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placeinthemiddleofnowhere · 9 months

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What were you thinking about when that buzzer sounded?

Pairing: König x Reader

Summary: You’re determined to find out why everyone thinks König is so scary, afterall he’s just some guy that’s taller than most people right? He’s probably harmless! Well, he’s a little scary, but you still like him anyway.

(No use of y/n or mention of gender/race)

AN: The latest chapter is finally here, and it is the penultimate chapter of the series. I hope to update this soon so you aren't left hanging too long for the finale, so fear not, I will put every effort into getting it written! Love you guys, and appreciate all the asks and comments you send me 🥰

Part 9 of A Rocky Start - Full Masterlist Here

-☠️-

For a moment, while you swam between waking and sleeping, everything was dark. The floor felt like it was shifting from underneath you. Piercing noise filled your ears and rattled throughout your entire body. Barely a few seconds later your retinas were scorched by sizzling orange light.

This isn’t right.

What’s happening?

You felt yourself frown despite the crackling ache that hammered into your skull, the wrinkle in your brow was more like a molehill. Even in the brilliant glow of the light around you, you couldn’t make anything out. You were only seeing hazy shapes and thinking thoughts that were barely more coherent. The piercing noise turned into a low buzz, though the room still felt like it was on an unsteady foundation.

What happened?

Where were the others?

You strained a moment, breathing heavily and stretching your body out. Were you lying down? You looked downward at your crumpled form and groaned. You’d confirmed it alright, as if the cold damp ground weren’t proof enough. It was difficult to tell how long you’d been laying like that, however if the prickling in your arms and legs were anything to go by it had clearly been a while.

You were struggling to try and work out what had happened. It felt like you were fighting for the last plank of wood in a shipwreck, your head feeling like it had been knocked and rolling in the foaming waves for some time before you’d come to. Though finally through the spray of racing thoughts you were able to grasp onto something more, a dull thudding sound that rhythmically beat behind you. A groan of anguish followed not long after, and then something that sounded like a string of choked curses.

“Looks like your friend has awakened, Captain. Shall we give you a break…?”

You frowned deeper, but you didn’t get long to work out who those words belonged to before you were seized. Suddenly Your body was being hoisted up by a pair of rough hands and you were all but thrown down in a deeply uncomfortable metal chair. As if that wasn’t enough to contend with, the unexpected movement sent your stomach and head roiling into green sickness. As you slowly started to snap out of it, you came to realise you were being bound to the chair that you’d been slammed into. A couple of pairs of hands were grabbing you and fastening you tightly to the cold metal, leaving you all bound up like a christmas turkey.

“You don’t look so good, Sergeant,” the voice from before taunted, sounding from somewhere above you. “But that makes sense, ah? My men already gave you quite the head wound back at the market. I wonder…are you even hearing me right now? Has your head been cracked open too many times now?”

You choked down the lump that had sat heavy in your throat and jerked your head up, facing the dark shape that had cast such an oppressive shadow over your eyes. Whoever it was, was standing in front of the light. You had no hope of seeing them, trying as you were.

“Fu-...fuck you,” you muttered, blinking your eyes up at the silhouette of your tormentor.

The man chuckled, a raspy sound that came from deep within his chest.

“You’re not lost to us yet, I see.”

You gritted your teeth and continued to desperately try and focus your eyes on the man. Something within you was burning, there was bile trying to force itself upwards the longer you held your head up, though intuition told you it wouldn’t be much of a shame if you spat up on whoever it was that had captured you.

“Who-oo are you?” you demanded, throat too dry to carry the threat you wanted.

“Oh, Sergeant, your condition might be worse than we’d feared. Don’t you recognise me?”

You shook your head up at the shadow man, growing tired of your confused state. Even tied to a chair you still couldn’t seem to piece together how you got there. The last thing you could recall was telling Soap and Ghost to run, warning them of an oncoming party of men that were approaching the back of the truck.

The trucks.

That’s right, you’d stolen yourselves away on the trucks - you’d all been waiting to see where they’d set up camp. Except…. They hadn’t stopped at any kind of base. The trucks had stopped so that they could get some respite after having to quickly pack up and leave their old haunt - it had been Soap that had said something about that. Soap had translated something they’d said.

Then König had said something through the comms…what was it again? He’d said-

“Am I not keeping your attention, Sergeant? How rude.”

If the disembodied voice wasn’t enough to tear you out of your thoughts, the slap that knocked your teeth together was.

Fresh pain blossomed over your cheek and you groaned out. It only served to make you even more acutely aware of the sorry state your body was in. Everything was hurting and nothing felt right. You’d been in some scrapes in your life, but for the second time you were sure this was going to be the end of you. Slowly but surely, whoever it was that held you captive was going to rip you to shreds.

At the very least, you decided you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of finding it pleasurable. You weren’t going to beg for him.

“Maybe you need a familiar face to wake you up properly.”

You glared up at the man above you, ready to spew vitriol that could outspark a petrol fire, but you didn’t get the chance. The wind was knocked from you when the chair was kicked on its side and you’d gone tumbling with it. Back on the grimy floor again, you thought, maybe if I’m lucky I’ll fall in a puddle and drown.

Self pity had stopped you from immediately looking ahead. Though the moment you managed to concentrate on anything other than the searing pain that was winding itself around your wrists, ankles and back, you were unpleasantly surprised to see a thunderous face over on the other side of the room. One that looked much like you felt.

“Price?” you croaked, locking gazes with his wide eyed stare.

He couldn’t answer you back. Price’s mouth was gagged with a thick piece of cloth, something like an old tshirt scrap. The fabric was wrapped tightly around his face and it was trapping all the expletives he’d normally be hurling from exploding into the tiny room. You strained as you looked at him, what was that that was dripping from his face? Had he been bleeding that much? It looked too thin to be blood alone.

You’d never seen the Captain like this before, he was in a sorry state. His face was sporting a rainbow of different bruises, and, from below that, swollen skin that had bubbled up into painful lumps. His armour and his weapons had been stripped from him, his jacket and hat as well, his hair was limply slicked back on top of his head. His shirt had been partially torn and that too was wet, it looked like they’d used a knife on him - you could see the bloody evidence in the form of a thick cut that striped roughly through his pecks.

“Price,” you said again, not quite sure what else to say. “Captain!”

You’d never seen him look so vehemently possessed by rage. He hadn’t even been this angry when he’d called you out for the whole König debacle. No, now that he was faced with you lying on the ground and lost for words he was the most furious you’d seen him in his life. If it weren’t for the gag, you’d have been convinced that he’d have spit fire.

“Speaking more confidently, Sergeant. This is good. Maybe now we can begin, yes?”

“Begin what?” you spat. “You think you can learn anything from me?”

The man chuckled, the sound emanating as if from a wide rocky cavern. The sound filled the room uncomfortably, squashing you, causing you to wince just before you were picked up by the back of the chair and set right upright again.

It was when you finally widened your eyes, that you were more clearly able to see the man in front of you. The sight of him made your heart drop. It was John Rousseau himself. His determined gaze was set on you as if he’d ripped himself free out of the photographs on your briefing documents and sprung to life in all his terrible glory. Though unlike the photographs, - taken when he’d been captured earlier on in his life- he was smiling now. He held something of a more deadly glint in his eyes.

You were left speechless then. What were you to say to the man you’d been chasing all that time? Now that he was standing in front of you in the flesh, tight black clothes showcasing his rippling arms and powerful legs. You weren’t going to last long if he was going to keep kicking and hitting you, you knew that then.

“This isn’t an interrogation, soldier - I don’t need to learn anything from you. We’re in the middle of making a very special video, a little gift for your superiors. They will get the benefit of seeing that you are alive - mostly. And they will know we are serious in our demands. In return they will give us back my brothers. If not then…you will not remain alive for much longer, will you?”

