i would love to see a gn/transmasc/catboy version of that post please 👀👀👀
Ghost & König’s Reaction to You Being a Cat Boy
Warnings: Implied Smut/Sexual Content, Scary Dog Privilege, Pet Names, Sadism, Masochism, Scratching, Mention of Objectification (Consensual), Collar Mentioned, Male Reader.
Ghost
Absolute menace.
The first time he found out, he was shocked, to say the least, given how you managed to hide your ears and tail so well.
But he adjusts fairly quickly.
Sometimes, to get your attention or to get you to come to him when he can’t find you at home, he’ll shake your favourite box of cereal or call “Pspspspspsps–” until you come clamouring round the corner for your food.
He’s always twitching to touch your ears. Just finds them so cute and soft, and while he would never touch them without your permission, he’s dying to.
Sometimes you tease him and bonk your head against his side, give a tiny, fragile purr, and disappear into the midnight corners of the house.
But, when you can see Simon’s had a difficult day, you’ll lay in his lap and let him stroke your head, snuggling into him.
Though it’s not that you don’t like having your ears stroked; you just know that, if you were to let Simon do it, you’d never let him stop.
You’re always really warm and purr a lot, so Simon calls you his “Little engine”.
“‘Cause I’m driving my love van into your heart :3 !” – You say, absolutely oblivious to the cuteness overload you’ve just subjected him to.
Whenever you intentionally (or unintentionally) act cute, it sends Simon feral.
He definitely has a thing for pulling on your tail and making you cry.
Sadist to the max.
“Don’t mewl like that, Sweetheart,” he tells you, your tail in one hand and the lead to your collar in the other.
“Or I might just have to make you cry louder.”
Has a collar with a pendant engraved with the words ‘Property of Simon Riley’ made for you. But he only uses this on a few occasions.
He’d never make you wear it if you didn’t want to; he doesn’t want you to feel like he’s forcing you into a demeaning position.
His names for you vary, but the ones he uses in private are usually cat-related.
Kitty, Kitten (he uses this one unironically – he’s not chronically online so he doesn’t understand the implications), Kitty Boy.
He loves you soooo much, it hurts.
Scary dog privileges for the cat boy he bagged by being quiet and mysterious (unable to talk to you because he thought you were the most beautiful man he’d ever seen).
He genuinely cannot believe his luck; he thinks you must be some artefact sent from the heavens to compensate for the trainwreck his life has been up until he met you.
He’s never felt more alive than when he’s with you.
And he’ll break the minds, bodies and spirits of anyone who tries to take you away from him <3.
König
Has a tendency to talk to you like how any owner talks to their pets.
“Does my pretty little Prince want his dinner now ? Oh yes he does, oh yes he does !”
He doesn’t mean to, honestly.
But ever since he found out you were a cat boy, he just can’t help himself.
It’s second nature to him.
He also tends to treat you as if you’re much more fragile than you actually are, but that’s because he’s never seen you defend yourself (because you don’t have to. König’s immense size and stature has effectively made you the social equivalent of Chernobyl, in that everyone remains outside a fifty-metre radius of you when you’re with him).
If you sit in his lap, he’ll actually die.
And if you start purring–
He’s GONE.
The sound is enough to not only fry his brain, but send him to sleep.
Hence he cannot sleep without you. Which makes his deployment exceedingly difficult for him.
He looks for any and all excuses to pet you.
He’ll straight-up ask you if you want him to scratch behind your ears, and he’ll keep going until you start to feel raw and ask him to stop.
He loves you so much – he can’t bear to be without you for any period of time.
Which, given how you can be rather solitary in nature, leads you to seek out the most inopportune places to catch up on some sleep.
He’s found you curled up in the wash basket before now.
And on top of a bookshelf.
And rather than be offended, he was overwhelmed by how adorable you were, curled up into a ball of almost nothing.
Yes, he did take pictures. Yes, he does keep them under his pillow so he can look at them when you’re asleep or away.
When it comes to the saucy stuff, König tends to hold back. A lot.
He’s absolutely massive and he doesn’t want to hurt you, especially since there’s more of a risk of him doing so by standing on your tail or catching your ears.
But whatever fear he possesses vanishes when you show him how flexible you are. Which has led to some…interesting positions, to say the least.
Btw, he’s a massive masochist. Just a sucker for pain.
Definitely the type to intentionally push you over the edge so you’ll scratch his back.
