The Feelings You Elicit - Tumblr Posts

To Tame

König x 'Maus' F!Reader

(Part 7 of Little Mouse)

Word Count: 4.8k Rating: Teen and up Tags: Enemies to lovers, Slow burn, Dark König, Hints of yandere König, Stand-offs, Hostage Scenarios, Protective Gaz, Plot if you squint Warnings: Mentions of corpses/blood

It's in Mozambique when it happens.

The wide streets of Maputo are busy in the sizzling afternoon heat, filled with honking cars and idling motorists. Above the smell of exhaust, of spices from the restaurant you and Gaz sit in, you can just barely catch the taste of sea breeze that wafts through the open window beside you. Beyond the low skyline, filled with apartment balconies and waving laundry, the trade ships cast hazy mirages upon the horizon as they sail out to sea. Voices chatter around you, conversation floating inside to your ears just as the breeze tickles your cheeks. Portuguese, Xhosa, Swahili, dialects you could only dare to guess blanket the thick, balmy air around you like a second skin.

Across from you, Gaz feigns reading his paper, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, baseball cap on. His tea is practically untouched, the steam long since evaporated. You watch him out of the corner of your view, chin balanced on a fist as you observe the smattering of passerby near your table. They don’t cast a second glance in the direction of you two, unknowing that two special forces agents sit in their midst.

There's a silence, long and thick, between you both. Neither of you had objected to Price handing you both this mission- tracking down O’Conor’s mysterious disappearance and manufactured death. The intel you were after was too important to be obstructed by any heavy footed awkwardness or any broken, lingering gazes that Gaz seemed intent on ignoring from you.

You'd tried more than once to talk to him, to try and attempt to explain your previous reaction. Yet your words had always managed to fail you, throat dry of explanations when he had stared back at you, hiding hurt behind his eyes. In the end he'd only smile, pat your shoulder in the way he would a friend, his voice soft and yet not fully hiding the concern, the distress in his words.

"You're fine, Rookie. It wasn't your fault."

It wasn't yours either. You wanted to tell him, but the words conveyed too much meaning that wasn't there, the insinuation of something horrible, of something sinister that he had been unable to prevent.

Even if you told him now, if you confessed that your distracted, scattered thoughts weren't the result of what he assumed, you weren't sure if he would believe you. Even then, if you at last confessed to him the truth, the nefarious, traitorous depths of you, you were certain his concern would only morph into something vile, something of disgust.

How were you supposed to tell him you dreamt of the enemy, not of nightmares, but of daydreams?

You sigh with a little mumble, rubbing your hands onto your face damp with perspiration, as if somehow it can cleanse your thoughts.

"You alrigh'?" Gaz asks, his eyes briefly glancing at you over the rim of his sunglasses.

"Jet-lagged." You mumble into your palms, and it isn't exactly a lie. You're not sure if you've slept in the past twenty four hours with the time zone change.

"Another coffee might help." He remarks idly, and you shake your head, blinking and trying to focus.

"if I'm any more caffeinated I'll start shivering." You reply, and then, lower: "Can't have a sniper with a shaky trigger finger."

Gaz makes a small expression of acknowledgement. It's the most you've been able to wrangle from him all trip, and that alone makes a smile uptick at the corner of your mouth.

When he checks his watch, however, he frowns.

"Our contact should have been here ten minutes ago." He declares, voice more serious now.

You let your eyes slide to him, tracing the furrow of his brow without turning your face away from the open window.

"Think he got cold feet?" You ask, tone pitching low to match his. You can feel the energy shift between you, strained tensions negated in favor of the task at hand. The chatter from the street dims as Gaz's eyes shift to lock onto you fully, obscured by the dark tint of his aviators.

"After what happened to that agent in Minsk?" He asks, voice quiet so as to not be overheard. "Wouldn't be surprised."

"Hmm." You chew your lip in consideration, gaze turning to the busy intersection where a small gaggle of students skip across the dusty paved road.