Rousseau’s widening smile reminded you of a venomous snake slithering out a dark crevice for the hunt. If that weren’t enough to unnerve you, the sound of something metal being scraped across the ground and the following rush of sloshing water lapping against its edges was enough to do the trick. All at once you realised exactly what Rousseau intended to do.

Price roared from the otherside of the room, in the corner of your vision, struggling futilely against his impossible bindings. Though you didn’t focus much on him. A shadow crossed the room and you painfully twisted your head to meet the barbarian that made it. You watched as another familiar face, the man from the market that had killed his associate, stood silently above you. He held a cheap old digital camera aloft in his hands and smiled slyly, giving you your last glimpse of cruelty before a cloth was forced over your face and the world went dark once more.

They were going to do to you exactly what they had done to Price. Finally you knew why he was so wet. Your body shook.. You could hardly breathe. Though you had to. Your training demanded it. You’d been waterboarded before, though now it wasn’t going to be a test. This was the real deal, there was no end goal in sight. You could hear the bucket being lifted off the ground, it was almost too late to remedy your panic.

No, you had to steel yourself.

Deep breath in, soldier.

And Hold it.

Hold it.

-☠️-

Ghost and Soap stood over the group in front of them with expressions so solemn that they could've dropped birds from the sky. Soap kept wincing as he’d shift his weight and forget his bad leg, and Ghost couldn’t stop staring off to the side, clearly replaying what had happened, turning it over and over in his mind until his eyes glazed almost grey. It was clear to see that neither one could reconcile with what had just gone down.

After a moment of empty silence, considering what to say, both the men eventually recounted what had happened to the others, facing Laswell and the rest of the men with their blank eyes and flat voices as they tried to stay professional. No matter how hard they tried though, their minds still lingered on the soldier they’d left behind, ceaselessly wondering what had happened to you.

Around halfway through your impromptu truck ride, with you on top while the two men hid inside, Gaz had reported that his group had reached exfil and regrouped with the rest of the team. Most of the remaining soldiers had made it there, along with a very rattled Laswell who’d explained to everyone that the safe house had been compromised and Price had been taken by surprise, caught in a trap laid out by the first rogue truck that had left the compound. Ghost, Soap and you of course had heard this through Gaz’s comms, one of the last lines to remain working - the other’s had faced multiple blasts and close combat bouts.

From that moment, now that they had contact and were aware of where Rousseau was headed, everyone was concentrating on regrouping with your team. They were tracking your signal and speeding along in the last of the working vehicles, hoping and praying they could reach the trucks and bring everyone back.

The men’s eyes flicked between each other as they let the story unfold, remembering what it was like standing in the almost pitch black of the cargo container while you lay above them. The tension that had yet to leave their bodies, only had them straining their tired muscles more.

Soap told everyone about you hissing over the line from above, telling him and Ghost about the trucks slowing down. You’d asked for orders and Soap had looked warily at Ghost then, watching as the man loomed over him and quietly searched for an answer. He’d curtly told you to lay low and stay quiet, tell them if anyone got out. It wasn’t long before you reported just that, and Soap had plastered himself to the doorway, straining to try and hear what they could be saying out there.

His French was rusty, rustier than his Spanish, but he was able to make out parts of a conversation that had broken out. They were talking about how glad they were that they could finally stop, one said something about needing to piss, the other laughed with him and said it was a wonder he’d managed to hold it in through the blasts. Another man had approached them and shouted over, saying that they needed to check the cargo first and ensure it wasn’t damaged or he’d make sure they’d never piss right again.

It was at that point, that it was evident that you all had to move. Though none of you could think of a way to make it past the small army undetected, especially if Ghost and Soap were required to burst from the creaking metal doors. Therefore, they’d decided to go with the distraction that you’d come up with, not a great one, but one that gave them a semblance of a shot to get away nonetheless.

König had intervened, he’d cut into the conversation with a new level of fury and demanded that you rethink your plan. ‘You can’t do this! Don’t you dare go ahead with this suicide mission!’ He thought it was sheer stupidity to throw a frag out into the middle of the group and just hope that they were too distracted by the fallout to track the direction it had come from. He’d all but ordered you to wait for the team to reach you all, but you’d argued back, saying that they couldn’t count on not being discovered until then. They were too far away.

You’d told him you loved him over the line, seemingly uncaring what the rest of the team thought of it now, and said that he had to let you work. Next thing they knew, you were informing Ghost and Soap that you were sending the frag out. It was difficult to hear König’s frenzied screams after that, they were just higher notes floating on top of the discordant din that was soon to follow.

When you’d pulled the pin all hell had broken loose.

Ghost and Soap clattered from out of the truck and you scrambled down from the top, rejoining the two men before sprinting like hell into the thin treeline. The wood’s were no longer as lush in the place they’d stopped, probably by design so they would know if they were being approached. Unfortunately it meant they were able to track your group running away as well. You could hear the distant sound of their cries start to get closer again.

Gunfire had broken out, peppering the air with loud shots. What seemed like hundreds of soldiers but was probably a group of around twenty, chased you all down and shot at your feet. They were demanding that you all stop, shouting in English and French and possibly other languages too.

For a wondrous minute it had seemed like you all might get away with your lives, but just as you hit a thicker portion of the woods, a single grenade was tossed in your direction and all of you were sent flying.

Ghost took over the report then. Soap’s voice cut out as he remembered the sickening churn of his stomach just before he’d blacked out. He was struggling to keep aloft. Only the thought of you out there somewhere kept him standing, the thought of your determined eyes as you fought like hell for the two men that had been intent on icing you out. All because they thought you were going to break up the team from your fooling around… And what did all that matter now?

Ghost slyly knocked his elbow into Soap, getting him to stay out of his mangled thoughts before he continued. He told everyone how Soap had been knocked out when he’d hit the ground, but you and he were still awake.

Soap had managed to rouse again, but he was hardly up to walking after his dodgy landing - never mind running unassisted on that bad right leg. Ghost wasn’t feeling a hundred percent either after being slammed into a thick tree trunk, but he was able to carry on. He’d tried to insist that you should help with Soap and you could all run together, but you’d shaken your head and denied him any assistance. You’d told him to take Soap and send the others forward, he had to direct them to you, or they’d never find you all in time you’d said. You could defend yourself from there, you’d assured them you could do it.

Ghost had tried to reason with you, pleaded with you not to be a fucking idiot, but you weren’t hearing any of it. You pulled out your gun, like a knight drawing their sword for the last stand, and told him simply that he could insult you after the job was done and you’d recovered Price. You’d reminded him that when you were all home safe, there would be a meeting to discuss your forbidden relationship, and he could get all of his famous remarks on record as well. Ghost’s face soured at the memory, but from there everyone was all caught up on what had happened.

He and Soap had reached the others and then they had pushed forward. Only, they didn’t find you by the rocks, or in the place where the trucks had been. That spot was empty save for a few men that had stayed behind to try and fight them off and prevent anyone from following. It was then that they knew they’d lost you and Price and the mission was over. They had failed completely.

König had heard enough. He’d been listening to their little tale with a curled lip that quickly turned to a full sneer and with every passing second that he spent revising over the details of their quest of incompetence, he felt his body temperature rise by another degree. He was so angry, he was shaking.

He stormed forward, slicing through the team of men that stood between him and Ghost with precision, ramming the Lieutenant down before he could think to do anything. It wasn’t possible to stop him, he’d borne down on Ghost with an animal force and soon he was swiping and clawing at him like he might take out his throat. The screams that were bursting out of him were nothing short of feral.

“It should have been you! You should’ve stayed behind, you rat fucking bastard. You lead your team on a suicide mission and yet here you stand telling us all about how we failed. You failed, you failed Ghost! You failed Sneak! Do you hear me? I will tear you apart! I will rip the skin from your bones and burn what’s left of you and then I will piss on your ashes, you fucking swine!”