You have much sharper nails than the average person, which means it’s easier for you to cut deeper without applying much force.
And König loves it.
He has a high pain tolerance so he can withstand the burning sensation of you dragging your nails down his back and get lost in the fact that you’re marking him as yours.
During moments like this, he calls you ‘Kitty’ more than your actual name.
Outside of the bedroom, it’s literally impossible for him to call you anything other than “(Y/N)-Baby, where’s my little (Y/N)-Pie ?”
And you always come running because you know there’s a big cuddle attached to the end of that pet name <3.
Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)
Masterlist
Masterlist [Continued]
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Modern Warfare AI Masterlist
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Hinterland
König X she/her OC
After a battle, König struggles with getting to safety, wondering how he got here and if he will ever make it home.
This taps into where König comes from and why König is part of the military.
CN: angst, mentions of injury and blood, mentions of death, mentions of nausea & vomit, warzone descriptions, sexual assault, queerphobia and transphobia, this whole thing is steeped in patriarchal themes and violence, violence against women* in warzones, themes of sexual assault and extreme stress situations, hunger and starvation, mentions of rape, bullying, failing in school due to untreated neurodiversity, bad parenting, teen romance and teen romance emotions, untreated mental health issues, i guess i am giving König both Autism and ADHD, getting dead named, mentions of needles and medical procedures, medical inaccuracies (I have researched too much for this already don't expect me to correctly describe a medical facility too)
has kind of a happy end, kind of not.
5,8 k words
beta read by @musigrusi thank you so much 💕
Notes for cultural context:
The name Hannes is a German boys name.
Amalia is named after the Prussian princess Anna Amalie who was known to be an independent woman, a musician and generally well educated. She stayed unmarried her whole life and was a close confidant to her brother king Friedrich II. Her baroque organ is still in use in the church “Zur Frohen Botschaft” in Karlshorst, Berlin. Should you have the chance, check it out, it's beautiful and they play free concerts regularly. Also, Since Prussia under Friedrich II waged war against Austria, the name Amalia low-key mark her as foreign in Austria.
The Perseiden are a yearly meteoric shower visible in the summer months.
The sweat never stopped being a nuisance, dripping into his eyes and down his back. König grimaced under his hood, trying to ignore the thirst in his throat and heat under his armor, and dragged on.
Every time he left a battle, he forgot how punishing physical discomfort was and how harshly it gnawed at his body no matter how much he trained.
Every time he told himself it was the last time that he would go out to kill and get killed in a thousand little ways.
Every time he forgot and returned anyway.
Might have overdone it this time.
He looked down.
The bandage on his leg started to bleed through. And he still had a long way back to base.
It had been his usual employment with his usual rates, enough to buy a house or run a little shop back home. Maybe a bookstore or café where they could sell overpriced coffee to the tourists and have a well curated book selection for the locals.
She would like that.
König banished his thoughts and concentrated on the here and now as he limped on. He was out in the open. Any sniper, hell, anyone with a decent aim and a rock could turn into a problem for him now. He was an easy target and in need of cover, rest, and a pick-up.
Quickly, he scanned his environment. It was a stony valley he had seen a thousand times. No water or settlements in sight. Patches of dried-out greenery littered the barren landscape here and there. Further up, he spotted a couple of boulders ideal for cover from anyone passing through the valley.
It would do.
He moved carefully not to hurt his leg even more and climbed up the stones with practiced ease before sitting down and turning on the radio to call for help.
Static.
No answer.
He tried again.
Static.
-
Hannah was always the tallest girl in class, sitting at the back of the room while the teacher babbled on about history and war and peace and war and peace again. She looked outside. Spring had started and the nearby trees turned greener by the day, calling to her to-
“Hannah! Die Tafel ist vorne, nicht draußen im Wald!”
She turned back. Her teacher shook her head disapprovingly at Hannah for the interruption, before continuing with the wars. To show her eagerness and to appease her teacher, Hannah grabbed one of her pens and tried taking notes.
1809.
Napoleon had made it here and laid siege to Vienna like the Osman’s before him. At least they had bought the coffee to Austria. Napoleon on the other hand got Hannah only into a particularly boring history class. Little cups of coffee started to litter the side of her history notes. A small graphite-coloured Napoleon trying to grab a cup with his tiny hands half-finished as the teacher slammed down the ruler onto Hannah’s papers and interrupted her art.
