Chapter Text
There is a string that is tug, tug, tugging taut from the center of your head and out through your scalp, pulling you up, up, up, and you feel like you’re being hurled through a gray mist.
The phone is ringing.
You’re pulled into consciousness as the string snaps. Here you are in your room.
Here I am, you think.
The clock reads 1:52AM. You went to bed two hours ago. The hot itch of your tired eyes momentarily compresses your lungs with sodden aggravation.
God fucking damn it.
Just as you touch your phone on the nightstand, the ringing stops. And just as your fingers make a grip on it, the ringing begins again. The screen illuminates the dark room and it irritates your eyes further— you briefly grit your teeth as another bout of irritation constricts your lungs.
UNKNOWN.
You have half a mind to deny the call and silence it for the rest of the night.
UNKNOWN.
Your eyes itch.
UNKNOWN.
Your gut itches.
And so you swipe on the device and hold it to your ear.
A phantom moniker of your past sounds on the other line.
“Hutch,” you say. “I don’t go by that anymore.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” he apologizes, raising his voice over some static. You notice the rain battering your roof; that static is rain. “Old habits die hard.”
“And neither do you, since you’re clearly talking to me.”
“I’m a stubborn motherfucker.”
“I remember.” You rub your eyes. “No offense, Hutch, but why are you calling me? It’s almost two in the fucking morning; I gave you this number for a specific reason.”
“I know!” You hear him grunting over the budding downpour. “I’m calling you because of that!”
Your eyebrows stitch together and you sit up.
“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into?”
“I need a favor!”
“You didn’t answer me.”
“You never needed answers when it came to favors!” Hutch sounds desperate, garbled, exhausted; it’s a monsoon on his end. It mirrors your own weather. “I need a favor— a really big favor!”
“God fucking damn it, Hutch.”
“My partner—” he explained regardless, “He needs to hide. I need him to go AWOL for a bit.”
“Why can’t you take him to a safehouse?”
“Our position’s been compromised.”
You knew exactly what that meant.
Pinching the bridge of your nose, you sighed and asked, “Who is it?”
“You don’t know him.” Hutch is breathing heavily now, as if he’s struggling to run. “But he’s a real good fucking guy. Real good guy. Ain’t that right, brother?”
There’s a pause there as if Hutch leaves room for his partner to respond. You don’t hear anything but the rain and Hutch’s short-winded gasps.
He is running.
You tossed the comforter to the side and flinched when your bare feet made contact with the gelid tile. You tapped around for your slippers.
“What part of the world are you even in? How am I supposed to do this favor without even knowing how to get him here?”
“That’s the other half of the favor, hermana,” he says, and you can imagine a massive, fuddled grin materialized by adrenaline. You find your slippers. “I’m in your neighborhood.”
A viperous sigh abandons your mouth and stitches into, “God fucking damn it.”
In no less than three seconds you are flinging your bedroom door open and bounding down the stairs, robe casting puppet shadows along the walls as it floats behind you.
“Where are you located? I’ll come get you right now.”
“Knock knock!”
Knock, knock, knock from the kitchen door.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Here’s Johnny!” Hutch, despite seeking jeu d’esprit in his slippery circumstance, has an anxious lilt in the underbelly of his words. “Johnny and friend!”
Flicking on the kitchen lightswitch, you make intuitive haste to tie your robe, and in those few seconds it takes you to reach the door, you take note of Hutch’s familiar silhouette and then the distorted one right next to him, hunched over, slump, slump, slumping over.
You launch the door open after unlocking it and are almost knocked over by the two of them barreling in. The downpour hisses in their wake.
Shutting the door behind you, you hear Hutch say:
“Morning, hermana.”
“Morning.” The phone is still glued to your ear as you lock the door— deadbolt, mortise, knob lock. Secure. “Didn’t even bring me a visitation gift? That’s quite rude in my culture.”
“I did,” Hutch laughs whilst attempting to catch his breath. “He’s sitting on your dining room chair.”
You turn to look and for a brief moment, all noise seizes. Your heart thu-thumps.
In this modest kitchen, this very kitchen swaddled in vivacious colors mirroring a prismatic paint palette, sits one big, black stroke of paint: Friend. Friend is an amalgamation of sable fabrics, blown-out against the backdrop of the oranges and greens of cabinets and knick knacks, swallowing the blues of the very chair he sits on. A Leviathan, sitting at a drooping angle with the right side of his torso glued to the back of the chair and a large arm draped over it, swallowing that very blue chair, swallowing the light of the room, almost bringing the kitchen back into darkness once more. Little by little you notice he is stained with dark red splotches, noticeably more so on his leg— specifically his massive, massive thigh. Thighs. Pulled taut and straining against the material of his cargos, the uninjured one secured with a tactical holster that had the fat and muscle somewhat spilling over the fastened strap. You swallowed. Abnormally broad-shouldered. Thick-chested and heaving. Adorned with an inky hood that concealed what you assumed was a strong neck. A hard helmet sat as his crown.