You saw the report of what happened to Laswell's informant in Minsk. Spy deaths were unusual, but not unheard of. Yet usually they were silent, subtle, the dim blink of a light on a map gone dead before a body showed up days, even weeks later. Poisoned, staged to have passed of natural causes, an accident.

Yet Laswell's agent was none of those things. Dead with a shot through her left temple, a hole in her hotel window. Obvious. Blatant. Sinister.

Like someone was trying to send a message.

You shudder, skin cold and clammy despite the heavy, sticky afternoon heat. You've never met O’Conor, but based on the trail he's left so far, you're not sure you’d ever want to.

You turn your gaze back to Gaz then, finding his eyes already raised to meet yours, as if reading your mind.

"Should we take a walk?" He suggests, indication clear. Let’s go check on our friend.

You offer him a tight nod, signaling the waiter for your check with a little wave.

It takes only a few minutes before you and Gaz are out on the street, casually making your way down the sidewalk side by side. With your arm tucked around his, it appeared for all the world as if you two were friends, perhaps even lovers, chatting and enjoying the afternoon sunlight. It would take a close, keen eye to notice the weapons hidden on you both, rightly concealed from prying eyes.

The air seems to shimmer with heat around you both as you make your way towards a quiet corner of the neighborhood where your contact supposedly resides in a safehouse arranged by Laswell herself. Hidden in the shade of a towering baobab tree, the safehouse is shielded by an iron gate on the inside of an alleyway. Obscure, well hidden, defendable.

Yet when you near the alley you pause, stop in your tracks.

Gaz is halted by your momentum, his arm briefly tugging on yours before his gaze traces your hand, then your face- stricken, nervous.

"What?" He asks abruptly, brow furrowing in telltale concern.

You shake your head, feeling a gravity, an inertia rise in the balls of your feet. It's a familiar one, the urge to turn, to flee.

"Something's wrong." You manage, throat constricted with apprehension.

You can't tell what it is that's set you off. Maybe it's something about the way the gate isn't fully locked, the strange tilt of the shadows in the afternoon light. The air here seems quieter, heavy in a way that ripples with unsaid meaning.

Danger.

Gaz recognizes the expression written across your face- your senses discerning a shift in the wind before he even feels the breeze. He withdraws from you, checking his surroundings before he's reaching for his weapon concealed in his belt, plastering himself to the wall of the alley and nodding for you to do the same.

You follow suit, withdrawing your own weapon and letting Kyle take point. The cracked concrete alley is silent, and when the two of you pace forward your shoes barely make a sound against the ground. Eyes bright, keen, you narrow your focus to Gaz's back, the way shadows ripple across it as he sidles up to the iron gate, the courtyard of the safehouse just inside.

It's still. The windows are shut, the blinds drawn, the door seemingly locked and bolted. By all appearances it seems as if no one is home, that the place may be completely uninhabited at all . Yet it seems as if there's more movement than there should be, a presence lingering like the hazy after shadow of a phantom.

One you recognize.

You freeze.

The realization crashes into you all at once, and your eyes widen when the familiar sensation of being watched washes over you with dreaded, icy revelation.

It's him.

"Gaz-" You manage, but as you move to speak he throws the gate open, the metal shrieking with the gesture. He pushes forward, handgun raised and form low to avoid the sight of the windows. You follow him even as your heart thumps wildly in your chest, a frantic rabbit caught in a snare.

You settle on the other side of the door as Gaz, and you catch his eyes over his sunglasses. He pauses when he meets your gaze, seeing the bright glint of fear there, the way your eyes shine like something that's being hunted. Of prey.

His jaw flexes, and when he nods at you it's all you can do to nod back, blood rushing in your ears, feeling like a shadow stands behind you, snaking arms outstretched around your middle, bleach stained tears dripping down onto your shoulders.

He counts down with his fingers.

Three, two, one-

When he kicks the door open, it isn't a hail of bullets that reaches him. No, the safehouse is eerily quiet, dark and silent like a grave.

You spot the body first.

It's the hand on the floor, just past the threshold into the other room. As Gaz sweeps the living area you draw near to the corpse, weapon in hand and form coiled tight like a bow, ready to snap.