“Hannah! Aufpassen!”
-
König woke up from the cold. The sweat had soaked his shirt and even his heavy armor and layers of tech wear couldn’t keep him warm in the early hours of the day. He looked up into the sky to get some clue where he was only to see clouds hiding any chance of him navigating this way. He needed help.
If he couldn’t get someone to pick him up, he was massively fucked.
Click.
Static.
He spoke into the Radio. No answer.
Click.
Static.
Click.
Static.
Click.
Would someone even tell her where he had died?
He shivered and started to rub his body to get himself warm again.
-
“Na, Lange, wie ist das Wetter da oben?”
Hannah rolled her eyes.
“Halt’s Maul.”, she dismissed and kept walking as the boys and girls snickered and giggled behind her in the hallway of the school. Her long stride took her quickly out of earshot from them.
“Sorry, are you alright?”
She stopped in her tracks.
A girl Hannah hadn’t seen before, eyed her with shy concern.
“I saw how the others treat you. I didn’t understand. I speak only ein bisschen Deutsch.”, she smiled shyly, “But they looked mean. So, I thought I’ll ask.”
“It’s okay. I am fine.”, Hannah quickly dismissed, hating her own clumsy accent and her shaky voice. She sounded exactly like her father when he tried to explain some lost hikers the way back to the town, overwhelmed and nervous.
They stared at each other, Hannah feeling the awkward silence creeping up her neck as the pretty girl fluttered her lashes at her expectantly.
“Thanks for asking.”, Hannah added in an attempt to break the uncomfortable quiet between them.
“It was nothing. What’s your name?”
“Hannah. I’m in class 10-b. What is yours?”
“Amalia. I’m in 10-a.”
“Nice to meet you, Amalia.”
Another weird pause in which Amalia waited for Hannah to say something.
Oh Gott.
“Would you like to have lunch together, Hannah? It’s lunchbreak and I don’t know where the cafeteria is yet.”
Hannah smiled.
Showing the new girl around. And she was nice.
“Sure.”
-
The pebbles under his feet made his walk harder and König kept stumbling while he pushed himself further down the valley and into what must be north towards the US base. Back home he had a map with a pin for every base he had visited. There were a lot of pins over their sofa in that map, and sometimes she teased him about pins possibly falling down into the cushions of their sofa and pricking them into the ass.
He smiled at the thought of her little delightful ass.
Sometimes she lamented different things - like him going to add more pins.
Might not make it back and add a pin this time.
-
Amalia was from the US. Her father had worked for the military in Ramstein where her mother was from. They had lived in a couple of places around the world, always on the move following her father’s station until her mother had enough and they ended up in Austria because of some distant relative and a job. It was like that sometimes.
Hannah did not care about the whys and ifs.
She only cared about Amalia being here now.
“I am so envious!” Amalia called out as they walked through the town from school, “you always lived in a beautiful place like this.”
Hannah snorted.
“You think it’s pretty? It’s mostly just boring. Nothing ever changes.”
Amalia took Hannah’s hand and pressed it with unbroken excitement.
“You are just feeling like nothing changes but I bet, there have been plenty of changes.”
Hannah looked down at Amalia’s hand in hers. It felt good.
“This town is a few centuries old”, she said, “The house my family lives in has been in the family for over 200 years now. And even back then we were known as the tallest from around here, so it’s built higher.”
“That’s so cool.”
“That’s so repetitive. It’s like living my ancestors’ lives without ever breaking away from their paths. The furthest I ever got was Munich for a school trip. Even my name is from a great-grandmother and a family tradition. You on the other hand-“
“I have been to military bases”, Amalia protested and interlaced her fingers with Hannah’s while dragging her onwards, “Honestly, they are all the same wherever you go. I’d rather be here instead of looking at ugly barracks, guns, and buff dudes with tattoos and too much testosterone.”
Hannah grinned.
“Are buff dudes not your liking?”, she teased.
Amalia giggled.
“Some are okay to look at.”
-
After a day of walking, he made it to a settlement. Waiting for the twilight to give him cover he rested behind some boulders and observed the handful of buildings. It was a simple farmhouse surrounded by with a few sheds, huts and a well. He heard voices speaking a language he did not understand, an older man was sitting in front of the house resting and looking after a little kid playing on the ground. The elder spoke tenderly to the child and the child answered sweetly, sometimes with laughter and sometimes with the unmistakable higher pitch of a curious question. A woman worked the farm, running around and finishing the days business. She looked tired, thin, and worn out.