Johnny and friend, Hutch had said, but friend is…
“Hutch, you didn’t mention your friend is so—”
“Bloody?”
“Big.” It came out with a lovestruck breathiness. Stupidly enough to say— though unwilling to admit— there sat the materialization of a perverted prurient appetite forged forever and a day ago, one that had been sequestered in the confines of your own manufactured isolation due to the… innate voraciousness of said appetite. Your Achilles heel. One that no one knew, nor could take advantage of.
Until now. Unintentionally.
You lowered the phone from your ear.
Here, you forgive Hutch entirely for shattering your good night’s sleep. But you won’t tell him that.
“Bloody big, as Ghost would say.” You exhale, an attempt to laugh short-lived when you remembered the nature of the situation you were in. The phone now resides on the counter. “Man’s a bit banged up though.”
You collect what little of your poise had lapsed.
“So you bring a stray cat to my doorstep for some warm milk and a flea bath instead of taking him to the vet?” You made your way to a specific cabinet and opened it as Hutch spoke.
“Hospital wasn’t an option.” He sniffed.
“Of course it wasn’t.” The untouched medkit had collected some dust over the years. You run a wet paper towel over the plastic. “Or else you wouldn’t be here.”
The paper towel is discarded and you turn to look at the massive friend. His head is lifted now— is he looking at you? You can’t tell. Your heart thu-thumps again as you make your way to Friend.
“Concussion?” The question was for either or to respond.
“Don’t know,” Hutch answered. He’s reclined against the doorway of the breakfast nook. “Didn’t have time to ask— we had to haul ass outta there.”
“And how far away is ‘outta there?’”
“Far enough that your location wasn’t compromised.”
This satisfies you for the time being. You grab the back of another blue chair and drag it around to situate it in front of Friend. You’re so close to him now it makes your nerves spark. As you sit, you open the medkit and situate it on the dining table.
“Alright, let’s see here.”
Come to find that that inky hood of his had two hollows that had been seemingly created with a pair of scissors in haste, and within those hollows were a set of eyes colored in black paint peering back at you— down at you. Butterflies blossomed in your stomach and piled into your throat. Something pinches deep within your chest, somewhere off to the left of it. Steel blue. Or a misty gray? The more you looked, the more you wondered of that thin color line, and the more you wondered, well, that had Friend diverting those eyes of his elsewhere; you felt your face buzz with a supple heat.
“What’s your name?” Your question was soft, much softer than the way you had addressed Hutch.
“He goes by—”
“I asked him, Hutch.” You look over your shoulder with a bated half-smile. “I have to know whether my stray cat is concussed or not.”
Hutch nods. “Fair.”
You turn back to Friend. You wait expectantly.
Friend’s gaze is flitting about, gaze touching anywhere but you, and you surmise that what you had said before had caused offense to him. Your mouth opens to apologize:
“König.”
It shuts close.
His name is a rasp, a dripping secret off his tongue. There is no sound, but the air from his lungs twisted consonants and vowels between his veiled lips, and in turn that twisted your insides with besotted butterflies.
“König.” It weighs rich on your tongue, like a piece of butterscotch deliquescing into its sweet, wet silk. You said his name again to get the pronunciation right. “That’s very pretty.”
Pretty, wasn’t that odd to say? To such a massive, massive man? But it was second-nature to use that word, to use pretty for this stray cat.
“I am not familiar with the language. What does it mean?”
Friend, now König, stares at his boots, blinking, blinking, blinking.
“It is German for ‘King.’”
The same rasp now threaded with wisps of an accent. You wonder how long it’s been since he’s had water. With an inaudible ‘Ah,’ you stand and fetch the two sodden men a glass of water each.
“German. I’ve always wanted to learn, but never quite had the confidence to tackle it.” After Hutch took his glass with a soft and grateful ‘thank you,’ you placed König’s glass beside him; he made no attempt to reach for it.
“It suits you,” you continued. You took notice of König’s spry glance towards your shoulder. “König, could you turn towards me, please?”
He follows the gentle order almost instantly, compliant like a good ole soldier. Something in you twists. A fleeting debauched eagerness. You force yourself to still. This very big man mirrors you now, hands on knees, feet firmly planted.