He's full of holes.

There's blood across the floor, the threadbare rug, seeping through the informant's clothes. Red, dark, it seems to ooze across your thoughts, painting a viscous premonition of violence towards the space around you.

In your mind you see it- the glint of a knife much too large for a smaller grasp, the blood-soaked tip glinting in the sun.

You know who it is before you even stop to consider.

König.

"Gaz." You manage, and the footsteps in the other room stop, retrace to where you stand. He calls out a quiet "Clear!" As he does, moving back in your direction.

"Bloody hell." Kyle breathes beside you, a low, simmering anger all too clear in his voice. "What a fuckin' mess. Looks like he lost a fight against a wild animal."

A wolverine. You think without saying, throat dry.

"We need to check if he left anything here about O’Conor." Gaz tells you, and like you his eyes don't move from the prone, torn body of your informant. "I'll check. You should tell Laswell her safehouse is compromised."

You only nod at him, unable to tear your eyes away from the scarlet puddle that coats the floor. You don't notice the way your hands shake, the way your breath tightens in your chest, too caught in the vision of the man who did this, his form obscured within the shadows of the safehouse, one huge, broad hand plastered over the man's face as his eyes darken and glint, his knife-

"Rookie." Gaz's hand lands on your own and you flinch at the sudden touch, jolting and eyes shooting up to meet his. They're hidden behind his sunglasses but you know the look that's there. Focused, bright with intent.

"Eyes on me." Kyle tells you, voice even, level, always the anchor you need to guide yourself, tether your thoughts back to the task at hand.

"Call Laswell." You echo back to him before he prompts you, and Gaz's lips tick up in a mild, approving smile that's overshadowed by the tight set of his jaw.

"Good. Stay within earshot." He tells you, and you nod, move to holster your weapon.

Gaz paces away from you once more, moving into the bedroom to search for answers. As his footsteps fade you feel your heartbeat fill the absence, a distant war drum tolling of a prophecy, a warning.

He was here.

It's clear to you that it was König that did this. You know him well enough by now to recognize the pattern of viscera he's left to you- a parting gift. Yet the fact you recognize his handiwork alone is enough to make you shudder, suddenly too cold in the sweltering afternoon heat.

You try to tell yourself it's fear- that it's fear of him. The blood under your skin pulses red and icy at the thought. Yet there's another terror, one that spiderwebs out from the hidden, traitorous core of you, silver threads trailing after your form and catching sunlight.

The fear that you want it to be him.

You shake the thought away stubbornly, gently backing away from the body before you so the still oozing blood doesn't touch your shoes. You need to get your head on straight, need to call Laswell, push aside this treasonous line of thought so you can-

Wait.

You freeze, muscles suddenly awash in a raw, rimy terror that freezes the air in your chest. Eyes wide, you turn back to the pooling scarlet that spills across the tiled floor. Wet, crimson,  syrupy.

Fresh.

CRASH!!

Gaz's voice rips through the balmy air from the other room, shreds at your sweaty skin and without a second thought you're racing, shoving aside furniture and scrambling towards the sudden onslaught of struggle beyond where you stand. Yet one truth stands out amidst the haze of shock and panic-

You've never heard him scream like that.

When you skid to the entrance of the hallway that leads to the bedroom and raise your weapon, you feel your limbs lock, hands shaking as you take in the sight before you.

In the dimness of the hallway, a shadow looms from the darkness. The height of him threatens the ceiling, towering large and full. The massive form of him seems to suck the air around him dry of light, seems to occupy every inch within the interior of the hallway, of your rapidly beating heart, of your mind. The scant sunlight that streams through the bedroom window glints off the metal of his bracers. You trace them upwards along his arms, seeing the strength coiled under his shirt, the pale of his skin visible and bulging as one hand grips his knife-

-And the other hoists Gaz off the floor.

"GAZ!!" You scream frantically, voice pitching high and desperate, tearing from your throat like the jagged slice of a combat knife.

His toes barely scrape the floor, hands reached up around König’s massive hand that's seized him by his throat. When you scream his eyes turn to you, sunglasses discarded, cracked and broken on the floor.

