Chapter Text
König inhales in anticipation as his glacial blue eyes follow you as you walk into the mess hall. He sits in the corner furthest from the door with his back to the wall, seated alone. Everyone typically avoids him, whether out of fear or dislike. He is used to it, after all. Socially, he was a bit awkward if shy, and the sheer size of him would keep most others away who weren’t put off by his social anxiety.
But not you.
Ever since you got here, you have treated him with nothing but kindness and respect. Just as you treated everyone you admired or liked. Sometimes you even sat with him and chatted, as if he wasn’t this anxious mountain of a man who hid his face behind a loose black hood. You would ask him for help with things that needed fixing, technique on using certain weapons, and sometimes just made small talk as if you had known each other for years.
You grabbed your food and surveyed the room, your eyes falling to König sitting alone. You smiled and headed right for his table. Underneath the hood, König smiled back and blushed.
“What’s on the menu today, Colonel?” you drop your tray on the table with a clatter and sit across from him.
“I think this is supposed to be chicken pot pie,” he glances up at you and gestures to his plate with his fork.
“I think you might be right! Though yours has a richer color pallet than mine,” you quip, comparing the two plates side by side, your brow furrowed in concentration. König chuckles and takes a drink, placing the straw of his cup under his hood. He listens to you as you talk about missing real food, enjoying hearing you chatting about anything and everything.
“Hey, I have been meaning to ask, I wanted to work on my sniping skills before the next op. Think you can help me on the range sometime this week? I’d ask Soap but I am not speaking to him since he stole my Skittles.”
König grins and puts down his fork. “Of course. You let me know when and I’ll be there.” He didn’t even have to think about it. He was never shaky or nervous talking to you. Any other conversation would have been filled with awkward silences and strange subject changes. It doesn’t usually bother him. In actuality people being afraid of him enabled his social anxiety - no room for uncomfortable conversations if there is nobody there to talk to.
“Great! How about tomorrow after breakfast?” you ask with a grin that lights up your eyes and sends a shock straight to his heart and butterflies to his stomach.
“I’ll be there.”
You place your hand on his forearm in excitement. “Perfect! Thanks Colonel!” König stiffens and you realize your mistake. “Oh sorry…” you trail off and pull your hand back to your lap. König shakes his head slightly. “Not a problem Sargeant,” he says softly and holds your gaze. He wasn’t the least bit bothered by the touch. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Oh there’s Soap! Excuse me, Colonel, I am going to go tell him he owes me some snacks.” You shoot up and jog over to Soap who just walked in. König watches as you walk up behind Soap and hit the back of his knee with your foot, causing him to lose balance and nearly fall.
“Fucking hell lassie!” Soap yelps and turns abruptly toward you. The mess hall erupts in laughter as he rights himself and tries to go for a headlock. Ducking out of the way, you take off through the doors with Soap sprinting behind.
König laughs as he clears the table and heads back to his office. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.
********************
Just as König finishes setting up the rifle that he brought, you round the corner like a warm ray of sunshine. You have your hair swept back in a low ponytail, wearing your camo pants and a tight black t-shirt with your black boots stomping on the packed dirt path. Looking smug, you hold a bright red bag in your hand and König realizes that Soap has replenished your Skittles.
“Want some?” you grin widely and hold the bag out to him while popping a shiny red candy into your mouth.
“No thank you. I prefer chocolates,” he smiles and watches you enjoy your prize.
“Where do you want to begin?” he asks, eager to spend the morning with you. He wasn’t entirely sure what you wanted to work on and he may not have even brought the right equipment.
Twisting the candy bag to close it, you stuff the Skittles into your pants pocket and look at the range. “I suppose target practice really. I am not that familiar with snipers to begin with and thought maybe I could see how I do with them and take any pointers I can get.”
König shows you all the parts of the rifle and lets you feel the weight of it. He brings the rifle to the ground, setting it up for a prone shot. He gets into position and slows his breathing, lining up the scope with the target in the distance. Exhaling, he squeezes the trigger and feels the butt of the rifle impact his shoulder as the ping of the bullet hitting the target rings across the range.
Watching him is like watching a conductor of a symphony. This was his craft, his expertise. He knew war and weapons and combat. It fascinated you to watch him work and you were in awe of his skill.
König was sweet underneath the burden of his struggles. You knew that the minute you met him and felt a kinship toward him. After serving with him for months, you began to respect him and admire the way he found where he fit in the world despite the world not fitting him. He reminded you so much of who you used to be. You saw underneath the fidgety exterior full of anxious uncertainty to the intelligent and peaceful soul at the center. He seemed to like you as well and you were grateful that he allowed your questions and company. He was a loner and just the fact that he tolerated you felt like a huge accomplishment.
König rises from his position at the sniper rifle and steps back. “Now you try,” he says and gestures toward the weapon. You scoff. “Yeah ok. As easy as that, huh?”
Trying to mimic his positioning, you lay your cheek against the rifle and look through the scope. You take a breath and fire, hitting the outermost ring of the target.
Damn.
“Not bad. You just need to adjust your aim,” König says encouragingly. “Try again and let me see your corrections.”