No Fighters. No younger men.
Briefly, very briefly, König considered leaving. Disrupting this family’s warzone lifes with more warzone stench, made him uneasy.
Killing during a battle was simple. This was not.
But he needed bandages, food, and water.
His battered body and mind made the decision for him. Hunger brings out the worst out of men. Hunger and the hope of getting back home. He reached for his rifle.
-
The halls in Amalia’s house were littered with pictures of her family. Smiling children, dutiful wives, stern looking men in uniform. Was this how family is supposed to be? Hannah didn’t know, barely daring to call her own home a family.
Amalia was easy to recognize in several of the pictures, she had that shy pretty smile with the excited glint in her eyes since she was a child.
“Who is that?”, Hannah asked, pointing at one of the men in uniform.
“Oh, that’s my cousin. He is a marine.”
Hannah nodded. Marine sounded important. Militaristic. Far away from little town Austria.
-
After the family retreated into the farmhouse König crept closer. With his rifle ready he sneaked to the well for water, quickly refilling his canteen and quenching his thirst as silently as possible before moving past the little shed with some hens and through a simple garden, with plants fighting to stay alive in the midday heat, before reaching the door. A little bell was next to the door. He reached for it and stilled.
He was a soldier. He knew he was a terrifying sight with his hood and his height and most importantly - his rifle. Should he really do this?
Before he could decide, the door opened, and the woman cried out in fear and surprise.
Trained instinct took over and he aimed his rifle, moving himself into the house and pushing the woman back while checking the room for targets.
It was a kitchen. The old man was sitting at the table leaning before the child to shield it while staring up at this giant intruder with the hood and the rifle, staring up at König in fear. The child whimpered and the woman talked and cried as she got up from where König had pushed her.
“Quiet!”, he roared, and they all stilled.
Another check for enemies, he did not expect to find but the practice was too ingrain in him not to.
“Quiet”, he repeated breathlessly.
-
Schnipp. Schnapp. Ab.
Mother had disapproved of Hannah cutting her hair, sending her to her room without dinner while her father just shook his head disapprovingly.
“Du siehst aus wie ein Junge. Furchtbar.“
Hannah just stood up from the family table and left, thinking to herself that looking like a boy was not the worst thing she could be.
Climbing up the stairs in the old farmhouse, skipping the one that creaked loud like an old pine tree during a heavy storm, she thought about mothers’ words.
Cutting off her hair had been an unexplainable need. It was so quick. She barely registered how it cut free from the weight of those blond plaits of hair. Carefully, she reached up and touched her head, her fingers gliding easily through her soft short strands now. Like a boys.
-
“Quiet.”, he repeated in his normal speaking voice, his eyes darting around the room and trying to see the woman, the elder and the toddler at the same time while gripped his rifle to keep his hands from shaking.
“Do you understand me? Verstehen Sie mich? Me comprenez-vous?”, he tried thinking of any other way to communicate, he wasn’t even sure in which country he was right now. Every warzone looked the same after a while.
“Yes.”
It was the woman.
“Yes, I speak American. I speak English”, she continued, “Leave son alone. Leave father alone. Please.”
Nausea swept through him, and he felt the sour taste of vomit rise in his throat. The sound of the woman begging him hit him harder than a kick in the stomach.
“Please, please!”, she continued leaning towards him, “You want me! Take me! Leave son alone! Leave father alone!”
“No!”, he tried to calm her and himself, “I don’t want to harm you. Or your family. No danger. No harm. See!”
He lowered the rifle while lifting one of his hands to show his intends.
“See!”
She started tearing at her dress. “Take me! Leave son alone! Leave father alone!”
König stilled, mortified at the sight of the woman in undress and begging for him to not harm her family.
He swayed back.
“No! Don’t!”, König tried to stop her from undressing further, fighting his own battle training to keep focus on everyone in the room while avoiding seeing the woman’s bare body.
I shouldn’t be here. I should be home.
It was too much. The disgust in his stomach flared up sharply, and he hated himself for coming to this house, this country, this continent – for disrupting a family’s dinner and terrifying a woman so much that she was willing to offer herself to a random soldier just to save her family.
He tore off his glove and lifted his hand.