“König!”

Horangi tried to be his voice of reason, but König was too far gone. He was incensed.

As if it weren’t bad enough that the love of his life had professed their love while they actively ensured their own destruction, he now had to listen to the Lieutenant prattle on about what had happened as if you hadn’t been pressured into being the sacrificial lamb. It was too much to bear. His head was ringing with your love confession and with the thoughts of what those men could be doing to you even as he tried to tear Ghost apart. The images were inspiring him to further cruelty, echoes of past sins and future vows.

König continued to pummel Ghost, trying to target his weak spots with prejudice, but he didn’t get to keep the upper hand for much longer. The Lieutenant wasn’t going to allow himself to be turned into mince. He wasn’t any good to Price or you if he let himself face König’s punishment.

Ghost grabbed out at König’s wildly swinging fists and caught one, using the moment of struggle to punch him in the ribs and swing round so that he was on top of the Austrian. König howled and flailed like a banshee, but he couldn’t do much of anything once he was on his back. Gaz and Horangi had joined Ghost, they assisted in pinning König down and now his shouts were reduced to heavy breaths as he stilled against the pressure. He was like an alligator with its mouth taped shut, the moment that the binding came off he was determined to strike again, bite through his prey in one clean motion.

Soap stood watching in horror from above the little skirmish. His face was paling to an ill shade. It was then that it finally occurred to him that maybe you hadn’t thrown away your position on a stupid fling. You weren’t turning your back on your family, you had just found someone else worth letting in. Why else would König sound as if he was ready to face death itself for you? You both had to be far closer than anyone could have comprehended.

Soap was left blinking silently as he gazed up at Ghost and then to Gaz, wondering, had they realised the same thing?

“König you need to calm down,” Ghost advised, voice straining as he fought through the pounding headache that blossomed in the base of his skull.

“Ghost…” König trailed, thinking on his words for a moment. “Unless Sneak is returned safely, I will never be calm again. In fact, I will make it my personal mission to break you. I will take you to some god awful hole somewhere and make sure that you live long enough through your torture to forget what daylight looks like. Only once you’re empty, will I bury the shell of you alive!”

Ghost’s left eye twitched, the lid took a moment to settle. König could hardly have known that he’d strike a nerve, but as he saw Ghost’s expression behind his mask he let his mouth curve into a smug grin behind his hood. Even if he couldn’t hit him physically he could settle for mental warfare.

Ghost struggled not to take his revenge. There was a brief moment of inner turmoil where he wanted to reach out and smash every tooth out of the mercenary’s head, but there was a voice in his head that demanded he didn’t. They needed every resource they had to retrieve their missing Sergeant and Captain. As much as he hated König, he couldn't deprive the team of an effective member, and loathe as he was to admit it he knew you’d need someone to come home to.

Ghost rose up off of König then, silently glaring down at him before he looked over at Laswell. His golden lashes caught the light, and then so did his eyes, showcasing the dangerous glint that settled just underneath the surface.

“Well, until we find Sneak and Price, why don’t you just keep yourself under control. Yeah?” He said gruffly, stepping away from König before he got second thoughts about beating him to a pulp.

König was allowed back up again, only when the others were sure he wouldn’t try and tackle Ghost. He hated having all their eyes on him. He’d never felt so afraid in all his life and now he was being put under a microscope by people that, as much as he tried not to for your benefit, he despised.

Horangi was his saving grace. His old friend turned to the others and shooed them off with a jerk of his head before he turned back and gave König a sympathetic tilt of his head. He knew better than to try and offer any words of comfort or to try and stick around. König was beyond calming, it was obvious to see from his flexing hands and narrowed eyes.

König’s mind was a storm of emotions. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so much, so deeply. He was furious with you, upset that you would throw your life away just to try and save the stupid teammates that had gotten you into such a predicament in the first place. His heart tore thinking of you trying to salvage your relationship with your brothers while they let you fall to the enemy.

Most of all though König felt terribly frightened. For once he had no control over the situation. He couldn’t smash his hulking body at the problem, nor threaten his way to the outcome he wanted. He just had to wait and hope that you would be alive somewhere and that you were ok. He could feel his breaths shorten at the thought of you being hurt by those awful men. Men just like him - men with no qualms about ignoring any sense of empathy in order to get a job done.

Was the world punishing him?

For some reason König couldn’t help but feel that whatever happened to you was his fault. Was it the divine justice? After all the people he’d torn through, all the faces he’d beat unrecognisably in the name of getting the job done, was one of his most treasured people going to be lost to him in exchange for his misdeeds? You were the one that had called him out on it all, how could you be the one to pay?

König felt dizzy, as if the world were spinning double time and the sky was waving and distorting in his vision. The light blue and purple hues were starting to fade with the closing light, and soon enough the sky would fall completely to black. Were you being kept somewhere dark? Did they have you bound and screaming?

He thought he was going to be sick.

All of a sudden he was locked in a glass cage, everyone around him was muffled and his body was constricted. He couldn’t breathe. He was cursing internally, gasping for air all the while.

Why couldn’t you have fucking taken me instead?

“König.”

König’s eyes flicked up, he jerked when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly he realised he’d been standing with his arms wrapped tightly around his body like a safety harness and let his hands drop to his sides. He peered down at the man connected to that stupidly brave hand and then locked eyes with Soap.He sneered, throwing the appendage away from himself before he gave into the compulsion to break it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” König hissed.

“Laswell’s ordered us to move, mate,” Soap answered softly.

König looked off to the spot that everyone had been gathered in before, and realised that they’d all begun dispersing into the transports. Everyone was heading along to the beaten up trucks and piling in like cartoon clowns. Ghost was at the head of them all, König didn’t miss him, keeping a wary eye on Soap and König as he directed everyone else.

König laughed darkly to himself and started walking. Ghost didn’t need to worry yet. There was still time to save you, they were all safe for the time being. While you remained alive.

“Kind of you not to leave me behind,” König said, his voice coming out harshly through his gritted teeth. “Better you stay away though. You’ll convince me give into my temptations if you give me too much opportunity, Sergeant.”

König expected Soap to turn tail and run ahead of him then, but was surprised and annoyed when he noticed him keeping pace as they walked to the trucks together. It made König wonder if Soap wanted him to break again.

“You and Sneak have been seeing each other off base, haven't you?”

König stopped in his tracks again and locked eyes with Soap, looking for whatever evil had to be lurking in the abyss of blue. However if there was any ill intent, he couldn’t see it in his body language. Soap looked at him in earnest.

“Why would you bring that up?”

Soap ran a hand through his frayed mohawk and looked away for a second, nervously meeting König’s eyes again once he gathered his courage.

“Well you’ve been…” Soap paused for a moment, searching for the right word, “datin’, right?”

“This is hardly the time for your morbid fascination with our relationship,” König sneered, finally walking ahead again.

“It’s not morbid fascination.”

“Then what?”

“This team has been Sneak’s life for a long time now - we’re a family. When I thought they’d gone behind our backs and fooled around, was going to break up the team for the sake of some fun I was angry…but I know that’s not what it was now. So I just wanted to say I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? You’re sorry are you? I would never ‘fool around’ with Sneak,” König growled. “You all wanted to see our relationship with each other as a stupid crush because none of you think of me as a person. I’m not some dog that they picked up off the side of the road, I’m a man the same as you. I love Sneak with everything that I have. And now you’re claiming to love them too after the way you acted? Sorry doesn’t cut it. You and Ghost, fuck, the whole 141 failed Sneak. Don’t come to me with your pathetic apologies, Sergeant.”

König didn’t give Soap any time to answer his verbal lashing, not that he had much of anything to say to that. How could he stand and defend himself when he’d been the cause of your guilt and the reason that you’d felt pushed to send him and Ghost to their safety while you fell? He was motionless as König picked a truck to settle into, picking a relatively empty section of the bed that only grew more sparse as the other men inside scrambled to keep their distance.

