of him. But before he can complain, the hand is back, wrapping about him and bringing him flush with König's own cock.
"Scheiße, you feel so good," König moans. He pulls back enough to kiss Horangi, capturing his mouth again, going slow and gentle as he begins to pump his hand up and down.
Horangi's moans are choked out around the tongue plundering his mouth. König's cock is hot and flush with his. He's gripping tight as he pulls his hand up and then loosens as he descends back down. The wet squelch of them moving against each other fills the room. Horangi's hands are on König's back now, scratching deep red marks into the skin and making the larger man groan into his mouth.
König's hand speeds up and Horangi digs his nails into his upper back. The hand on his ass tightens and he can feel blunt nails threatening to break the skin. König is twisting his wrist now too and it's making his thoughts turn into static.
"Shibal, yes, please, König, harder—!"
"So good for me, Liebeling, begging for it," König moans against his lips. "I've wanted you for so long and here you are."
That gets a shocked gasp out of Horangi. He had known the Austrian liked him as evidenced by how he always drifted closer to him no matter what. But the revelation that it had always been an attraction drawing him closer makes his stomach tighten and his orgasm draws dangerously near.
"I'm going to, ah, König, ugh," he chokes out. He can feel tears welling in his eyes, his vision watery. Faintly he can feel something wet and warm where his fingers are digging into König's back.
"Schön," the larger man breathes. He presses another kiss against his lips, pulling and sucking lightly on his bottom lip before releasing it and whispering, "Come for me, Liebeling."
That's all it takes to send Horangi plummeting over the edge. His fingers dig in deeper, his eyes close tight, tears spilling out and down his cheeks, and he practically screams something that sounds almost like the other's name as he comes. The wires snap and his whole body tenses, his toes curling, every muscle tensing at once, and his hot come splattering across his stomach.
In the mind-numbing aftermath, he can still feel König's hand working him. Before he can complain about feeling oversensitive, he hears his name being groaned out, the syllables stretched as his hand goes still and he comes as well.
The room falls silent again with only their quiet panting breaking it up. König is the first to move, gently releasing his hold on their cocks and slumping his head forward onto Horangi's shoulder.
"I haven't come that hard in ages," he laughs quietly.
Horangi smiles to himself. "Neither have I. We need to clean up, I'm starting to feel sticky."
He feels the other man nod against him and he takes his hands off his back. He can feel the undeniable tackiness of blood under his nails and hopes he didn't cause too much damage. König's hand is off his ass and moved up to trace lightly along his side.
For a moment, Horangi fears that one rule he implemented will be broken. But it disappears as König mutters, "You need to eat more. I can count your ribs."
"I eat plenty," Horangi says, trying to sound offended but the smile on his face gives him away. He shifts back on the bed, not yet trusting in his legs.
He gets a good look at König. His cheeks are bright red and his hair is damp with sweat, auburn curls sticking to his forehead and framing his face. His eyes are unfocused but on him, his mouth hung open, lips pink and a little swollen. His chest is flushed and his stomach is painted milky white from them both, the hand he'd used on them resting at the base of his stomach, similarly glimmering.
König notices him staring and smirks at him. "Like the view?"
Horangi only hums in response before inching close and pressing a chaste kiss to the Austrian's nose. The larger man laughs quietly before gently sliding away from him and off the bed onto shaky legs. Horangi lets himself fall back against the bed as exhaustion hits him all at once. It's a pleasant sort of tiredness, the kind that comes from wearing himself out doing something he likes.
He doesn't realize he'd closed his eyes until he jolts at the feeling of a warm wet cloth on his stomach. König murmurs apologies as he wipes him down, cleaning up the mess along his abdomen before retreating back into the en suite bathroom.
Reality creeps in to take the place of post-orgasm bliss. He and König had never actually talked about this thing between them. There were no acknowledgments of emotions. The feeling that he was invading somehow started to consume his mind and Horangi sat up, ready to get dressed and flee back to his room.
He's got his underwear pulled on when König comes back into the room. He looks between the man and his outstretched hand reaching for pants and says, "You can stay the night."
The larger man is wearing an expression he hadn't seen on him before. Vulnerable is the best word for it, along with hopeful.
Horangi freezes in place and simply says, "Oh."
He forgets about the pants, even going so far as to take his boxers back off, before crawling back onto the bed. He catches the smile on König's face as he turns off the small bedside lamp, the only source of light in the room, and climbs into bed beside him.
Thin slivers of light shine in through the shades covering the small window and Horangi pushes close to König's side as he pulls the blankets over them. He's warm, like laying on his grandparents' ondol after coming in from the cold. The bed is larger than average but not large enough, leading him to have to sling most of his body over the other. But König doesn't complain, arm coming around the other's back to hold him close.
His breathing is steady, slowly but surely lolling Horangi to sleep. A thought comes to him then, a revelation he felt he could finally share.
"Hong-jin," he says. Despite being barely above a whisper his voice sounds impossibly loud in the quiet room.
"Your name?" König asks. Horangi nods against his chest.
The larger man repeats it, trying to mimic the inflections, but fumbling over the vowels.
"Klaus," he replies. Horangi repeats it as well, taking an odd delight in how harsh the first syllable is.
There's more to say. There's always going to be more to say. But for now, Horangi lets the soft static of sleep overcome him as he drifts off to the sound of steady breathing.
The major downside of König's room that Horangi was not informed of was that the window was east facing. Meaning that as soon as the sun rose, the shades were immediately back-lit and early morning light began pouring in.
Horangi wakes first, his bladder aching. König mumbles as he crawls over him to get off the bed, stumbling to the bathroom. He splashes cold water on his face before he goes, painfully reminded of the time he fell asleep standing taking a piss, and knocked his head so hard on the counter he'd gotten a concussion.
When he steps back into the room, König is a little more awake, sitting up and stretching his arms above his head. Horangi grabs his boxers, pulling them on, his growling stomach determining his next destination for him. As he bends over, he hears König gasp behind him, "Oh mein Gott. I'm so sorry, does it hurt?"
He turns, confused, and catches sight of himself in the mirror. Sure enough, the buttock König had been gripping on like a lifeline has a blooming red handprint. A gentle press against the sensitive skin makes him wince a little. "Not much. Sitting down may hurt for a while."
König looks genuinely remorseful and it’s then that Horangi remembers the blood under his nails and says, “Turn around.”
He gets a puzzled look in response but König turns on the bed and Horangi winces at the sight. Gouges trail down the expanse of his back, some surface level, some raised welts beginning to bruise, and some carved deep into the flesh with crusting scabs.
“It’s not that bad,” König says like he’d read his mind. “I sprayed some antiseptic on it last night. Now come on, I’m hungry.”
They dress quickly, König insisting Horangi wear his own clean shirt, underwear, and socks. The underwear and socks fit fine but the shirt is noticeably two sizes too large for him, huffing to himself as he cuffs the long sleeves to make it more presentable. König is watching him with a smirk that indicates he knows exactly what he meant to do.
Horangi is about to pull his mask up when the Austrian dives in, quickly stealing a kiss. He pulls back out of reach and yanks his hood on, obviously smiling as Horangi blushes and sputters.
There’s a lot to talk about here and Horangi knows it. They have crossed multiple lines in the past twelve hours alone. But he can’t bring himself to worry about that as König opens the door and gestures for him to follow, as he stays close to his side all the way to the mess, as he grabs three creamers and two sugar packets for Horangi’s coffee because he knows that’s exactly how he likes it.
For now, he decides, he’ll just enjoy the moment. After all, he knows he’ll miss it when it’s gone.