His leg starts to bounce.
“Do you know what today’s date is?”
“The 1st of November.”
“Yes, that’s very good, König.” His leg falters in its bouncing for a split second before it resumes. “Can you tell me where it hurts?”
It seems like he hesitates.
“How about feeling any nausea? Does the light bother you at all?”
“I don’t have a concussion.”
“Okay.” The word is wrapped tender around your mouth. “I believe you. But tell me where it hurts; you’re bloodied all over.”
“It’s not my blood.”
Amusement tickles the sides of your lips and the corners of your eyes; you couldn’t help the small puff of air that emitted from your nostrils: a little laugh of sorts.
“Not all of it.”
Hutch chuckled.
“König,” you murmur, a soupçon of a smile twitching your lips, “I won’t say it again: tell me where it hurts.”
“You can trust her,” Hutch adds, and you offer him an appreciative look over your shoulder. “I brought you here for a reason; even if you didn’t have a concussion, this is where we would’ve ended up at the end of the day. You’re safe here with her.”
Turning back to König, you find him looking at his boots again.
“You don’t have to trust me, but you can trust Hutch. You trust him, yes?” He nods, albeit faintly. “Alright. Tell me where it hurts.”
You had ended up saying it again, after all.
“My ribs,” he starts. “They’re bruised.”
“You must be in a lot of pain.” Your compassion is hushed, tucked away in a drawer that is cracked open, open just enough for him alone to be able to peek into.
“Yes.”
“Your leg as well.” He nods again, eyes trained on the wound now. “Where else?”
“My… wrist.” There is a shyness there when he speaks, as if he was ashamed to be holding a checklist of boo-boos. “It is sprained.”
“Is it?” You hold out a hand. “May I see? Will you allow me to touch you?”
König stills at that.
After a moment, he rasps, “Yes.”
Goosebumps prick at the base of your neck and down, down your spine.
He outstretches one sodden, concealed arm and you take it gently (heavy, heavy, deliciously heavy), applying phantom pressure here and there (his hand is so much bigger than yours), moving it a little to the bottom (how long are his fingers exactly underneath the gloves?), a little to the top (so big). König winces, but says nothing.
“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” Hutch’s question almost threw you in for a loop— almost made you laugh. The tension in your body ebbed some.
“By all means. I won’t tell you where it is since I trust you’ll find it eventually by sticking your nose everywhere.” Hutch laughed at the placidly amused look you gave him.
“So I’m a little nosey, sue me.” You shake your head as he walks out of the kitchen.
“I just might.” That was said just because, not necessarily meant for Hutch to hear. But if he did, you know he would’ve laughed again.
But then the tension returned to gnaw your bones stiff once you remembered who sat in front of you.
“Alright, König,” you began. “I’m going to need you to remove your gear so we can check the swelling and ice it. I’ll help you since your wrist is tender.”
He nods. You wonder if that’s his default response.
He makes a move to shuck out of the gear strapped to his large chest after unfastening it, wiggling his shoulders back and forth, and you have to press your lips together in a stiff line to keep a smile at bay; the move was a bit too endearing to you. Nimble fingers settling upon the straps sitting on the tops of his biceps now, you carefully maneuver him out of it, mindful of the frail joint, and you swear you can feel an intense heat radiating from this massive, massive man— as if he were some sort of furnace. Are you imagining it? This calidity seeping through his wet clothes and singeing your skin? You bit the inside of your cheek as you felt your hands tense with the threat of trembling.
“That’s it,” you encouraged as you removed the padding of his forearms.
Piece by piece, removed in succession, tossed aside onto the dining table until the upper half of him was bare in tactical items.
Your will is absolute iron for not looking at his bare hands.
“Now for the jacket.” A half-pause. “Your zipper is… under the mask.”
König went rigid.
“You don’t have to remove it.” You held your hands palm-up, hovering above your thighs. “Just lift the mask up enough for me to grab the zipper— it’ll be difficult for you to maneuver the inflexibility of a wet jacket and zipper with one hand.”
He said nothing; merely stared at your hands.
“I’ll close my eyes,” you offered, voice just above a whisper so as to not startle this stray cat. “When the zipper’s all the way to the bottom, I’ll open them. Is that alright? Or would you prefer to have Hutch—”
“You can touch me.”
A white heat branded your nerve endings.
“The zipper.”
“Yes, the… zipper,” you parroted, almost dumbly. You blinked twice. König looked away from your hands to settle on his knees. “I’m going to lift my hand and close my eyes. When you give me the greenlight, I’ll reach for it and pull it down— does that sound alright?”
König nods for the umpteenth time.