Soap stared a minute longer, but he was forced to move when he realised he was one of the last to load up. His feet marched automatically, but his head never left the conversation. He’d think about it until the moment he knew you were safe again. He had to be able to get his chance to apologise properly, he had to prove that he loved you no matter what, even if Price wouldn’t let you stay on the team. He could live without working with you, but he couldn’t go on knowing he’d been the cause of your death.

König watched Soap trudge toward Ghost and closed his eyes, willing his breaths to remain steady and for his tears to stay safely welled behind his lids. He couldn’t let himself cry. It felt too much like admitting that you were dead already. Then where would that leave him?

Instead, he put his hand into his trouser pocket and clasped at the little wooden bird that had stayed safely hidden inside. His thumb traced along the smooth stretch of the swallow’s back and towards its beak, gently landing on the tip. He silently hoped that wherever you were, you’d feel the gentle kiss of his spirit and know that you would be safe again. However improbable that was - it was the only thing that could give him any thought of comfort.

-☠️-

It’d been a long and sweaty ride over to the next town, for the start of the journey anyway. Toward the end, night was falling and the temperatures cooled dramatically, suddenly leaving the soldiers glad for all of the heavy layers they were wearing. It made some of them look at König, Horangi and Ghost jealousy, for once, wishing that they too had full face coverage in the chill of the dark winds.

Ghost’s eyes had remained far away for the duration of the ride. No matter what Soap or Gaz said, they couldn’t get him to focus much on them. He was completely distant. It was as if his consciousness was held hostage from within his body, like his mind was replaying the days events over for him and holding him to his mistakes. Though when Soap had been brave enough to try to confirm his suspicions of Ghost’s guilt he was greeted with a ‘fuck off’ for his efforts.

Gaz put his hand on Soap’s shoulder, then gave him a gentle look. It had Soap swallowing thickly at the lump in his throat and soon enough he was looking away, doing everything not to turn into a screaming wreck in the wake of his dark eyes. Gaz looked away too.

“We’ll get them back,” Gaz mumbled, patting Soap’s shoulder again before he removed his hand. “At least for now, we know that they have each other.”

“Aye, and how do we know that?” Soap said bitterly.

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t know that they’re together. They could be holding them separately or could have them blindfolded and gagged. Hell, they could’ve killed one of them and only taken one back with them - there’s a lot more risk having two soldiers. We have no idea if Price and Sneak are-”

“Shut the fuck up, Soap,” Ghost growled.

Gaz and Soap’s eyes flashed over to Ghost in an instant. His tone was hard, and his slouched posture straightened back and returned all of his missing height.

“We’ll get em’ back,” he vowed. “Or we die trying.”

Ghost had no way of knowing quite how daunting that promise would be in light of things to come. Though when they finally reached a safe place to stop and reconnect with command back home, the severity of the situation landed upon all of them like a ton of bricks.

Laswell and Ghost managed to wrangle an empty room and took a private call with General Morrison. It was then, in the dark of that claustrophobic room, that they learned about the ransom video that had been sent over during their journey to their makeshift base - a tiny village with a few homesteads and farm land.

The general didn’t seem to want to give much detail about the video, he was shifty with them both. It was only from some not so polite prodding from Ghost, that the General revealed that they weren’t permitted to have any dealings with the terrorist group.

“They’re going to splash this all over the fuckin’ press general. This is going to be a disaster, and you’re saying that our response to this is to just do nothing?” Ghost spat.

“It’s all about optics, Lieutenant, you know that. The Captain and Sergeant will be a great loss, but we can’t be seen to be releasing criminals like stray dogs after said dogs were convicted of kidnapping civilians and blowing up markets. We can’t make the deal.”

“Then fuck the deal!” Ghost said, glaring into the camera lens with hot fury.

Laswell baulked, quickly realising that Ghost was going to get himself into trouble if she didn’t step in. She put a hand on his arm and looked pointedly toward the laptop, hoping to appeal to any shred of decency that might be lingering in the greying general’s arsenal.

“I think Ghost is trying to suggest that we put a team together and we track them down. We get our people back and take down that bastard Rousseau once and for all, sir.”

The harsh lines in the general’s old leathery face settled and his stare was neutral once again. Laswell untensed too. Only Ghost was left seething, he wasn’t going to be calmed at a time like this. The only thing that would put him at ease was knowing that you and Price were going to be returned safely. That wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

“John Price is a good man,” the general said after a long pause. “I can grant you a small team, but it can’t be on record. If this blows up, you’re on your own.”

“And if it goes well it was all a great effort organised by the cunning officers who sat bravely by their desks.” Ghost muttered.

Laswell kicked out at Ghost from under the table and was grateful that the general didn’t seem to catch his snide remark from through the terrible connection. She quickly smiled toward the laptop and nodded curtly. She could work with a few men, and she was pretty sure she knew of where to get a few more.

“Thank you, General Morrison. We’re grateful for the aid. I’ll have my people try to find out what we can and once we gather enough intelligence we’ll move in on the target.”

“Good luck, Laswell,” The general said warmly, face going cold when he stared to her left. “Ghost.”

From there the screen went black. Ghost and Laswell were left discussing plans, Laswell messaging her contacts as they talked, both agreeing that they would find a way to reach out to Farah while they formed a potential team. It was all a matter of muscle memory. They sparingly used your names while they were talking. It helped to keep emotion out of it.

However, they didn’t get to remain like that for long.

They had to find the video so that Laswell could send it to her intelligence sources and as soon as they were exposed to those first few painstaking seconds, it was all so real again. This wasn’t one of their usual jobs, this was a rescue effort to save two of their own. Two of their family members, that as they were speaking, were being hurt in all manner of horrible ways just to emphasise the sincerity of Rousseau’s threats. He was so morbidly calm as he stood making his demands from in front of the horrible abuses just inches behind him.

When it came time to tell the others what was going on, Ghost and Laswell were practically as flat toned as the general. It was taking a lot for them to go through it all, to explain that at that present moment they had to sit tight and wait for transport to take them away so that they could go back to base and refresh and resupply while you and Price passed the hours in unknown amounts of agony.

No matter how matter of fact they tried to keep things, it didn’t stop König from speaking up and forcing everyone into reality. He waited until everyone had been dismissed to reappear in front of Ghost. His steps were heavy and slow, his strides purposeful as he got into the Lieutenant’s face once again.

“I want to see the video.”

“No.”

Ghost’s answer was simple, no nonsense. There was no room for discussion. He folded his arms and straightened his back, ensuring that he was able to steady himself against the bigger man’s potential attacks. Luckily for him he could see Soap and Gaz nearby should he try to start a scrap again. His personal animal control unit.

“What do you mean no?” König grit out.

“It’s not a good idea” Ghost reaffirmed. “You don’t need to see that.”

“I have to see it. I have to know what they’ve done! Show me the Video!”

“It won’t help, König,” Laswell said, appearing at Ghost’s side. “We watched it to the end and it was…it’s something that will haunt me for a long time. It was bad, but Sneak and Price don’t seem to have any permanent damage. Take that as a comfort and refrain from watching that awful thing.”

König clutched harder at the little bird inside his pocket, holding it so tightly that the beak felt like it was going to pierce a hole through him. He was so hot. Even despite the dreadful cold of the night, he felt like he was going to overheat and his limbs were going to vibrate out of their sockets.

“No permanent damage,” König repeated. “What have they done then?”

Ghost and Laswell exchanged a brief glance. The air was thick between them, like they were looking through water.

“We need to know,” Soap said, coming to stand by König. “When we find them, we’ll need to know how bad they are.”

“Soap, don’t do this,” Ghost sighed.