“NO! Don’t worry! See-“, he wiggled with his fingers in a macabre comedic way to show the ring he wore, “I am not going to rape you. I am not going to kill your family. I just need help to get home. To my wife.”
-
Hannah had climbed out of the window again. It became a habit of leaving late at night to stroll through the forest before navigating her way to Amalia’s house. And it was better than feeling locked up in her childhood bedroom again.
With practised ease Hannah climbed over the fence and checked for light in Amalia’s window before throwing a pebble against it.
“It’s late!”, Hannah whispered as silently as possible while also trying to be as audible as possible for Amalia.
“Yeah, and you are marauding around. Shouldn’t you at least try to sleep before school?”, Amalia shot back from upstairs.
Hannah shrugged.
“I will be a farmer no matter if I pay attention in school or not. Why are you up this time?”
Amalia giggled.
“Studying. I want to go to university. I need good marks. And my German is still shit.”
“Oh.”
Amalia would leave one day, for a different life. Away from the pretty town in the countryside that was so stuck in time.
“Hey.”
Amalia sounded different, nervous.
“Hannah, uh…”, She leaned down closer, “Can I kiss you?”
The words struck Hannah like lightning. In Hannah’s mind it felt like an impossibility for her to kiss a girl, to kiss Amalia with her nice smile and her kind teases and her soft hand holding Hannah’s and the way words rolled off her lips and-
“Yes.”
Who cares about possibilities.
-
König stumbled outside and puked right next to the entrance, retching what felt like his guts onto the stony ground.
He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here at all. No soldier should.
After his stomach was empty, he heaved heavily for air before standing up again and wiping his mouth with the gloved hand.
Scheiße.
“Man?”
He turned around. It was the woman, peaking fearfully through the door at him, holding her dress together with her hands.
“Sorry”, König gesticulated at the puddle of puke.
“Ok.”, she just replied flatly as if anything was ok.
He cleared his throat.
“I am sorry.”, König repeated,” I just need a new bandage, some direction and maybe some food. I will leave right after.”
“Ok.”
She repeated and closed the door, leaving him to wait outside.
He couldn’t blame her. To calm himself he started checking his rifle out of habit, while monitoring the dark garden and surrounding valley.
Could he trust her? Was she just getting her weapon to shoot him out of fear? Or rat him out to whoever was in charge in this area?
It’s not like he had a choice. The wound on his leg throbbed, he was lost and out of rations.
Nervously he drummed against the rifle, eyeing every shadow with suspicion.
After a few minutes the door opened again, and the woman stepped outside. She had a jacket on now, a couple of acidic smelling rags in her arms as well as some kind of bread. With as much distance as possible she passed the things he had asked for to König and he took them with a nod.
“Thank you.”, he mumbled.
“Directions. Yes?”, she asked coldly, ignoring his words.
“Yes.”
“You go there.”, she waved into the direction König had assumed the next US military base.
He nodded again.
She looked at him, before turning around and stepping to the door.
“Leave.”
He heard the door getting looked and a chair dragged in front of it after she closed it behind her.#
-
“Zieh dich an, Hannah! So kannst du nicht zur Feier.”, the mother ordered.
Hannah just looked at her and the dress she was holding.
“Nein.”
“Hannah!”
It was Sunday. A cousin was getting married. With the church and the whole family and flower girls and a white dress.
But not with Hannah in a dress.
“Wenn du dich nicht fertig machst, kannst du auch nicht mitkommen.”
“Okay.”
It was a clear calculation: no dress, no piece of the wedding cake, no Hannah in the family pictures.
She could live with that. If she had to wear a dress, she wouldn’t go.
Silently she got up and left her parents to go to her bedroom - her mother still staring at her disapprovingly and her father mildly uninterested in his wife’s attempts to raise his daughter.
It was sunny outside, beautiful. She didn’t even wait for her parents to leave before climbing out of the window and sneaking away.
The forest was humming with life as Hannah walked through it before making her way to Amalia’s house.
Amalia was sitting in the summer sun in the garden and studying. As always.
“You know, we have a gate in the fence if you feel like not showing off how tall you are, Hannah.”, Amalia greeted with a smile.
“I’m not showing off. It’s my natural grace to jump fences like a gazelle”, Hannah shot back, before kissing Amalia and taking a seat at the table on the garden veranda.
“More like a giraffe with your long legs”, Amalia scoffed.
“Either way, do you want to go for a hike today? It’s nice in the forest.”
