Chapter Text
You woke up to a sunny day. When you glanced at the clock, you realised you’d slept in later than usual.
You crawled out of bed and padded down the stairs, where you found König reading a book. By the looks of it, something based on animals of the region. It brought a slight smile to your face. Maybe he was an animal lover after all.
“Hey,” you said as you slipped through the kitchen.
“Guten-Good morning,” he said as he flipped a page.
You gave him an odd look.
“Are you okay?” you asked suspiciously.
König waved you off, “I’m fine. I just forget sometimes.”
You frowned, “Forget what?”
“Who I’m talking to,” he said blithely.
You took your breakfast and sat down beside him, taking a moment to glance through the sunroom at the garden.
“So why would you make a sound like you’re coughing if you think you’re speaking to someone else?” you asked.
König bristled, “I was speaking German, not coughing.”
“So you’re German?” you asked.
“Austrian,” he corrected stiffly, then softened, “I’m Austrian.”
“My bad,” you said before taking a bite of breakfast and settling back in your chair. You swallowed and asked, “Do you miss being in Austria?”
König gave you a look before his eyes widened.
“We’re in Austria, pet,” he told you slowly.
You stared at him in disbelief. Slowly, you sat up in your chair and leaned forward until your elbows were supporting your weight on the table. A cold sense of dread washed over your system, flooding you with a primal terror.
“You’re telling me…” you said, almost as though you were afraid to say it out loud, “that we’re not in…”
“You know Germany?”
You nodded slowly.
“Munich?”
You hummed then nodded again in a similar fashion.
“We’re south of Munich,” he said, “I won’t tell you how far, but south of Munich. We’re surrounded by forests for a couple of hours. It's a dense, old growth forest. Some of the most beautiful on earth.”
You looked out beyond the garden, beyond the hedges and into the pines surrounding the property.
They’d never seemed colder.
“How did you bring me here?” you asked quietly.
König said nothing, just flipped another page.
You sighed. The terror still hummed and screamed in your veins, but it was no use. All you could do was sit in your melancholic misery and finish the rest of your breakfast in a dreadful silence.
It seemed that you’d finished with questions for the day.
—
The knowledge of your general whereabouts didn’t affect you as badly as you expected after the initial horror had eventually left your system. You’d thought you might have a mental breakdown if you just considered the implications for long enough, but instead you just curled into your now shared bed and waited for the day to pass. There was nothing you could do anymore. You were trapped, completely and totally, and there was nothing you could do but stare at the ceiling with a longing sense that sat worse than the knowledge of your current whereabouts.
If you had died in that bed, you suspected nobody would have noticed. The time passed slowly but painfully as you let the pain flow through your veins, acid fizzling at your fingertips as you lay still. The knowledge came with a certain understanding, but what scared you most wasn’t the fact that you were so far from home. It was the fact that you weren’t upset. The knowledge had, in a strange way, even been expected. That was the most painful truth of all. You had expected it, and the confirmation was just another nail in the coffin on your state.
You lay still and let the pain burn away into a comfortable anhedonia, letting the day trickle past you without so much as a twitch of your fingers.
Unfortunately, König wasn’t quite so patient.
He stood in the frame of your bedroom, peering at you from under the doorframe like a restless shadow.
You knew he was there, but to acknowledge him was to let him in. You didn’t know if you could do that. You weren’t ready to try to accommodate his presence. He was too much. He was too much, too little, everything you wanted, everything you needed, and dammit you were starting to think of him too much again.
Why did all your thoughts have to revolve around him? It wasn’t fair. Your mind should be your own personal palace to reign in. As it was, he’d kicked you off the throne and put his feet up on your back. He seemed quite pleased by what he did with the place, too.
You heard him sigh and step closer.
You didn’t want him close. You weren’t ready.
The mattress dipped with his great weight as he carefully perched on the edge like a notre dame gargoyle, right by where your feet lay just behind him. He reached to rub your leg, then pulled back. He looked almost sad.
“My little pet,” he sighed again, “you’re thinking too hard.”
You grumbled and curled further into your new little nest. It was silly to choose this place to hide from him, seeing as it was his room, afterall, but you still took comfort in the soft bedding and plush pillows. It was the perfect place to lay down and cry, König’s bedroom be damned.
You felt König sigh and roll over to his side of the bed to join you under the covers. The moment his fingers grazed you, you whimpered.
He froze.
“Pet?” he asked, “are you okay?”
No, I’m not okay, and I haven’t been okay since I came here.
You bit your tongue and said, “I didn’t realise I was so far from home.”
“Oh pet,” he sighed and pulled you close to his chest, “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way. I’m so sorry.”
You didn’t mean for me to ever find out.
He curled around your back, pulling you to his front and rubbing your arm up and down. He felt so warm and cozy. It was hard to believe he was the source of all your problems.