“He’s right,” Gaz said, taking his stand between the two parties. “Tell us what happened.”

“Or show us,” König said darkly.

Ghost glared through the dark hollows of his skull mask, it really did feel like he was the grim reaper. He was the harbinger of doom. It chilled him to have to think about the horrible sounds and the terrible things he’d seen. He even wished he had just looked away at some point, but he couldn’t, he had to force himself to face it. It was his fault they were suffering, he’d thought to himself.

“They were waterboarding them,” Ghost revealed, “beating them too.”

Everyone was quiet, taking in the information.

“That’s not all, is it?” König asked.

“They stripped them down with knives and left em’ tied up and naked on the chairs while Rousseau spoke. They posted it up on social media, the video is everywhere despite the efforts to get it deleted. They weren’t doing very well. I think Sneak had taken in a lot of water, they were covered in sick.”

König felt his palm slicken and looked down, tilting his head when he noticed his trouser pocket turn from beige to bright scarlet red. One of the swallow's wings had broken off under the stress of his grip and lodged itself splintered side down into his hand. Now he stood motionless, looking down at the mess with empty fascination. He didn’t even feel the sting of it. He couldn’t get past the sight of his blood, the same colour as the tint in his vision.

He slowly withdrew his hand and inspected the tender flesh, gently pulling the wing from his cut and depositing it back into his ruined trousers with the rest of the broken bird. From there his plasma continued to drip, a flow of bright red washing over his hands like a tiny trickling fountain.

“You said, your people are on this Laswell, yes?” König asked, not looking up to see the disconcerted stares of the 141.

“...yes,” Kate confirmed, hesitating to answer. “They’re trying to see if they can find a source or get any clues from the room they’re in.”

She was scared that this was going to König’s final tipping point. The room was too quiet, there was too much electric energy charging through the air. It felt too much like the calm before an earthquake.

“Ok,” König replied, his voice sounding far away. “I should go deal with this…I will clean this up. I will fix it. It will all get fixed”

With that he disappeared like a spectre, trailing out of the room and out into the night as if he might completely disperse into nothing. It was like watching a plastic bag float away in the wind, no one could be sure of where he was off to.

“Should one of us…y’know?” Gaz asked, directing his head toward the open doorway.

“Maybe go find Horangi and see what he says,” Ghost shrugged. “He knows König best.”

“And the rest of us?” Soap asked, feeling his own fists clench at the thought of the video.

“We rest up and wait until we can give those cunts the pincushion treatment,” Ghost said, looking down to Soap’s leg. “You think you’ll be able to heal?”

“I feel better already knowing we’ll take those fuckers down,” Soap said, a ghost of a smile playing on his face. “Payback’s gonna be a bitch.”

-☠️-

“Bloody hell.”

Your eyes snapped open and you looked over to Price, watching as he slowly rose up against the wall and struggled to right himself. Your gaze flashed off to the side as soon as the ratty old blanket that’d been draped over him started to slip. Not that you hadn’t seen what was underneath it already, at that point you were just trying to do him a courtesy.

“Good to know you haven’t left us,” you said weakly.

From out of the corner of your eye you noticed him rush to fix his blanket, the whoosh of material sweeping up his body was like music to your ears. Knowing that he had the wherewithal to cover himself seemed like a good sign. You offered him the best smile that you could, more of a grimace really, and scanned over his face. It didn’t look much better than from when he’d been sleeping. His left eye was swollen almost completely shut and his mouth was still flecked with dried bits of blood and god knows what else that had stuck to his beard.

If there was anything to be grateful for in that moment it was the fact that they’d dropped the buckets of water over you after they’d finished recording that awful video. It’d at least cleared the putrid sick from crusting into your battered bodies. Some relief. Not that it helped with the pain that pulsed through you like a lightning strike.

“Where the fuck are we?” Price groaned, spitting out a clump of phlegm to his side.

You winced.

“No idea. I only woke up maybe a few minutes ago,” you sighed. “I remember them dragging us down a hallway and then being outside…I dunno, things are spotty for me.”

Price nodded and cast his sore eyes around the cell, looking from the dark metal walls to the crackling painted floors, to the little lamp in the corner that cast long shadows from your bodies and to the few feet between you, and finally he looked to the solid door on both your right sides. He groaned then and shifted his position, almost fumbling and crashing forward as he forgot to account for the bindings on his wrists and ankles.

“Fuck me!”

You remained quiet, glueing your eyes to the floor. There was something that felt so inherently disrespectful about looking at Price when he was like that. You’d never caught him in such a moment of vulnerability before. It was like seeing your father cry.

“I think we’re on some kind of transport, a truck maybe,” you said quietly. “They probably have us on the move so that they can’t be infiltrated again.”

Price grunted, barely acknowledging you as he struggled piteously from his side of the tiny cabin.

You tested your own restraints again, peering down at the cable ties that were painfully stretching around your wrists from over the scratchy blanket. The fabric was old and stained, a faint smell of fish emanated from it that you preferred not to think too much about. Nothing about the situation gave you any hope- it seemed awfully like you were the characters in the movie that wouldn’t make it. Maybe they’d give you both a few medals for your sacrifices.

You shivered at the thought.

“Have you tried to break the ties?” Price asked, pointedly breaking you out of your stupor.

“I attempted it when I woke up, but I don’t have much strength,” you said. “My ribs feel fucked. They’ve bruised them, if they haven’t broken them all the way. Hurts to move.”

“Bloody mediaeval cunts!” Price cursed. “They must’ve been planning this for months now. We fucked ourselves listening to anything those animals had to say to us.”

“I guess we underestimated how far Rousseau was willing to go to get his brother back. All those other men too.”

“Didn’t count on a snake like him to get sentimental.”

“Well, he seems plenty sentimental. Got us back something bad for that little redecoration job we forced him to make,” you noted, seething as you tried to laugh off your predicament.

“Some upgrade he got,” Price said sourly, “Wonder how the fuck he managed to set all this up. By all rights he should barely have any men left after what we’ve done.”

“I dunno, he had a whole lot of pick up trucks and a couple transports on the move. Probably had about one hundred men still loyal to him in just that group. No telling who else he has scattered around.”

“There were other trucks? I only saw two. The one that I was chasing and the one that came up behind us. How many did you see? Matter of fact, how’d you even end up here in the first place, Sneaky?”

You held your breath - though not for long. Your lungs still dully ached from doing that too much already. At the sound of the whooshing air leaving your body and bouncing off of the metal walls, Price immediately narrowed his one good eye.

“What happened?”

“It’s…a long story,” you said quietly.

“I have time,” Price snorted, looking around the cabin for effect.

You huffed out a breath at him and clutched at your side, feeling the pain shattering up your ribs like the crack of a whip. This was it. Who knew if you were going to live to even see the end of the day. You didn’t even know what day it was, or if it was even day time at all. You were finally going to tell him the truth.

“Me, Ghost and Soap were all tracking the trucks after they blew the old base. Gaz, König and Horangi went to exfil to try and regroup with the other teams. We were all supposed to reconvene and try to find you together but...we got held down by their forces and Soap took a bad hit to his leg. I told Ghost to take him and go get the others. They didn’t make it in time though,” you said, voice cracking as you recalled the foggy events like a broken down projector.

“Why the hell would Ghost leave you by yourself against an entire force of men?” Price growled, body snapping to attention.

“Because I forced him to.”

“Why?”

“Because they can go on and do some good, they’ll be able to avenge us and keep taking down the Rousseaus of the world. I wasn’t worth saving,” you said bitterly.

“Don’t you fucking dare say that. Why the fuck would you say that, Sneak?”

The look in his eyes was enough to shatter a million hearts. His anger could’ve melted the walls down, it beat so palpably between you both. It only made you hang your head in shame to think you were going to disappoint him. To think that that fierce protectiveness was going to be overridden by disgust.