“You should become a ranger like my uncle or a soldier like my marine-cousin with your never ending need to be in the forest and on the move. You would be the queen of the mountains! The most feral one out there”, Amalia stated and shook her head, “I can’t! I need to study.”
Hannah chuckled while getting up again, “Alright, have fun studying.”
“Wait!”, Amalia called.
Hannah turned back while Amalia reached over the table to kiss her.
“Be safe out there.”
-
The bread felt like the best thing König had eaten in weeks. With his stomach emptied and the sour taste of acid on his tongue it felt like a piece of heaven in his mouth. He knew it would only keep him satisfied for a short time. But it would give him strength to get himself to the base.
Next, he looked at his injury. Hidden between two boulders a click away from the house he sat down and took out his emergency light. Turning it on the lowest setting he quickly checked his wound. It was deep and due to the lack of fresh bandages and only his minimal first aid so far, slightly infected. Grimacing from the pain he started putting the rags onto the open flesh. It wasn’t ideal but the acid would keep the bacteria at bay while the rags protected the wound from dirt getting into it.
At least he hoped so.
Tired, so, so tired he reached for the radio and turned it on.
Click.
Static.
“Hello?”
No answer but static silence.
Click.
-
They were laying on the grass staring into the summer night, holding hands, and watching as the Perseids flared up and gifted them one shooting star after another.
“Hannah.”
“Hm?”
“I’m cold.”
Wordlessly Hannah moved closer and embraced Amalia with her taller, bigger frame, steeled from working her father’s farm, rubbing her sides to warm her up.
She giggled and kissed Hannah, “Thanks.”
The grass they lay on was green and starting to get wet from the morning dew as the milky way glanced beautiful and disinterested down at them.
Soon they would have to leave, part. With Amalia returning home and walking to the front door of her family’s neat little house. And Hannah climbing back up through the window of the old farmhouse.
Hannah sighed, nervously making a fist, and relaxing again to calm her nerves.
“Can I be your girlfriend?”, Amalia asked into the silence before Hannah had even started to search for the right words.
“Yes! I-“
Hannah paused, not sure why.
“Hannah, love, what is it? Did I say something wrong?”
Amalia sat up and looked down in concern to Hannah.
“No, I-“, Hannah closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing, “Can you stop calling me Hannah?”
Amalia paused. “Okay. How else am I supposed to call you?”
The other girl let her shoulders sink and dropped her head. “I don’t know. I keep getting told I am a boy-ish. That a Hannah would be different than who I am. And I know it’s mean. But I don’t think they are wrong.”
Amalia’s fingers were cold as she reached out and touched the other one’s shoulder, rubbing little soothing circles before scooting closer and turning it into a full embrace.
“If Hannah does not work for you, let’s try out other names, okay?”
Nodd.
“I am not very creative and maybe I don’t understand you correctly. How do you feel about ‘Hannes’?”
Nodd. A choked sob came out of Hannes as he leaned into the embrace, feeling many things as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Let’s try it out then, Hannes.”, Amalia whispered and hummed, slowly rocking him in her arms until his sobs stopped.
He stayed anyway, her arms around him feeling like the strongest thing in the world holding him under the stars covered summer sky until he felt Amalia shiver.
“You are getting cold. I am sorry for keeping you here.”
“Don’t be. I have a boyfriend who will give me his jacket and rubs my arms to warm me up now, you know.”
A surprised laughter escaped him as he took off his jacket for her.
“Yes, you have.”
-
The sun rose mercilessly into the sky over König, turning his world from shivering darkness into blazing clarity about his situation. Weakly, he lifted his head, took a few sips from his canteen, and summoned his strength to grab the radio.
Click.
Static, the eternal static that never bothered to answer him.
He asked anyway: “Hello, anybody out there?”
Static.
He was about to turn it off again as finally, after days of dragging himself through the dust and stone, an answer.
“This is Claris Airfield speaking. Claris Airfield speaking. Please identify yourself.”
-
Another night, another sneaking out of the window, another walk through the forest.
For the first time in a long while Hannes walked the familiar paths with light feet.
It felt right, the road felt right, he felt right as he hiked the short road down the mountain to Amalia’s house.
The window to her room was open and Hannes climbed up to her room with practised ease, knocking at the glass to alert her to his presence.
“Hannes!”, she greeted him from her bed while putting down one the current of many books she read.