“Okay.” Right hand lifts and settles in the air, hovering across the line of where you assumed his collarbones would be. Eyes slipping shut, you said, “Whenever you’re ready.”
There was no response from him and for a moment, you idly considered the idea that maybe this was all some very elaborate dream you had created in the wake of your loneliness, a very bizarre and elaborate dream, that this object of your manifested desires had run its course in this perverted fairytale play and will now exit stage left after the final bow, but the inaudible rustling of fabric pricked at the tripled sensitivity of your eardrums. Your bicep began to ache some; you tilted your head a fraction. Soon after, silence. Silence amidst the static of the torrential rain.
Then,
“You can touch.”
Your fingers twitched here. You wished with all your heart König was still staring at his knees.
Gentle, gentle, you cantillated behind your eyes, a one-worded hymn fashioned to convert yourself into a pious partisan for the sake of this skittish, mountainous man. Your curiosity was itching at your eyelids, but ever the devotee, you remained steadfast and so forward, forward, you reached, temperate with your pace, careful to keep even a single finger from spasming so as to not startle him, and when you finally reached the cool metal of the zipper teeth, your eyebrows twitched in confusion. The slider wasn’t there.
Where?
Fingertips ghosted up half an inch, then a full one, then two. It still wasn’t there. Up, up, the pads slid, following the teeth, past where you assumed his collarbones were, up, up…
His neck.
Was König breathing? Because you certainly weren’t. Had it not been for the thick material of his jacket, you would’ve imagined how close you were to touching almost unfiltered skin, hot skin with thick muscle underneath— your tongue feels swollen. Swollen and dry.
The slider. Find the slider and pull it down.
Ah. There it is. Cold and thin. And just below his chin.
Was that stubble against your knuckles?
Fuck, fuck— enough. The slider sits firm between your thumb and index and you pull— roughly, at first. That makes König grunt. There is a sweltering flicker of something in the pit of your belly.
God fucking damn it.
You try again, more agreeable this time. The slider eats at the teeth and spits them back out, unveiling what you assumed was the man’s shirt, and you unhurriedly continued to pull the fucking thing down in a hurry when the slider gets caught in some fabric and that makes you bite your cheek a bit harder than intended, and so with your left hand you pinch the split upper-teeth of the zipper, bring the slider back up to free the caught fabric, and drag it riiight back down. Perfect. Seamless.
How far down does this zipper fucking go?
Your cheeks feel warm and you wonder if König can feel the steam if he isn’t looking at you— and if he is, what is he thinking? Because he isn’t saying anything, nothing at all.
You make no sound, no expression of anything, upholding a faux-cool that you force yourself to carry out until the end of your days, you swear on this, and finally, finally the slider reaches the bottom stop and pop!— opens the zipper and you can finally open your fucking eyes.
In nothing but a black, water-logged long sleeve, you idly think to yourself that it would’ve been better to keep your fucking eyes closed.
You are in direct line of sight with his monumental chest, his pectorals— supple, robust, and ample pectorals, pectorals that were bulging against the black, wet fabric, absolutely straining against it, and you had to take in one silent, imperceptible inhale, had to flatten your tongue up against the roof of your mouth with the most forceful pressure so as to keep any sort of noise from dribbling out. The material stuck to him like a second skin pulled raw and taut, fleshy mounds sitting loud and heavy and so fucking pretty and voluptuously at attention you had to dig your nails into the flat of your palm to center yourself, to remind yourself with these pinpricks of hurt that ogling his massive tits any further would have you acting sideways to the point of being institutionalized forever, and the way his jacket sat in the crooks of his arms, biceps unintentionally pushing into the sides of his weighty breasts like some sort of provocation had your brain short-circuiting. Stop looking, stop looking, stop fucking looking. But fuck they were there, sitting heavy in front of your face, with wet dog tags made snug between the two mounds, nipples poking through the shirt, so stiff and begging for attention, inviting, inviting you to— oh, and those plump and pretty things just flexed after König shifted in his seat a bit. The movement startled you but the nails in your palm sustained a stable foundation for you to keep the reaction from bleeding into the physical.
Scratching at the side of your mouth to pass off an itch (when really it was to ascertain if you had a bubble of drool or not), you said, “Alright, let’s get this off.”
You had to lean in some to shuck the wet jacket off of him. He really was warm. Your face was inches away from his chest now as you slid the thing off of him; you felt your eyelids drooping. König smelled so…
“I’m going to grab some ice for the swelling.” Tossing the soaked jacket onto the table, you tongued over the soreness in your cheek after having bitten it to keep from diving into your pervertedness any further. “I’ll bandage your wrist after some time.”