You couldn’t keep lying to him anymore. You couldn’t leave the world weighed down by your secret.

“Because I was only going to be kicked off the team after this mission. I…I went against your orders. I’ve been seeing König for months now. The guys found out about the relationship. It wasted time and caused an argument that could’ve got us killed if we’d hung around the base much longer. I fucked up Price, I went against my word to you and I’ve only gone and gotten us killed! This is all my fault!”

You threw your head against the metal behind you, feeling the tears weigh you down like canon balls and sobbed. No matter how pathetic you felt, you were at a complete loss of control. Everything hurt, your throat constricted and dried like sand, the noises you emitted were barely human.

It was all crashing down on you, the full weight of your cursed fate coming to fall on your lap.

This was all you deserved for going behind the team's back. You were probably going to die a slow horrible death, getting thrown in front of camera after camera until there wouldn’t be enough of you left to send back home. Every piece of you would be ripped away by whatever dark hole they chose to make a stop at, until you would become another part of the world’s fabric. Another soul for someone with willing hands to take.

Even despite that horrible line of thought, the thing that hurt you most was knowing that König would remember your last moments together spent in bitterness, and that would be all he’d have to hold onto. He’d think that you had turned on him again, he would be so full of hatred for what you’d done to him. You’d burst down his walls only to go and reinforce exactly why he’d had them in the first place. You wished you’d told him more than just that you’d loved him. You wished you could tell him that despite everything that had happened, he was worth it all, you loved every second that he shared himself with you.

You would still rather walk willingly to your death a thousand times than put König or anyone else at risk.

“...Sneaky. Hey! Are you listening to me…fuckin’ hell. Oi! Sneaky!”

Price’s voice somehow managed to break through the impassable swell of your emotion and soon his face was in front of yours, demanding to be looked at. You felt yourself frown, sniffling as you wondered how on earth he’d managed to shuffle all the way over to you in his condition. Even with his hands and feet tied, and his vision probably barely there, he had launched himself over to you and exploded through the barrier of your guilt.

“Listen to me. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Breathe with me! In and out. In and out…”

You gulped sickened gasps of air and tasted the salt of Price’s body in the back of your throat. It didn’t matter though. You didn’t care that he, and probably you, fucking stank. It was just nice to have him there, bringing you back from the brink of a full on mental collapse.

The same mental voice that had coached you through your torture, was the same that gruffly directed you now. Price always had your back. He didn’t let any of his soldiers go easily, and he had always tried to do his best for you. Even if you had spited him for keeping you from König, he was always going to be the man that felt like another father to you.

“Sneak, do you really think that this is your fault?” Price asked, finally breaking from his instructional regime. “Do you think it really matters to me who you’ve been shagging right now? I need you to stay on the level with me here Sneak, you’re not to blame for any of this happening.”

“Why?” you asked, coughing harshly as your throat tried to adjust.

“Why aren’t you to blame?”

“No, why aren’t you angry with me?” you wheezed.

You could hardly believe it. Your Captain was perched in front of you, a blanket barely covering his battered skin, and he was telling you that he was ok with the fact that you deliberately disobeyed an order. Had the torturers knocked a screw loose after all? You gawped him as if to convey just that.

“We might very well die here. I’m not going to waste my last moments angry with you. Especially when the reason I warned you off of that man in the first place, was in case he got you killed…It already happened once. I already lost Alex to love on the field, I didn’t want to lose you too, not to a man with enemies in the numbers of god knows what. Now you’re trapped here with me because you were too stuck on your own guilt to save yourself. You didn’t fail me or anyone else. I failed you, Sneak,” Price affirmed, bowing his head in shame.

The rough spikes of his hair were glistening and the skin on the back of his neck was washed out by the pale white light. He looked like a ghost of himself already. You shivered and bit the flesh inside your cheek, trying to process everything that he’d said.

Had you really been absolved? Just like that?

“Captain…”

He slowly lifted his head up and offered you a small smile, his grime speckled moustache lifting cartoonishly with it. You found yourself choking back your stupid tears and smiled at him in return, relaxing into the wall and soon into Price as he ambled to the wall and laid back with you, settling into your side.

“On the off chance we do find a way to survive this, I need you with me, Sneak,” Price said, his hoarse voice buzzing through you. “You can’t check out on me, ok?”

“Is that an order, sir?” you deadpanned.

“Affirmative. And If you go against this one, just know that my Ghost is going to make your ghost move puddles and dig ditches in the afterlife. Got that sergeant?”

“Loud and clear, sir.”

-☠️-

“Do you understand what you’ve done! You are sending your precious special forces to their deaths! Know this; fellow brothers and sisters around the world,” Rousseau shouted, his voice booming off the dour cement walls. “Your government does not care about you, it is you the people that must rise up from nothing and take what is rightfully yours. I will continue to take down your soldiers until you give me back my family and allow us to take our territories without interference. Let's see how many deaths it will take until your governments take us seriously, uh!”

You winced as Rousseau grabbed you by the neck, though you could barely summon the strength to fight back. He’d taken you out from the transport and into dark deserted buildings more times than you’re sure that you can accurately collect. There was so little of you left anymore, you could barely hold onto your promise to Price. That last blow would be the one that ended you.

You cast a weary eye over to Price, tilting your head slightly to your left, watching him as he struggled to stay upright. He’d been wheezing for days now. There was a time you’d become convinced he’d already died on you. You couldn’t really remember when that was. They hardly fed you or allowed you to drink. They didn’t want to deal with the toilet trips - or the open bucket trips more like.

You’d both held on far longer than what you might’ve predicted, but now your time had run out.

You’d kept Price entertained with your stories about König, tried to force him to stay awake. After telling him a little about your relationship, they started flowing out of you like a great epic. You'd told him about the time you’d made him wear a bright floral surgical mask after he’d lost a bet to you, and then an old lady had approached him to say how stylish he was. You’d laughed till you’d fallen into a coughing fit when you remembered him surprising you back at your little apartment that you shared together with a rose in his mouth, and you’d had to clean the blood after he forgot to remove a thorn - he’d moaned for days about his stupid cut lip. You’d melted at the thought of him hugging you tightly after, not telling Price that König had huffed out to you in a pathetic whimper, telling you that he was sad he couldn’t kiss you with his mouth so sore.

Oh, König.

You whined, closing your eyes as you watched Rousseau arcing his thick metal bar high above you. Rousseau was ready to strike, this was really it. For both of you. He was going to make Price watch his Sergeant die and then he would surely be next.

You zoned out, falling back into the dark recesses of your mind.

Even if he was far away, it felt like König’s lips were whispering quietly in your ears. His spirit was with you, even if his form was elsewhere utterly devastated.

Think of better things. Think of me, Schnuckiputzi, and how you’d threaten to slap me for calling you that. I love you.

There’s nowhere you can be sent to that I won’t find a way to reach you.

Just keep your eyes closed and think of me.

Next Part Here

#König #König x reader #könig fanfiction #modern warfare 2 #modern warfare fanfiction #mw2 #konig #konig x reader #a rocky start

756 notes · View notes

greypetrel · 2 months

Note

Hello! ⭐ Maybe "i had a dream about you" for Raina? Feel free to change it tho!

Hey there! <3

I kept Raina, but hoping you don’t mind, I tried to dip my feet in the Whale AU 2.0, the fully original one. I blame @theluckywizard for putting the HawkexInquisitor bug in my ear. Then I remembered that my toxic trait is recycling characters. I know this, as all OC content here will interest three people, but please indulge me. Raina will change her name, but I kept her as Raina still for commodity. A sketch at the bottom!

Ah for your knowledge: we’re in Iceland in the Edwardian Era, I still haven’t set a precise date, but I’m pending towards 1910.