Peeking into her room he smiled and asked, “Can I come in? I couldn’t sleep and I missed you.”
She nodded and waved him inside, making space for him on the bed.
He sat down next to her and pointed at the book.
“What are you reading tonight?”
“A guid handbook for kids from military families about studying. My father insisted on me reading it.”
“Why? I am sure the Universities in Vienna, Graz or Salzburg will be more than happy to have you. Munich or Brünn are not too far away either. There is no need to go back to the US for University.”, Hannes shifted closer to Amalia, putting an arm around her.
She leaned against him, fumbling nervously with the book.
“My Dad…”, she started carefully, “He wants me to study back home in the US. He became strange since the divorce with mum.”
“How so?”
“He…”, she paused, “He became strict, mean. He has many rules and expectations, more than ever. When I mentioned that I had a boyfriend he started questioning me.”
“Isn’t that what dads do?”
“I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know, Hannes. It was strange. I wanted him to stop so I agreed to take a look at universities away from here.”
She pressed into his side, taking his other free hand and interlacing her fingers with his.
”Hannes, I don’t want to leave. But I might have too. Dad … he is the one who can finance my schooling, mum can’t.”
He closed his eyes, thinking about how he felt when Amalia was gone, how he had felt before he had even met her. The solution was as clear and simple as the night sky. If she had to go, he would follow.
“I will always find a way to you, should you want me to, Amalia. Don’t worry.”
-
The Heli circled over the valley. König tried to get up but felt too weak from the loss of blood after hours of working the radio and slowly bleeding out. A medic had made his way up to him, telling König he got lucky while he worked on his leg. Another medic argued with the pilot of the helicopter how to best move König up.
“Yo, big guy!”, he shouted over the noise from the heli above them, “You need to get up and secure yourself. We lost our stretcher during that last shitshow of a battle.”
Oida.
König groaned and worked himself into a standing position, half leaning against the stone and half getting dragged up by the medic at his side.
“Oh wow, you really are big. What did they feed you as a kid?”
Luft und Liebe.
He kept his mouth shut and concentrated on the ropes before him while the silent medic at his side helped him secure himself as his colleague babbled on.
“For real, the ladies must love you back home.”
“Oh, shut up”, his helper snapped. Must be new, “You think our guy wants to hear you point out something he has heard a thousand times before while bleeding like a pig?”
“I’m just making small talk.”
“Good luck small-talking with a German.”
“I am Austrian.”, König grunted, surprised by his own lucidity and insistence.
The medics stared at him.
“Isn’t that the same as German?”, the blabbermouth asked.
König groaned, unsure if from pain or annoyance.
-
Amalia had left for the US, just days ago but it like years to him. It was getting cold outside, winter creeping up over the mountains and with it snow, and wind, and darkness.
The familiar forest paths were bare and lonely to wander on. Hannes kept walking there to keep the habit, to not forget the feeling of just strolling down the forest and then seeing Amalia.
His Amalia.
She had given him her phone, saying she would just tell her parents she lost hers so that they could stay in contact. They had talked yesterday. Her voice was a bare whisper as she quietly told him of her journey, describing him all the things he hadn’t seen while trying to not alert her father.
He hadn’t approved. Of course, Amalia’s father hadn’t approved of Hannes. He was just some guy from the middle of nowhere Austria. Amalia had cried after that, telling Hannes only bits of what her father had said about Hannes, apologizing repeatedly and leaving out the most horrendous parts.
Still, he knew.
Hannes had grown up in a little town with his classmates’ pointing fingers at him for his unusual height for a girl, with neighbours raising their eyebrows at the sight of him roaming the forest and fields with town skirts and unkept hair, with his parents becoming bitter and uninterested in him for not behaving like they wanted a daughter to behave.
Of course, Hannes knew that her father called him Hannah and a girl, disapproving of their relationship no matter what Amalia said.
He used to be angry and hurt about it, but the feeling ebbed since what felt like about the same eons since Amalia left.
Now he had better things to do than fighting for the approval of people he only cared little about and who would never change their ways no matter what he did or who he would become.
Fickt euch alle, he thought to himself as he walked down the creaking stairs into the kitchen.
He needed to get out of this town, fast.
And he had to find a way back to Amalia. Hannes knew of a way, thinking of all those men in uniform back in Amalia’s house, her cousins, her uncles, her father - thinking of the power and dignity - and most importantly money - they got for traveling to far away places, wearing uniforms and carring guns. It was nearly funny that the man who disapproved so clearly of Hannes, showed him the easiest way back to his daughter.