"R-Rookie-!" He manages, throat constricted as König’s hand squeezes. "Rookie....RUN!!"

Yet before he can utter another sound König’s arm twists and Gaz is sent flying, into the inside of the bedroom where you can't see him. There's a crash and a clatter where he lands, followed by a groan and a rustle that fades to silence. You scream for him, voice cracking in distress, but he doesn't answer.

König turns to you.

You see his eyes then, under the hood. They're just barely visible in the low light, obscured by the black paint around his gaze. Yet when they fasten on you they glint with recognition, an almost obsessive fascination he only has with you.

"Hello, Maus."

When he takes a single step in your direction, you falter, resolve crumbling and immediately taking a mirroring step away.

"Don't touch her!" Gaz yells, and you hear him shift, try to right himself. It's enough to startle you from your state of shock, and you automatically raise your weapon towards the giant. Towards your enemy.

König is faster.

In the blink of an eye, he's withdrawn his own handgun, points it just inside the bedroom, his eyes briefly straying from you to aim at the man inside. At Gaz.

"Put your weapon down, Maus." König tells you, and his voice is an even rumble, low in warning as his eyes flick to yours. Bright, vulturine. Hungry. When you don't comply his eyes narrow, head tilting as he regards you fully.

"Now, Maus. Please don't make me repeat myself."

Your hands shake. You...you can't. How can you? König is pointing a gun at Kyle, at your friend, and with every passing heartbeat comes the chance that he could fire it, could end Kyle where he lays sprawled, injured at the mercy of an enemy. Your enemy.

He said he wouldn't hurt you, but...but Kyle.

"Don't!" Gaz yells at you, voice cracking like a whip in the space between you and König. "Shoot him! Rookie!"

König clicks off the safety.

"Stop." You manage tightly, instantly raising your hands in surrender, handgun lofted in your grip. "Don't...please."

You follow the plea by bending, moving slowly so he can see you and then gently, carefully depositing your weapon on the ground.

"Kick it over to me." König demands, but his voice is softer now, less aggressive. It feels almost like a request, an entreaty, something deceptive and poisonous that calls out to the secrets of you.

You do just that, toeing the weapon so it skids across the grimy tile to him. He catches it with his foot, glancing down for all of a moment before his gaze slowly lifts back to yours. You think you see him smile under the hood, his eyes crinkling in appreciation.

"Good girl, Maus."

"Rookie, RUN!! Get out of here!" Gaz yells again, and even if you can't see him you can tell from the sound of his voice alone that he's hurt, injured. Yet his voice reaches a new, thunderous depth when he addresses König. "If you hurt her again I-! "

BANG-!!

You don't even have the air to scream when König lifts his gun and fires into the wall above Gaz's head. The smoke from the barrel curls insidiously upwards, barely discernable in the dim light. The smell of gunpowder, of blood, of your own acrid fear seems to flood your nose and stale the oxygen in your chest.

"Quiet." Is all König offers to Gaz, voice detached, apathetic. Cold.

It's something you're unused to from him. His words to you are usually sly, curious, almost gleeful. They wind a synchronous tune inside you, harmonizing with the treacherous, forbidden conflict that you hide in the hollow of your ribcage.

"König."

You say the name before you can stop yourself, and König’s head whips to you, the fabric of his hood shifting so he locks you within the scope of his gaze. As if the very utterance of his title is the chant to break a spell his form softens, the arm holding his knife slackening at his side.

Yet he doesn't speak, instead regarding you, watching you like a wolf in the woods. Curious, deadly, and yet somehow mystically perceptive of the truth behind your eyes. Yet he doesn't expose it, doesn’t force it into the light where Gaz may be able to see it. Instead he waits for you, gaze alert, inquisitive as to your next move.

You don't know what to do. Here, hovering between the urge to fight, to flee, you hesitate. The metal of König’s weapon gleams in the dim light, pointed just inside the room where Gaz is frozen, held hostage by the man who had already once defeated him. You could follow his advice, could run away and call Price, Laswell, could abandon Gaz perhaps to the same fate you had endured all those weeks ago, when he had marched away into the night, your unconscious body splayed across his massive shoulder.