Tis the prompt list

Morning, Noon and Nightime, too

“I had a dream about you”

[ Famale Hawke x Female Lavellan || An Edwardian AU || 3256 words || CW: Shipwrecks, storms, non-graphic description of violence ]

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. - T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Raina was born by the ocean. Raised on it. Her first steps had been on her father’s boat, her first memories were by the seaside. She knew the ocean, her feet were more stable on a ship than on dry land. She knew how to move, knew how to read the waves, knew when a storm was coming and it was time to seek shelter and drop the anchor, knew how to move if the coast was too far and the anchor wouldn’t reach the bottom.

That night, nothing mattered.

That night was cold and wet and salty, she was cold to her bones, the ship swayed left and right, waves scroshing down the bridge white with foam, too much for her footing to keep sure.

At a certain point, she had to hang on the railing and wait for the next wave to shift the Hvalur around and sweep the bridge. It made it slippery and wet, but she had something to hang onto and avoid slipping down, down, in the black of the water and to a certain death.

She was desperately trying to reach the wheel, but it seemed like the hull extended longer and longer the more steps she took. The more difficult, harsh and slippery steps she took. It felt like for each step she made, the storm pushed her back two.

Rain filled her eyes, it didn’t matter how much oilskin she had covered herself with. The ship rolled too much for it to be effective, the Northern Atlantic cold and unforgiving. It mattered little that it was the same ocean that saw her whole life passing by.

She used her hands to drag herself further. Further. A little more, headed to the stern lantern. Closer and closer, she gritted her teeth in effort, pushing her heavy, cold legs to work for a little more. Just a little more, and-

- someone yelled to her back, someone Raina knew.

If she thought her blood was frozen from the cold before, she was wrong. It froze now, recognizing that voice as her brain filled with dread.

She turned, heart beating fast, in time to see two things.

The first, was that whales were blowing in the water, puff glowing starkly white against the blackness of the surroundings, black noses emerging, mastodontic tails breaking the waves right after. Everything was fast and quick, but those tails, growing bigger and bigger -too big, a part of her brain knew they weren’t as-

The second thing was Aisling, climbing over the railing of the vessel. One foot, the other, hands propping herself up on the border…

Panic took her, making her limbs suddenly light, too light. She forgot about the ship -she never reached the wheel in time and the ship wrecked, she knew, trying to change it was pointless anyway- and lunged for the other woman. The ship was lost, but Aisling was not. Aisling would not be. She let go, slipped and turned, yelled at her not to jump, it wasn’t-

- Thunder cracked in the sky, illuminating the night, and everything seemed to go slower.

Raina turned, in time to see a tail -huge, enormous, too enormous- contrasting black against the whitened sky, horribly close to her. Aisling slipped and fell with a yelp that wasn’t happiness, was dread.

Raina knew what was about to happen. She knew it all too well.

She saw the same scene before, after all, even if she couldn’t remember when or why, and some details where off. It was the first time that Aisling was there, but the rest, she knew.

Time sped up, recovering the pause of before. The tail descended on the ship, heavy and quick, the ship tilted to it obediently.

A crash, a boom, the pavement slipped from under her feet and her hand lost grip, Raina collided heavily on the water.

The ocean filled her clothes, slipped inside her oilskin, her trousers and sweater and shirt. She thrashed madly, confused and not understanding where was up and where was down.

Everything was black, she never felt so cold in her life, nor so scared.

Or well, she already saw and felt everything there, and she, indeed, felt just as cold and just as scared.

But she couldn’t remember when.

She saw Aisling back again, taken down by huge jaws full of teeth, eyes void.

She screamed, and her lungs filled with water and salt.

A familiar flavour, at least, just before she drowned.

---

Raina woke up screaming from the bottom of her lungs, jolting awake and up.

She couldn’t breathe -or well, she could but it was difficult- her heart thrummed in her ears, and she was still mortally cold, and felt wet. Everything she saw was black, black, a vast nothingness and an infinite ocean where up and down were the same thing, and each meant death.

She struggled to breathe, body not fully responding, blinking and squinting to get a clue of where she was, anything to tell her that it wasn’t the bottom of the Atlantic, there were no whales around her.

Something shifter beside her, something else squeaked from the same direction, but it made her just more on pins and needles than she was before.

“Raina?”

A voice, groggy with sleep, which brought a too vivid image to her mind. Not being able to see her didn’t help: she kept imagining her maimed and mauled, brought down in the ocean by sharp teeth.

“It’s ok. It’s just me. It’s fine, you’re safe.”

Aisling kept on, shifting closer, voice soft and quiet. Not the voice of a person who is dying. It calmed her a little, but not seeing her didn’t fully help, even if slowly breathing was becoming easier.

“Can I touch you?”

She asked, and slowly, oh so slowly she approached. Raina felt the faintest of touches, barely the shifting of the cloth on her shoulders, brushing over her skin. When she didn’t react, the touch became a real one, hands placing delicately on her shoulders. Gradually, very gradually, fingers squeezed, and when nothing else happened, the squeeze became a hug, a cheek rested on her shoulder, she felt hair brushing on her jaw.

Her body wouldn’t move on its own, but she let Aisling gently move her, to lean on her more thoroughly first -her fingers combed through her hair, nails gently scratching her scalp- and then down, back to bed, when her breathing got more regular and her shoulders unclenched some.

She remembered where she was, then, and why it was so dark.

It wasn’t the ocean, it was Aisling’s hut. The embers in the fireplace must have extinguished, and the rain still ticked on the glass of the curtained window, behind the steel bars of the bed’s headboard. They were sharing the bed because Aisling received some bad news about her research, yesterday, and all she had asked was if she could sleep in her bed tonight, and not in the hammock hanging from the ceiling. Raina couldn’t tell her no, not when she had looked so uncharacteristically down. It was her bed, after all, and Raina had been occupying it since two months. Two months since Aisling found her on shore, miraculously still alive after the shipwreck. She tried to offer to sleep in the hammock, but she was too tall for it, and too heavy for the hook in the ceiling. So, they shared.

Sweat had cooled down on her skin and she shivered. Quickly, the blankets were back on her. Aisling shifted around, as she kept chatting in a soft voice about what she was doing and why. Tucking her in, so she was fully covered, the night was chilly and they both didn’t want her to get another fever. Fixing the sheet and the blanket together, Raina apparently had twisted them around while thrashing in sleep.

It was too much, and a part of her brain was screaming to tell her to stop -she would have, Raina had only to ask. One thing was pining and finding her cute and not acting upon it not to make the situation any weirder than it already was, another was sharing a bed, waking her up in the middle of the night and taking advantage of her kindness like so.

Maybe it was the nightmare, maybe it was still some lingering fear that clutched her throat and her heart like so, maybe it was the bone-deep need of knowing she was unharmed, she wasn’t bloody and drowning.

Raina listened to the other part of her brain, and as soon as Aisling too, finally, curled down beneath the covers, she shifted forward and slipped her arms around her waist, dragging her closer.

She felt the other gasp, the chatting stopped for a moment. Raina squeezed her eyes hard and clutched the other’s body closer, if but for a moment before rejection came crushing hard on her.

The moment passed, another came. And another.

The next, she felt Aisling sigh and shift. Not to slip away, but to slip an arm in the crook of her neck and hug her shoulders back, cheek resting on top of her head and fingers coming back to caress her hair, tread in short black locks leisurely.

“Don’t let me go.” It slipped out of Raina’s lips automatically, without her thinking too much about it. She would have hated how hoarse and whiny it sounded, if there had been anyone else with her.

“I won’t.” Aisling just told her, staying right where she was and hugging her tighter in all answer.

Soft and steady between her arms and under her cheek, she pressed her ear on her shoulder, and felt her heart beating, her chest rise and fall with breath.

She smelled liked salty water, but on her, it didn’t make her antsy.