König nodded and you nearly missed it after basically having launched yourself out of your seat and to the refrigerator.
“What hurts the most?” The frigid vapors from the open freezer caressed your hot face— godsent.
“My ribs.” He sucked in a deep breath.
“And your leg?” You retrieved two ready-made ziploc bags with ice from the first slot of the door.
“More of an afterthought. It’s a shallow wound.” For some odd little reason that caused you to smile ever-so faintly.
“That’s a relief then.” You wrapped the makeshift ice packs in paper towels and tied them up with rubber bands from the drawer of trinkets-and-things, then proceeded to walk back to König. “My little cat doesn’t need to go to the vet.”
‘My little cat.’ It tickled you with soft mirth, this massive man being dubbed a “little” thing, but it also had you mentally kicking yourself for giving him a nickname that bordered flirtation. But how could you help it? He was quiet and skittish, wary of everything and anything: a little black cat with big paws and big blue-gray eyes.
Had you been paying attention, you would have noticed the way König twitched at that.
“Let’s have you rest your sprained wrist on your leg so the ice pack can sit on it, have it do its job.” König listened and followed directions, unlike a cat and more so a puppy, pushing the sleeve up his forearm to stop at his elbow, and you placed the ice pack atop the swollen joint. The other sat on the dining table. Don’t look at his hands or his forearm. “There you go.”
Restrain yourself.
“I would’ve had you remove your shirt but I wanted to get to the swelling as fast as possible—” And thankfully, for your sake the thing stayed on, “— but because of that, I will need your help lifting it up so I can examine your ribs. That alright?”
König answered with his default response.
“Good.” You sat down once more. “Open your legs.”
The order fell off your tongue so naturally; König’s posture straightened in a split second.
“What?”
“I need to reach over to look at the bruising and your legs are in the way.” You found a bucket of confidence in this deep well of your depraved attraction towards him and made a move to look up into his widening eyes. “Spread them open for me.”
You’re poisoning yourself, you think, because these words brought an onslaught of scenarios, all obscene and wicked and white-hot, pornagraphic reveries flickering like spinning reels of film behind the whites of your eyes. König had made a sound akin to a distant whimper and yes, you understand that it hurts for him to breathe, thus that noise of his was warranted, but the mere fact that he’s wounded and bleeding doesn’t take away from the simple fact that right now you wanna fuck him until he cries.
How fucked up is that?
You want him to make that sound again. You’re so desperate enough that you’d dig a finger into his side just to hear it again.
But you don’t.
König tears his doe-eyed gaze away from yours in an instant and stares at his boots.
Sick piece of shit, you upbraided yourself. God, I wanna fuck him.
How your expression remained impassive was all attributed to years and years of necessity and you thanked your lucky stars that the manufactured habit remained braided within the strands of your DNA. So deeply ingrained; so deeply fortunate.
And so he does; König’s hulking thighs flex and they sunder from one another gradually— almost hesitatingly— boots announcing the split by making noise dragging against the tile, and you record the memory and brand it into your head, every inch of it, every damn inch of it to play over and over and over again much, much later. Many “laters.” You memorize the way they strained against his wet cargos, the way the fat and muscle spilled over the strap of his tactical holster on the uninjured thigh.
You want to bite.
“That’s it, König,” you hummed. “Very good.”
If you hadn’t been so attuned to him, the near-inaudible whine would’ve slipped right by you.
He’s in so much pain but your pussy is starting to ache.
You ignore the dull pulsating in your core and drag yourself forward on the chair, situating yourself right in between his massive thighs, the sides of your bare knees brushing against the insides of them. The areas where he touches sears your own bare skin; the wet heat of rain and cargos and his skin are all distorting your thoughts.
“Lift it up for me.” König hooks his free hand under the hem of his shirt and begins to tug it upwards. “That’s it.”
Tremors tickled his fingers almost inconceivably. That had unfortunately called brief attention to the entirety of his hand, all alabaster and colossal and littered with veins trailing up and down, up and down, some splitting off from the bunch and creeping along his healthy wrist, licking their own little paths along his forearm.
A shudder clutched at your spine.
The higher he pulled at his shirt, the more of his alabaster skin conferred itself to your avaricious stare. Marble in texture however, you idly wondered how this objet d’art had been undiscovered, most undoubtedly the work of the lionized virtuoso that had passed in the 16th century; why was this Adonis in your kitchen? Why were you the one doing the careful unveiling, the sneak unveiling of this fascinating sculpture-come-to-life? You must have been a saint in a past life since the rewards were seeping into your next— this current life. The bands of muscle lining his abdomen flexed as he shifted in his seat again and you noticed with bated breath that his thick chest tapered into a small waist, a small waist that contained hills and valleys of thickset muscle you wanted to lave your piggish tongue over and over and over again; all over the sinews of muscle that rippled beneath his hot flesh and all over the long scars that were branded into it.