“It’s my fault,” König whispered and you nearly coughed.
He wasn’t supposed to be self aware. He was supposed to be the crazy kidnapper, obsessed and deluded to the point that reasoning with him was impossible.
“I know that I’m not a good man,” he continued, “I get… I get possessive. Obsessive, even. I just thought I needed you and I wanted to save you from where you were living. I should’ve just met you in the streets, tried to start a relationship naturally, but I got in too deep.
“You drive me crazy, you know? I’m supposed to be cold and calculating. It’s how I made so much money. It's how I became successful. Fuck, pet, it's how I get away with everything I do.
“But when you’re involved, things change. Emotions are strange. Most of the time, I don't feel anything at all. That's the man I was supposed to become. Emotionless, calculated, cold. I was meant to be a weapon. That’s how I was born.
“But I feel, too. I try to pretend I don't, but then the emotions become too much and I can't handle them. Even then, I'm used to the usual emotions: rage, jealousy, betrayal, fear, all of those are in my wheelhouse. This?” he laughed, “I’m not used to this. I’m not used to people making me vulnerable. Since I've met you, I've realised that I don't know how to love people. But I want to learn. You've shown me that love is okay. Love is healthy. With you,” his eyes traced the ceiling with a newfound softness, “love doesn't have to hurt.
“I am not a good man, and I don't know how to love. But,” he turned on his side to face you, “I want to learn so I can love you like you deserve to be loved. When I’m around you…” he squeezed you to his chest, “I’m scared of losing you.”
It was so much harder to hate someone when they sincerely apologised. If you were someone else, maybe you might’ve hated him more, but your walls cracked down and you knew you were losing an uphill battle.
It was natural for you to love somebody like König. He was kind, thoughtful, caring. He was everything you needed. He fed you, bathed you, clothed you and all without asking for even a kiss in return. He was just… Giving. He gave and gave and gave but never asked. Why didn’t he ever ask?
Why couldn't he ever ask?
It occurred to you that it was entirely possible that he never asked anything of you because he felt so guilty. How could he ask for more when he took you against your will?
It soothed you to hear his words. There was a balm to it you never knew you needed. For the first time since you had been taken, possibly the first time in your life, you felt heard. It was an earth-shattering experience.
“You’re sorry…” you test carefully, “for kidnapping me?”
König nodded into the back of your neck, “I am. Of course I am. I’ve been so cruel to you. Do you even know how long you were in that basement? Do you know how much it hurt me to see you down there?”
He knew. He knew he was a monster, and yet…
“Then why don’t you let me go?” you asked.
König sighed, then with a dreadfully painful certainty, he reminded you, “If I did, you’d never come back.”
“But what if I did?” you turned so you could face him too, “I might.”
König pet your cheek, “It’s too late now anyways. I’ve taken you. I can’t let go of you now.”
“Why?” you asked, despondent.
“Because I’d lose the most important thing in my life,” he leaned in so his forehead touched yours.
You were at a loss for words. By all means, he was a monster. He was just a sick puppy, devoted to chewing on you and tearing you apart. It was such a shame that you were his favourite toy.
“Please don’t leave me,” he muttered as he pulled you close, “I don’t want to lose you.”
You ever so carefully wrapped your arm around his chest. Both of you stalled, minds whirling in tandem across juxtaposed pathways until you finally tightened your hold on him and pulled him close. You worried that once you’d let him in, he’d consume you from the inside out. You were only just realising that he’d burrowed into your stomach long ago, and there was no use lying about the fox kit in your innards any longer.
He was fragile in your arms, as you were in his. You were two broken and damaged people, victims of something far greater than both of you. Together you formed a broken heart, twisted and folded in on itself in its own deluded search for the meaning of love. You knew König was clueless, but so were you. You couldn’t lie to yourself any longer. You were just as misguided as he was.
How were you, a person abandoned by the world since birth, supposed to teach the meaning of love to a starving animal? You’d extended your hand and he’d taken each of your fingers in his teeth, licked and sucked like a giddy puppy before sinking his teeth into your wrist.
You couldn’t blame him. You were just as hungry. You wanted this like you wanted to breathe. Not like you wanted to live to see a sunset, not like you wanted to travel or retire or anything you told yourself you wanted when you were a child. You wanted him like you wanted blood to pump through your veins as you lay rotting in the dirt. You wanted to love like you wanted a single breath of air as you dangle from the gallows. You wanted live like you wanted to eat, sleep, fuck and shit like the primal animal you were.
You wanted to love someone, anyone, even him, but you couldn’t. Logically, you couldn’t. He was your kidnapper, your captor, your monster. He was something built of hate and broken promises and he only loved you as long as he promised to keep you safe, just as long as you didn’t leave him.