He could kill him.

"If I run..." You ask, hands still on either side of your head, never breaking eye contact with the soldier before you. "...Will you chase me?"

König tilts his head at you, the motion slow, deliberate. You can see him mulling over your query, trying to understand the intent behind it. Gaz is restrained quiet, and you wonder if perhaps he can discern the true meaning of your words.

If I run, will you leave him?

"If you run…I'll catch you, Maus." He warns, and you shudder at the undertone of his voice. Excited, sinister. A prophecy.

"But first, I'll need to finish my mission." König finishes, and you stiffen, understanding the hidden meaning behind his words as well. "I've already spared your sergeant once."

I'll have to kill your friend.

It's a warning, one obscured by the dreaded intonation of his statement. The truth of it isn't lost on you. He's giving you a caution- that he will kill Gaz according to his orders should you give him the chance.

He's giving you a chance to save him.

"Don't." You try, the word cracked in your dry throat. The shudder in your limbs has stopped, and in its place is a flush of warmth, realizing the inherent risk you run with a conversation like this, exposed to Gaz. Your mind churns, trying desperately to summon a way for Gaz to escape this, for you to get your weapon back, for you to end this farce once for all.

You take a step forward. The sound of your shoes on the floor sounds like a gunshot in itself, ringing out in the terrifying, hovering silence between the three of you. König doesn't move, doesn't flinch where he stands, his eyes ever fixated on your form.

"I-" You try, but your voice stalls in your throat as you desperately try and summon words. "I'm asking you to not hurt him."

König’s face doesn't move as you inch forward. His entire body is still except for the distant rise and fall of his chest under his tac gear. You feel the weight of your knife in your pocket as you creep closer. Heavy, ominous. König balances on the balls of his feet, weight light, ready for movement. It feels as if you're approaching a beast, hand outstretched in a gentle, pleading attempt to tame it, to deceive it into the bite of your blade.

"Please." Another step, closer this time. "I'll do what you ask, so please don't hurt him."

The air shifts then. There's a new light to König’s eyes now, one that intensifies that curiosity into something all too eager, almost frenetic.

"Anything, Maus?" He asks, unable to contain the abrupt excitement in his voice.

You swallow, throat tacky, warm.

"Anything." You return, and König’s eyes flash at that. You can almost imagine his grin under his hood, tugging at the corner of his lips. Yet you notice the way his gun arm is drooping, distracted by your advance.

"Then-" and now it's his turn to take a step closer to you. You try to not press backwards as he looms over you, gazing down at your smaller form. The presence of him is stifling, omnipresent, dragging you into his own pull of gravity. Quietly, the hand with his knife sheathes the blade before he speaks once more.

"If I ask, you'll come with me?"

You still.

König reaches for you.

You both notice too late the sudden shnk! of a blade being drawn, and you catch a single glimpse of König’s eyes going wide, the whites of his eyes showing and he turns-

You yell, reach forward and push König’s arm upwards so his weapon aims at the ceiling just as Gaz rushes forward. Ducking under König’s reach he slashes at the underside of his arm with his own knife, his aim seeking the deep artery that runs there. For a moment you think he's found it, because there's a sudden gush of red that stems from the wound like a spume of a flare.

König roars.

The sound seems to shake the foundations of the safehouse, and instantly he's withdrawing his arm, placing a hand to stem the tide of crimson that seeps from it. Yet there's a different touch on you, as Gaz grabs at you, moving, dragging you with him.

You follow his momentum, not daring to look back as he pulls you roughly down the hallway. Yet then he shoves you ahead of him, and when you turn his eyes are bright, grave but ruinous.

"Go!" He barks at you, but he doesn't move to follow, and you pause.

He's going to try and kill him. You realize, and then-

He's going to die trying.

You hear König curse where he stands, and then there's the sudden thunderous thump of his feet as he paces down towards you and Gaz.