“Oh, kitty, you’re purple all over.” König’s response was a little noise that caused your throat to feel thick and your heart rate to spike. The ache you’ve been struggling to pass over grew more and more pathetic and further deprived; your blood roared in your ears. “You sure you don’t need to go to the vet?”
“I know what broken ribs feel like.” His voice sounded a bit off.
“And what of internal bleeding?”
“I’ve also had that before.” Your eyebrows briefly rose in response as you looked at him. König was looking at his ribs. “It just hurts to breathe. That’s all.”
“You can take deep breaths.” It was to be posed as a question but fell flat into a statement.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Alright.” You placed the second pack of ice against the purple canvas of his ribs. “I trust you know your body more than I do.”
Though I’m desperate to find out myself.
You swept the thought away with a mental wave of your hand and barely had time to register König’s hands hovering over yours, pressing into the free spaces of the pack where your palm and fingers did not reach. He took over the task of icing himself and your hand floated down to your knee. Had you waited a second longer, König could’ve touched your skin.
Idiot, idiot! Your face was warming again. Now is not the time.
“Your wound.” Now on your feet, you walked to the sink and turned the faucet on. “I’m gonna need to cut through some of the fabric to clean and disinfect it.”
Waiting for the water to warm over and with your back now turned to König, you stared through the window at the heavy rain in an attempt to placate your salacious thoughts. Wash, wash it all away.
“I won’t ask you to remove your pants.” You scrubbed your frigid hands with soap. “I would think you’d feel a bit too vulnerable and uncomfortable half-naked in front of a stranger.”
Hands under the now-hot water, you scrubbed some more.
“Besides, with all the gear attached to your legs it’d all be a hassle, no?”
There was no response from König. You took that as one.
After two Happy Birthdays, you twisted a knob on the faucet and dried your stinging hands with a paper towel. Once the water reached an agreeable temperature, you filled a plastic bowl half-way and then shut it off. Paper towel discarded and now a trash bag acquired, you began to make your way to König whilst murmuring,
“Alright, kitty kitty.” König squeezed the ice pack he was holding with a near-destructive force. “Time for your bath.”
Seated between him once more, you again made the most disciplined attempt to ignore the heat of his thighs pressed against your bare skin. Perhaps it was more of a detriment than a benefit to habitually wear silk robes year-round.
Scissors plucked from the kit and now in hand, you leaned over and took a moment to scrutinize the wound on König’s thigh. One clean line just above his knee, from one end to the other. Shallow enough to do without stitches, but the damage was ample enough to leave substantial blemish on his cargos. You bit the inside of your cheek once more as the tip of your middle finger dipped underneath the sliced fabric and settled it just above the injury; König twitched.
His skin was blistering hot— an actual furnace.
Another shudder clutched at your spine.
And so snip-snip-snip the scissors snipped away here and there, just enough to create an accessible gap for your treatment. Soon enough you had set the scissors down and soaked a gauze pad in the bowl of water.
“I’m sorry about your pants.” You hunched over as you pressed it over the lesion.
“It’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Comes with the job?”
“Precisely.”
A puff of air through your nostrils— another lazy laugh without sound.
“I would hate to ruin my clothes so often.” The soiled pad was discarded into the trash bag; then came a new one.
“You get used to it.”
“I don’t think I’d want to.”
With a stifled smile, you repeated your prior aid. After a moment of silence, you murmured:
“You can drink the water. I promise I won’t look at you.” König said nothing. “There are painkillers in the kit. Take them if you’d like.”
The seconds ticked and stretched on.
“I know you’re thirsty, König.” You threw away the second gauze pad and went for a third, dabbing at the skin around the cut. “You’ve been running for a long time.”
You slouched over his leg again.
“Please feel at ease under my roof. To the best of your ability, that is.”
And you left it at that. He made no move to reach for the glass, nor did he add to your one-sided conversation.
You don’t know when— you must have been greatly immersed in the cleaning of his wound— but when you had straightened your posture to toss the third pad away, his glass of water was empty; you bit down on the corner of your lip to keep a smile at bay.
Sweet little cat.
Nothing else was exchanged between the two of you during the remainder of your finishing touches. You were so close to the exposed skin of his torso your nerves began to itch; they clawed under your flesh, hissed at you, were rabid with a blazing heat to touch, touch, touch him— bite him, lick him, devour him whole until you can feel all of him inside.