What would happen to you if you tried? You’d never really tried before. You’d never seen a good opening. That was what you told yourself, at least. As soon as the opportunity came, you’d take it. You promised. It didn’t matter how deep into the fox’s den you found yourself, you had to try and escape. You had to try just once.
Just once.
Just.
Once.
It didn’t matter if you were married and had his children, you’d try to escape the first chance you got. You wrote the vow and inscribed it in your veins as you rested your head against his beating heart.
Was his heart always this fast? Or was this just the normal rhythm? Maybe he was panicking just as much as you were. He could control his features as much as he liked, his heart was the only key to unlocking his true intentions. Right now, it felt like he wanted to run away. He had the slightest tremor as he slowly wrapped his arms around you.
He was terrified. That’s what he was. He was absolutely terrified as he wrapped his arms around you. It was this dismal crushing realization that made you want to cry.
“Don’t cry,” he brushed his cheek over yours.
Oh. Maybe you were already crying. Maybe you’d been crying for a while. You didn’t know for sure. It was too hard to tell anymore.
There you were, both of you holding on tight as though the tides of fate would pull you apart. It hurt to know that it was these same tides that had brought you into his darkened basement, and made your emotions his own personal plaything for whenever he grew bored.
Suffering was a peculiar thing when shared with another. Suddenly, it became that much easier to cope with. Conversely, it tightened a noose around your throats, hung you high to struggle against the forces of gravity. What a beautiful thing it was to choke for air while watching someone you loved suffer the same fate beside you. You had to wonder if this was Christ's final thought as he looked at Dismas beside him. That was a blasphemous thought, but it only made sense coming from something as unholy as the two of you.
Holding König and pressing your face into his chest was suffocating, the heat was sweltering on your skin. It felt like at any moment, his jaws would clamp down and he would eat you alive.
The pain twisted into a beautiful thing, metamorphosing before your eyes into a sweet and tender serpent, crushing you tight before devouring you whole. It didn’t matter what the feelings were, it only mattered that they consumed you entirely. What a beautiful pain to suffer, you thought. How beautiful it is to suffer.
To suffer is to live, and König had been so kind to teach you. What took buddhist monks decades to burn into their minds had only taken what felt like an exhale for you. It was the serenity of decay, a peaceful rot that ruined you for anyone and everyone but König. You were broken now, you knew it, but you knew you were broken long before you ever met König. He was just the catalyst for your undoing.
He held your sobbing form and shushed you softly, soothingly. He was so kind. How dare he be so good when he’d done so much damage to you and your psyche.
Even if you did escape König, there was no doubt in your mind that you’d never recover. You were sure of it. After being loved like this, how could you ever go back to the banality of your normal life? How could you return to the suffocation of loneliness?
There wasn’t a world for you beyond the five walls that guarded you. Nobody had been there. Your brother didn’t call, your sister didn’t call, hell, your parents didn’t call. Nobody was out there. In your mind, they weren’t even looking for you either. Why would they? What would they get for finding you? Nothing. Only nothing. You were nothing and outside was nothing and that was something you were sure of.
There was no place left for you but here.
“We’ll be okay,” König said, whether to you or himself you were unsure, “everything will be okay. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll never hurt you.”
Empty promises, you were sure.
Still, they were beautiful.
You still curled into his chest with a shuddering sob. There was something so sweet about giving in and letting go. There was no logical reason to fight, except for the sake of pride. What use was there in pride when you’d already been subjugated, anyways? That was your way of excusing your behaviour.
You were a Stockholm victim.
He was a Lima victim.
You were made for each other, in your own twisted ways.
He smelled fresh and familiar. Pine and smoke, with a hint of something only describable as König. It was as though the forest he lived in had become a part of him. You wondered how much time he spent out there to smell like that. You wondered why he’d be in the forest for so long. You lay there, then decided it was best you didn’t know. If you didn’t know, you couldn’t hate him for it. As long as you were ignorant, your fantasy could be your reality.
You lay your head on his chest and sighed, “We can’t lay in bed like this forever.”
König laughed bitterly, “No, we can’t. But what else would we do?”
You hummed.
“We could watch a movie?” you offered with a whisper of promised ignorance.
“Like a movie date?” he asked.
You laughed like you were happy, “I think you skipped that step, but sure.”
“Then it’s a date,” König affirmed and untangled himself from your limbs.
You fought down the feelings of loss as he departed.
—
It was silly to enjoy cuddling up on a sofa with König. It was especially silly to get so excited over popcorn and candy, something that you hadn’t noticed the absence of until that point. You pulled the blanket of your lap, and by extension, König’s.
The movie he put on wasn’t anything special. To be frank, he could’ve put on any movie, but you simply wouldn’t have been interested. All you were focussed on was the feeling of König’s chest beneath your cheek and his arm around your shoulders.
For a moment, just a moment, everything felt alright.