"No!!" You scream, and now it's your turn to pull Gaz behind you, pushing until you obscure him with your body, arms spread to shield him from the soldier that emerges from the shadows.

König pauses.

When he catches sight of you, eyes wide and pleading, stubbornly ignoring Gaz's attempt to dislodge you from where you stand. You lock eyes with him, and try to convey every ounce of your being into your gaze, begging him to surrender, to retreat, to not hurt the person who blames himself for the dark shadows König casts across your form.

He's still. The only motion from his body is the slow, steady drip of blood, trailing in rivulets down his arm until it dribbles down, staining scarlet against the tile. Weapon in hand only half raised he stares at you, eyes wide, shocked at your boldness to try and stop him. It's as if he's witnessing something in you he's never seen before, a rapid unfurling of the secrets lain in wait for him, only him.

Please. You try to ask, and he doesn't seem to hear, intent instead on the very image of you protecting your teammate. Please don’t hurt my friend.

He doesn't move.

Then, sirens.

You feel Gaz freeze behind you, realizing at once what the sound means. Yet König’s eyes don't waver from your form, as if he hasn't heard the sound at all. For a moment you think he'll advance anyways, let that darkness settle over his vision once more and press forward until the spell of his touch settles across your skin once more.

You watch König as he blinks once, twice, and then his expression changes. He lifts his head towards the door like a predator scenting the wind, and briefly his gaze flicks back to you.

Soon. It seems to say.

Then he's moving, almost too quick to catch, darting into the dining room and then the kitchen. The sound and motion of him feels like a hurricane, but when he at last vanishes into the courtyard then beyond, there's silence.

He's gone.

It takes a moment for you to fully process it, waiting for an inevitable pop of gunfire, of the clatter of a grenade, something as a farewell. Yet it's strangely silent, devoid of any indication König had ever been there at all side from the devastation, the smear of blood drawn by Gaz's blade.

You sag backwards then, into Gaz, who catches you with an arm around your shoulder.

"Hey, hey!" He gasps, managing to catch your eyes as you shudder once, long and hard, into the warmth of his touch.

"I'm okay." You reassure him, even if you don't quite believe it yourself. "I'm okay, I promise, I-"

You blink then, when Gaz twists you in his hold, hauls you into his arms and secures you within his embrace, burying his head into your shoulder with a long, hard shudder.

"Gaz...?"

Gaz takes a moment to compose himself, and you feel your heart flutter at this, at this open indulgence of comfort from him.

"I-" He tries once, but his throat is tight. "I...thought he was going to take you again."

You let his words wash over you, absorb the hidden guilt, the fear evident in his tone. Gaz's bloodied hand clings to your shirt for a moment and you shiver under his touch, trying to erase the horrific, stabbing shame that bubbles up your throat with the dark, inky ichor of your secret.

No. You think. He said...he said he wouldn't.

Yet inside you flashes the memory of König’s eyes, shining bright like a falling star, glinting in the darkness with a fixation, an unmatched mysticism that still doesn't reveal the true depths of his intentions.

"I'm sorry." Gaz tells you, trying to pull away at last. You don't let him, holding onto his shoulders and refusing to let him see the darkness in your eyes. The unwilling truths hidden there.

"No." You tell him, and even as you try to avoid it your voice is somehow distant, thinking only of the presence of him, how he occupies the space around you, inside you, even now. "It wasn't your fault, Gaz. I promise."

"I'll never let him hurt you again." Kyle promises, voice hard, vengeful as the sirens around you swell. You only close your eyes against him, the truth ensnaring you like silver adamantium spider threads.

He never hurt me.

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Many of these feelings can be caused by psychological stress and burnout for prolonged periods. There is also a possibility of dissociation and derealization. I myself go through this too, so if anyone ever feels alone in this, you're not. You have people who can empathize and there is hope and help. If this goes on for prolonged times, please go to a psychologist or therapist to start getting help. Feeling like you're losing precious time keeps you in a state of anxiety/stress and everyone deserves to feel truly happy. I hope you all have a great day and find time to rest and touch some plants or pet a friendly animal.