Inside…
Goosebumps prickled along the canvas of your bare thighs. Annihilate that thought now, neutralize it at this exact moment, DO NOT PASS GO.
“I really like what you’ve done with the place!”
A breath you hadn’t realized you were holding exited the confines of your tight lips. You contoured it into a laugh.
“You don’t ‘love?’ Just ‘like?’”
Hutch chuckled as he went to recline against the sink.
“I don’t wanna give you the satisfaction.”
You hummed as you smoothed the large adhesive bandage over König’s thigh, careful not to touch his searing skin.
“You’ll never admit that I’m better than you in every way possible.” Resting your elbows on your knees, you craned your neck to look at Hutch, amused. “Though I understand. Must be terribly embarrassing to lose to the same person over and over again.”
Hutch flipped you the bird. Your shoulders faintly shook with a silent titter.
“So what’s the damage, doc?” He asked after lowering his arm. “Give it to me straight; say he’s gonna live.”
You plucked a roll of gauze and began to wrap it around König’s bruised and swollen wrist after removing the ice pack. “Can I say it even if I don’t mean it?”
The corners of your eyes crinkled, tinged with mirth. You met— with the utmost surprise— König’s keen gaze. Your heart thu-thumped.
Just apply the dressing around and around… around and around and around. Don’t touch his skin.
“This kitty’s gonna be just fine.”
He tore his fixed stare almost immediately. You felt yourself deflate a little.
In no less than a minute you had dressed the injured joint and secured the gaze with a bandage clip. As you began to close up shop, you added,
“He needs to rest, though.” You then stood up and tossed the small trash bag into the kitchen bin, then returned the medkit to its respective cabinet. You wordlessly shooed Hutch out of your way in order to wash your hands. “He shouldn’t do anything strenuous for two-to-three weeks at least.”
“That’s why we’ve got him in a foster home, yeah?”
You tossed him a look before returning to focus on your soapy hands.
“Yeah. A foster home.” You ran them under the steaming water. “Are you going to stay?”
“Not for long.”
“Good. I don’t wanna deal with the headaches you’d give me.”
“And you think König won’t give them to you?”
“Call it woman’s intuition,” you quipped. “Sweet as pie, I just know it.”
“You’re so ugly.”
“You more.”
Hutch cackled.
Patting your hands dry with a paper towel, you tossed it in the bin.
“I have a spare bedroom upstairs for him to stay in.” You looked at the big stray cat that was now looking at the tile. “Think you can make it upstairs, König?”
He lifted his head and glanced at some part of you, and nodded.
“Good. Help him up, Hutch, please.”
König had difficulty getting to his feet after setting the ice packs down, making great strides to keep silent, but one grunt had you nearly spiraling. However when König stood damn near full-attention, you just about groaned.
He’s so big. So fucking big.
He could absolutely decimate you by simply breathing your way.
The lecherous elation just about had you reeling and so you shot out of the kitchen first, but only enough to gain an early start in clearing your head.
I’ve known this man for less than two hours and he has the most ridiculous fucking effect on me. God, I need to have more sex.
Well, no. You need to have sex in general.
Whatever.
Carefully, you three climbed up the short flight of stairs; besides densely breathing through his nose, König remained quiet all the way through.
“Here.” Having reached the second floor, three long steps brought you in front of an unlocked door. You twisted the knob and pushed, then flicked on the lightswitch. “Let’s get you situated.”
Inside the guest room were two queen beds facing opposite each other, decorated with mirroring nightstands and lily flower Tiffany lamps stained pink. You made haste to pull one bedstand aside and removed the excess quilts, comforters, and pillows from one of the queens.
“Hutch, please help me attach this end of the bed to the other one.”
When the task was complete, Hutch ushered the injured stray towards the combined queens as you painted the headboard with umpteen sleeping pillows.
“I hope you don’t mind sleeping upright for a couple nights,” you said to König, your words hushed and penitential. He shook his head, deviating from his default response.
“Oh, he’s been through worse,” Hutch spoke, keeping a fixed hold of König’s arm around his neck.
“I bet.” A beat of silence. “Ah, König. Would you like a shower? The guest bath is connected just through that door there—”
He shook his head again.
“Just a second,” he managed through a mangled whisper as Hutch helped settle him into a seated position at the edge of the mattress.
“Of course.” You bit the corner of your lip before taking the initiative to kneel on the floor and remove his boots.
His gaze from above burned through your scalp. Could he peer into the mind of his unchaste and ardent disciple as she worshiped the godhead of her promiscuous desires?