“Mama”, he asked while stepping into the room, “Ich brauche deine Hilfe. Kannst du das unterschreiben?”
The mother turned around from the stove, moving what she had worked on to the side, before sitting down at the kitchen table.
“Was ist das?”, she asked, “Wieder schlechte Noten in der Schule?”
He shook his head. No, this wasn’t about school.
“Ich will gehen, Mama. Weg von hier. Ich muss.”
She starred at him, blinking a few times before smiling softly like all parents do when gently but firmly hurting their children with words.
“Hannah.”
He shivered, hating every syllable, and passing his mother a pen instead. He needed her signature to leave. Nothing else.
“Hannah, du kannst nicht weg. Wer soll sonst den Hof machen?”
“Wenn ich bleibe, bin ich lebendig begraben. Gib mir eine Chance zu leben. Lass mich gehen.”
She starred at him, tears coming to her eyes as she reached over the table for the son, she did not know she had.
“Mama! Bitte.”, Hannes said to break the painful silence and pushing aside all those emotions raising their heads like snakes inside him, passing her the enlist document for the Bundesheer instead. He needed this to be done or he might break under his mothers sad gaze.
She starred at him, shaken, and breaking before him, finally putting down the pen to sign his freedom.
-
König woke up laying on one of the field beds most lazarettos used. His head felt painfully heavy and like it was about to drop through the bed onto the floor. He groaned.
“Konik”, a medic greeted him, walking closer.
He groaned again, not sure if from the oh too familiar mix of pain and annoyance about having his callname so massively butchered or just the pain.
“Konik, glad to have you back. How are you feeling?”
“Scheiße.”, he mumbled, deciding to not argue with someone yielding needles which could aleviate his pains.
The Medic chuckled and started fumbling with an IV bag currently slowly dripping into his body via a catheter in his arm, “I’m adjusting your pain medication. You are a big fella and need a bit more than usual. But don’t worry, we will have you back up in no time.”
He grunted an acknowledgment, too tired to talk much more.
“Ah Mr. Konig-“, the medic called as the medication started to take him out again, “I was told you are getting a nice ride home after this. A littl’ vacation waiting for you so better get well soon and don’t let those at home wait longer than necessary.”
Home, he was getting home.
Finally.
-
Vienna main station was as unpleasant as every station, a busy place where people ran around to get to their train or forcefully stood still until it was their time to catch the right connection.
Better than Frankfurt am Main or Berlin. Fürchterlich. Ugh.
Vienna generally had a different pace, better suited for Königs still recovering leg.
Venerable and pleasant.
He had learned to love that once he left Austria for the first time. Leisurely, he strolled out of the building, careful to not knock somebody over with his duffel back, and got on the right tram home.
Outside of the rolling tram the houses stared down at him through the window with familiar fronts. König wondered when exactly he had become so accustomed to the sights: A castle here, a Gemeindebau there, cafés and parks he had visited - after all, he had not grown up in Vienna, barely stayed here for longer than a few months at a time, and only moved to the city after getting married - continuing to leave when the need to move became too unbearable to be quenched with runs in the Prater or when running into someone back from the old town and getting called 'Hannah' again.
Vienna had become a sanctuary so fast.
So normal, he could only stand it for short times.
Stepping out of the tram at his stop he decided to make a quick detour for some flowers before finally making the way to the apartment.
Not looking at the names on the bell signs of the house he pressed ‘Kaiser’, their shared family name for years now.
With a quick buzz the entrance to the hallway opened and he stepped into the pretty tilted hall and up the flight of stairs.
He made it half the way up before she bolted down and into his arms, nearly knocking him over and down the stairs again, hadn't he sacrificed the now crushed flowers and grabbed the railing.
“Hannes!”, Amalia cried out as she pressed herself into him, “You're back.”
He embraced her tightly, enjoying the feeling of her in his arms.
“Yes, Amalia, I’m back.”
For now.
-
something something protect transkids, warzones are full of people CoD conveniently hardly engages with, women* are the first targets in war, neurodiversity has little to no space in our ableist societies unless it can be exploited, the military is shit and preys on those in need, patriarchy needs to go, going to war means not returning as the same person you left as, did i miss something or do you feel like i could have improved some points feel free to send me a message something something criticism is essential to improve
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