You adjust your scope and flex your fingers on the grip. Letting out a deep breath, you hold steady and squeeze the trigger. Again, the outermost ring punctures with your latest shot.
“You are too tense, Sergeant. Sniping is about patience and precision. The rifle will do all the work, but it needs your guidance.” König surveys your positioning and hesitates for a millisecond before deciding to take a chance and be forward.
You feel his hand graze your upper back as it finds your shoulder and envelops it with his long fingers. He moves your shoulder back so that the butt of the rifle slides down slightly, settling into a natural position against you. Satisfied, his hand moves down to your other side and cups around the side of your hip, pulling up and raising it an inch. Letting go, his index finger slides down against your pants and taps into the back of your thigh on your bent leg signaling you to shift your knee higher. Your breath hitching at the sensation of his touch, you obey and slide your knee up along the ground, holding your hip in a more comfortable place.
“Good. Does that feel more relaxed?” He asks as he shifts away.
Depends what you mean by relaxed. You think, trying not to make a huge deal out of the fact that König just willingly touched you. His hands were warm and strong and the contact ignited a heat in your stomach that wasn’t unpleasant. Your cheeks bloomed into a warm soft pink as you cleared your throat and put your eye back up to the scope.
“Yes, actually. This feels more natural.”
“Alright, let’s try again then,” he says.
Deep breath, exhale, squeeze.
Ding!
Dead center. Right where you were aiming.
König grunts in appreciation and you look up at him, eyes twinkling. He grabs more ammo and hands it to you. “Now, do that ten more times.”
**********************
A knock on your door breaks you from your latest novel and you unfold yourself from your chair to see who it is. Opening the door reveals Soap, standing there with a glass of water and an evil grin. You narrow your eyes. “What?”
He moves wordlessly throwing the water in your face and takes off running down the hall, laughing like a hyena as you sputter and gasp in shock. Without closing your door, you take off after him at full speed, screaming obscenities the entire way. You follow the maniacal laughter through the barracks, rounding a corner and bumping right into a solid wall of muscle.
König grabs your arms as you bounce off of his chest with an OOF and steadies you.
“Woah, Sergeant, hold on now. You alright? What has happened?”
“Sorry König,” your breath coming in quick gasps. “Soap is getting away and I need to murder him!”
König smirks and clucks his tongue as he looks at your wet face and shirt, knowing exactly what happened after seeing Soap marching toward your room with a glass of water. And now the trap he watched Soap set made so much sense. “Careful, Schatz, and don’t go running too fast into the rec room. I believe it is a trap.” His blue eyes glitter with amusement. You take off after Soap and pause before the doorway into the rec room, eyeing the floor and ceiling suspiciously. Then you see it, clear tape across the doorway about nose height. That asshole.
You duck under the tape and enter the rec room as Soap curses and falls to the couch in defeat. Crossing your arms you glare at Soap and bellow, “You better run, Bubbles, you’re a dead man!” You break into a run and land on top of Soap as he tries to get up from the couch. Hanging onto his back like a monkey, he laughs and tries to shake you off, rising to his feet and grabbing at your arms around his neck.
König laughs softly as he watches you attempt to take down Soap. There are times when he gets jealous of the way Soap and you joke around. You both were fast friends and were always laughing together. König wonders if he could ever make you laugh like Soap does. Could he ever have the connection with you that the two of you had? More than that, could you ever think about him the way that he thinks about you?
He swallows thickly and remembers the morning at the range. He shocked himself that he was so composed, even went as far as to touch you without shaking. And you weren’t bothered by it either. It emboldened him to continue to try to get closer to you. He didn’t want to scare you or damage the camaraderie that you already had together. But the more you grinned at him, your eyes lighting up when you talked to him, the more he wanted to be near you. The more he wanted you to get to know him.
The more he wanted you.
A loud screech jolted König from his thoughts as Soap erupted into a slew of curse words and grabbed his ear. You leaped off of Soap’s back and exploded into laughter.
“A wet willy?!? Shit lass, what is this grade school?”
Sticking your tongue out and flipping him off like this was indeed school, you practically skipped out of the rec room, winking at König as you passed under the tape, ripping it off the door frame screaming, “Fuck off you shit!”
As much as he tried, König couldn’t shake the feelings of jealousy at the ease of your friendship with Soap. He hoped that it was only that: friendship. He had never seen you with anyone, most of the men on base you ignored or tolerated. You had a handful of people that you hung around with, himself included. But you mostly kept things easy and simple. Most of the time you were by yourself reading or with your headphones on. He wondered what you listened to. Wondered when would be the next time you would seek him out to chat. It had been 4 days since the two of you had your little session at the range and even that was getting to be too long for König to not have some time with you.
Soap passed König, shoulders slumped in defeat but a crooked smile on his lips. “I thought that would work, she’s too smart,” he chuckled as he passed König. Soap wasn’t a bad guy. He attempted to talk to König at times. But usually just a one sided comment here or there.
König wandered back toward his room, knowing he needed to be ready for yet another briefing. The possibility of another mission loomed on the horizon and he needed to be ready.