You hoped he did and you hoped he didn’t.
“You don’t mind wearing something of my uncle’s, do you?”
König’s hushed “no” gave you the green light to stand to your feet; you touched the wintry back of your hand from one cheek to the other in hopes of cooling the budding warmth.
“Alright. His clothes are in the closet there— towels too, and his slippers. You’re also welcome to help yourself to them, Hutch.”
“I’m good for now. Thanks though.”
You nodded.
“My room is just next door if anything happens. Whatever you need, König, just ask.” The tip of your tongue fleetingly touched your teeth. “Will you need help bathing?”
The question had been asked with the subtext that Hutch would be the one of assistance, but the way König’s body pulled taut like a readied bow had you come to the realization that the subtext was skewed from his angle, and that had you burning from the tips of ears all the way down to the tips of your toes.
“I suppose not. Well—” You turned to Hutch and clasped your hands together, holding them to your bosom in a vice grip. “You are sleeping on the couch. Second bed is occupied, after all; my stray cat takes precedence.”
With a dim, brief smile for König, you uttered a mannerly “goodnight” and exited König’s temporary quarters. Hutch followed suit, closing the door behind him and then following you down the stairs.
“Hey, I really have to thank you for doing this. I know it’s a lot to ask—”
“A favor is a favor,” you replied thinly.
“Yeah, but this favor, it… feels almost unforgivable.” You both stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ve trespassed into a place I shouldn’t have—”
“I invited you in. You didn’t trespass.”
“Like I gave you a choice?” Hutch was frowning. “I really didn’t want it to come to this. It wasn’t even the first thing that came to mind, but everything that went down back there was because of—”
You stopped him with a shake of your head. “I don’t want to know, Hutch.”
A half-pause.
“Right. The less you know, the less you’re compromised.” You nodded. After a beat, he added, “I promise we weren’t followed. I made sure of it. I wouldn’t risk your position— especially not after what you did for my brothers. I’m in your debt for the rest of my life.”
The rain poured on for a moment before you continued, softer this time.
“What’s done is done, Hutch.” You looked to the top of the stairs. “There’s no need to dwell on things— even if I am now harboring a fugitive.”
“I have to repay my debt.”
“To the ‘me-three-years-ago,’ sure.” You crossed your arms over your chest. “But I had a soft spot for your little brothers, so even then I probably wouldn’t have collected it.”
The brawny man cracked a smile. “You gone soft?”
“Watch yourself, Darnell. Remember who you’re talking to.”
“Ah, Jesus, you sound like my mom.”
“I might as well be since I’m always cleaning up after your shit.” After flipping the lightswitch sitting next to your elbow, you made your way back into the kitchen and returned the dining chairs to their respective places. “Anyway, you want some coffee? I can brew you a small batch.”
“I’m good, hermana. I appreciate you though, thank you.”
“No worries. And look at you! Your Spanish pronunciation has gotten much better.” You switched off the kitchen light and moved towards the living room.
“Duolingo’s my best friend and mentor.”
“What about me? I thought I was your mentor.” The storage ottoman by the bay window was propped open as you fetched some blankets.
“Curse words and phrases don’t count.”
You blew a raspberry.
“Whatever. Here.” You tossed Hutch the blankets and closed the top of the ottoman. “Take your shit off before you soak through them and ruin my couch, too.”
“You want my ass-juice all over your stuff?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
Hutch’s laugh came from the belly.
“Wait, how do you say that in Spanish?”
“Figure it out,” you said flatly as you walked back towards the stairs.
“But I need to learn how to communicate!”
“I’m not your mentor anymore, remember? Oh, as a matter of fact, you can use my computer since that’s the kind of thing you like to do.”
“You’re so petty! Come on.”
“Fine. But tell me this first.” You tongued the inside of your cheek as you paused at the bottom step. “Is König… married?”
“What?”
“Girlfriend?” You looked to the ceiling. “Boyfriend?”
“Uhhh, not that I know of? The guy keeps to himself— he barely socializes with anyone unless he absolutely has to.”
Evidently.
“But if I had to deduce from my experience and time spent with him, then I’d say negative to all of the above. Why?”
“Liabilities,” you lied.
“Then no. Okay! I answered your question, now you answer mine.”
“Goodnight, Hutch.” You flipped the living room light off. “Help yourself to my fridge at any point.”
“What? Don’t be like that! You owe me!”
“That’s my line.”
“Come on, I can’t use Duolingo right now.”
“Then learn from the locals when you wake up. Bienvenido a México.”
And then you climbed up, up, up to fall back into that gray mist.