Her breath calmed, and she forget embarrassment and pining, and let the solid body in her arm, the fingers in her hair, Iull her back to a dreamless sleep.

---

The next time she woke up, the hut was illuminated by grey light filtering from the other window in the kitchen corner.

The day was cloudy, and there was still noise of rain, more intense on the glass, even if curtains were drawn to cover the window on the bed.

Raina, on her belly, took a moment to get used to the waking world again. She didn’t feel so tired after all, even if she felt a weird pressure on her back, pinning her down.

The cupboards and cabinets were all in their place, with the stove. The table was still full of papers, books and writing materials in terrible order, the fireplace, the yellow armchair beside the bed, in front of her, was still there. Everything -the few things that could fit that barrack, that was, and they had to choose between the table and a second bed because both wouldn’t have fitted- was exactly where she left them the night before.

It felt silly, now, to have actually believed that it was the ocean and everything could have been swept away by the storm.

She couldn’t see in the dark the whales and waves and sea animals painted on the walls. And even if she could, Aisling was an enthusiastic painter, but not a talented one. She knew that was a seal –“a sea lion, that’s very different”- only because she tried to guess and mistook it for an otter first. Little to fear, even in the night and after a nightmare.

She shifted, trying to get awake and at least get some of her dignity back by getting breakfast ready, when Aisling groaned, too close for comfort, and the weight on her back shifted, something squeezed her waist.

Raina fell back down with wide eyes, turning her head as she could to glimpse the curve of Aisling’s back at her side, disappearing up her back when she couldn’t see. One of her arms stuck close to her bust.

Fuck.

Embarrassment came all back, and the exact memory of what she did in the night crushed on her barely awake conscience. Well, she was fully awake now, and ready to panic.

Aisling had found her after the shipwreck and welcomed her in her home. In the home that was allegedly too small for one person alone. She left her her bed, slept in an old hammock that she hung on a hook on the wall that couldn’t have surrected Raina’s weight. Aisling never complained, never once even when they quarreled because all the biologist could speak about were whales and Raina didn’t want to hear anything about them that wasn’t how monstrous they were.

And two months later, she took advantage of her kindness in that way.

Hell, she had a fiancée back home. A façade of one, but still she had one.

And Raina didn’t want to intrude letting her know that she could as well see her as more than a friend. Now it would have been difficult to explain otherwise.

But, as her pining mind scrambled to find a passable excuse that kept her behaviour proper and fitting, Aisling shifted again. She felt her nuzzling in the space between her shoulder blades, rustling her shirt, squeeze her waist with her arms and curl up more snugly against her side, groaning with a groggy voice.

“Mmmmh, five minutes more…”

Which was perfectly, blissfully normal, and made Raina snort, despite her heart beating too fast.

“Let me go-” she didn’t want her to let her go. “-and I’ll get breakfast ready while you sleep some more?”

Another groan from her back, longer.

“No. You’re warm and cozy.”

That didn’t help.

“And you told me not to let you go.”

That helped even less.

Raina cleared her throat, biting her tongue before her traitorous mouth could answer with something else she would have regretted later.

She shifted amongst drowsy protests and arms trying to keep her there -that helped very, very little- and seeing her face all pouty still with her eyes squeezed close made her want to bend down and kiss her.

Bad.

She bravely resisted the urge, and deftly slipped her pillow between Aisling’s arms, slipping down the bed and depositing her back on the mattress. She ruffled her hair -that was proper, maybe- and tucked the blanket up her shoulder.

And went directly to the kitchen, hoping that cooking would have cleared her mind more, and maybe distracted Aisling enough to forget to talk about things Raina wasn’t exactly ready to discuss.

She lit the fire in the hearth and then approached the kitchen. Picked from the larder eggs, butter, sugar, milk and flour. It was a pancake day she decided, and shifted bowls and tools out of their cupboards. Cooking had been something she took up since she could stand for long enough. Partly to thank Aisling for her hospitality, partly to not feel so much a dead weight and get a little less restless while forced to rest, partly because Aisling was even worse a cook than she was a painter.

And, the stove allowed her to give her back to Aisling, and clear her mind with another task to keep her hands busy. Crack the eggs, mix them with sugar, add the melted butter and the milk, add flour, little by little.

Skillet on the fire, she let some butter melt on the iron, swinging the pan back and fort to distribute it.

Mechanical tasks that kept her attention on them. Soon enough, whatever emotion was swirling around in her mind -how Aisling smelled like sea-salt, the exact curve of her waist- tuned down, substituted by pouring batter and checking it didn’t burn up.

It lasted little. Muffled steps on the wooden planks, a chair got dragged back, and her roommate sighed heavily, paper rustling under her arms.

“Pancakes?”

“Yup.”

“Wow, what’s the occasion?”

“You had a rough day yesterday… I thought it could cheer you up.” It was true. Also, a thank you for not making it weird.

“Mh.” She hummed, with a certain tone that told Raina she wasn’t convinced. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?” Raina asked back, too briskly maybe, her muscles contracting.

Aisling got the hint and waited before answering. Her eyes burned on Raina’s neck, but she soldiered on, flipping one pancake on a plate and pouring another ladleful of batter on the skillet, rolling it around to spread it in a circle. Just another officer checking her work, she was. Nothing she hadn’t faced before. Or so she tried to tell herself.

“What did you dream about?”

Aisling, finally, asked, voice impossibly soft, hesitating as if she wasn’t fully sure she even could ask.

They’ve been in contact in a narrow space for enough time -Raina spent almost half her life on ships to know that time didn’t matter much in relationships of any kind between humans when space was scarce. And the hut was narrower than any ship she ever worked on. She knew that the biologist wouldn’t have minded if she had changed the topic. She knew all too well. And yet…

…Yet, that kindness melted away fears. She knew, from experience, that if she had told her, she wouldn’t have minded. As she wasn’t minding last night accomodations and talking to her normally now.

Raina sighed heavily, flipping the pancake around. She burned it a little, in all her musing, and she glared at him as if it was its fault.

After a minute, she slid it on the other plate she had readied -her own-, and left the skillet on the stove on its own, turning towards Aisling.

“I dreamt about you.”

She declared, simple as that. No pain, no gain.

Aisling’s cheek turned pinker, and it was her turn to lower her eyes.

“Oh.” She just told her. “I see. Well, I must have been horrible if you woke up so startled, I apologise.”

Raina laughed at that. Let it to her to apologise for someone else’s dreams. Aisling turned her face up, giggling shily with her.

“Anything else?” Aisling asked, a smile still on her face.

“Well...” Raina shrugged, turning back to the skillet. More butter on it, and more pancakes when the butter melted. “The usual.”

She told her, ironizing on how only her could try and make friend with a gigantic whale on a murder spree. It made Aisling laugh, agreeing and counter-arguing -as Raina knew she would have- that the whale surely had her good reasons, probably was just scared and didn’t do it on purpose.

In the morning light, with laughter filling the room, the perfume of sweets in the air and rain ticking rhythmically on the windows and buttering the sea outside the window, it all seemed less scary and less serious than it did even half an hour before.

They ate their breakfast, still bickering and laughing about how murderous whales exactly were, as their usual.

Aisling said nothing about the night and sleeping hugged together.

But, she shifted on the chair, collecting her legs on the sittee -she could sit straight only if she took an effort- and one of her feet rested on Raina’s chair, at her right over the corner of the table. Toes gently resting on her thigh.

Raina felt herself blushing, Aisling smiled and her cheeks were pink as well. Nobody said anything about it, and it felt right, there and then, before another day fully began.

It didn’t help at all, but Raina didn’t mind it.

#whale au #dragon age inquisition #hawke x inquisitor #writing #writing petrel #aisling lavellan #raina hawke #I have NO idea how to tag this LOL #doodle #koalaisling is back on track #if you read this and want to ask something/send a prompt do so!

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