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"Fuck! Fuck, this overheating piece of -"
König has no space to look behind him to check, but the suppression fire from Horangi has quieted down enough to hear him curse about the overheating machinegun that keeps threatening to break apart.
"Then fucking change out the barrel!" König yells back, stepping up to cover for the lack of bullets. Eyes on the mess of movement ahead.
"'You think?! it's too hot! Id melt my gloves to my fucking hand!" Horangi spits back.
"Bottom pocket!" König yells, turning his back fully to Horangi and shrugging his shoulder to catch his attention to where he's stashed his own heatproof gloves.
Horangi grabs onto his jacket to keep him steady and rips open the pocket making up the bottom of König's rig. Rushing to get the heavy duty gloves out, twitching when bullets hit the surrounding cover.
"Prepared for everything, eh?" He says, patting König's lower back to close the velcro fasteners again.
Hurrying to pull on the gloves and get the QCB out of the stashed bag beside them in the small gun turret.
König doesn't answer him, his gun trained ahead.
Pulling one protective glove on top of his own thin gloves, Horangi curses under his breath - cause wtf is this size?
His fingers barely reach in halfway to the glove's fingertips, and he has to pull the cord around the wrist tight enough to pinch his skin to get it secured around his hand.
"Ssi-bal, how big are these?"
They have to be big on König too. Surely. He didn't even know they made gear this big.
With slightly clumsier hands, Horangi does manage to get the barrel changed - and before long they've got the convoy ahead brought down to a managable size for the other team to flank them.
They pull back, Horangi hauling their gear as König continues keeping them protected.
The gloves would take too long to take off, so they're still on - making Horangi's hands slightly useless to fire a gun needing any kind of fine motor skills.
All they can do is find a safe route back to the rest of alpha team.
*
The second they make it inside the personnel carrier - set to take them back to base - Horangi slumps down against the inside wall.
Blistering heat, and the tension of being the target of a hail of bullets, bleed out of him as his body finally gets to relax.
Adrenaline ebbing out.
Allowed to take stock of himself and his gear.
Horangi has just managed to pull the borrowed gloves off when König drops down next to him.
Air going out of him in a deep sigh that Horangi feels in his bones.
"Here", he tells König, handing the gloves back to him.
He takes them without much acknowledgment, shoving them down into the tote he had dropped on the floor between his feet.
Outside of the rattling of the machinery and the loud snores of Declan across the other side of the carrier - the calm that's settling over them ring in their ears almost as loud as bullets.
But Horangi can't quite stand the silence. He leans in more to König's side and speaks over the rattling of the tons of metal surrounding them.
"Almost fucked up getting the QCB on with those. Could've been it; Taken out by a pair of gloves."
König looks down at him from where he had leaned back and now sits rested against the wall. He's a good head and a half taller, even as they're both seated on their level seats.
"Why?" He asks, confused as to how that could be.
"Why?" Horangi laughs, holding up his hands to demonstrate his point, "'cause I had to fold down half the fingers so they'd stop getting stuck in the threads."
König's brow furrows and his gaze slips down to look at his own hands, resting on his thighs, and then gives Horangi's hands a quick glance. Looking like he's registering the differences in them for the first time.
Horangi continues, as König properly splays his own fingers out, turning them over like he's never had a thought about their existence before.
"I get stocking oversized gear to fit anyone if they might need it, but, man-"
König's eyes drift up for a moment.
"Oversized?" He asks.
Horangi raises an eyebrow at König's confused comment.
"Yeah, I mean-"
König pulls off the gloves he's wearing.
They're thinner, flexible, only reinforced around the knuckles and pads of the fingers. Made to fit snug, like a second skin for your hands.
Protection without hindrance. Generic gloves, fit for their work.
Horangi watches König take them off and can't help himself following his every move; revealing pale, freckled skin from underneath the green fabric.
König's fingers are long and thin.
Only growing wide around the knuckles, and where they attach to his equally wide palms. The span of his reach from thumb to pinky has to be.. what? 25? centimeters? Fuck if Horangi knows, but they look like they'd pick up a dinner plate with no issue.
Fuck.
He's surely proportional to his height all over, Horangi's mind helpfully points out.
But any train of thought halts completely when König's hand reaches out and grabs onto his.
"Hmm." Is all König says, as he urges Horangi to fully fold his fingers out.
Leaving his own hand open, stretched out and waiting.
"What?"
König motions with his hand, urging him on.
Horangi swallows around the metallic smell in the air. Blaming his dust dry throat on that instead of anything else.
He's... warm.
And why wouldn't he be?
They're still reeling from the heat outside, and he only just took off his gloves.
Still, it feels odd to actually learn that about him.
Connecting König with something warm and human underneath all that full-coverage gear.
Shit.
He doesn't at all mean to drag his own fingers all the way up König's palm. He could have just slapped his hand down on it or something - not make it any more fucking awkward than this already is.
But..
There's a deep groove in König's skin, starting in the middle of his palm and curving at a slant towards his thumb.
A fairly old scar probably, but still easy to spot, even though it's pale and smooth to the touch.
Must have been nasty when it happened.
Horangi distantly feels the urge to learn where it came from.
Questions rushing through his head, but his mouth is still dry and oddly tongue-tied.
The contrast between them is...
Yeah it's definitely something.
Horangi's own hands aren't small. And he knows that for a fact.
His palms are wide, and his fingers are blunt.
They're masculine. Hardened.
Worn and used, but he does try and take care of them after the punishment they go through on the job.
In general, Horangi has always been the tallest in his family. Widest around the shoulders.
In his first squadron too.
And women's hands dwarf into dainty little things when he holds them.
But right now - his fingertips only barely reach König's top knuckle.
The long tips of his fingers still left where Horangi’s hand doesn't completely cover it, are just as rough as his own. Faded scars on the pads of his fingers you can mostly just feel the traces of now.
König looks like a pale shadow, silhouetted by Horangi's tan skin and the geometric shape of his tattoo that stands out stark black against them both.
Both of them watch their hands with a silent intensity.
Until König breaks the silence.
"Huh.”
Horangi sputters at the simple comment, hearing layers of unsaid words behind it.
“" Huh”? Really?”
König looks up to meet Horangi's eyes, and the focus he'd just had, staring at their hands, is gone. His eyebrows raise in surprise instead.
“What?”
Horangi grabs onto König's hand, turning it over, looking at it from every angle he can without twisting König's wrist into a pretzel.
“Can’t fucking believe you actually need gear that big. Where do you even get it? Your hands are-” Horangi trails off because what is he supposed to say?
That the sheer size of his hands, the length of his fingers, makes him have thoughts he can't quite push away as a normal intrusive thought.
-His fingers holding those wide wrists down onto sheets drenched in shared sweat-
“German army surplus? Why? Are they really that big?” König says, still watching Horangi twist his hand around, and fully allowing him to. Arm relaxed in Horangi's grip.
The weight of it, and how easily König just goes with anything Horangi asks - it feeds the ideas to a point he almost forgets where they are.
Until a bump sends them jumping in their seats. Bags and gear sliding across the floor. And Declan wakes up with a mumbled set of curses neither of them can make out.
Yeah, no.
Horangi shakes his head and lets König's hand go.
This is - This got away from him.
“No, you're perfectly proportional, König”
He says, trying for his usual joking tone, and brushing past anything else
Horangi leans back in his seat and tries his best to get a grip on himself, and where he still burns with the thought of how easy it is to get the massive man to just.. follow any instruction he gives him.
How easy it is for Horangi's words to get to him.
“I will get gloves that fit you too! If you need them. There’s space here -” König twists in his seat, nudging his elbow into the beige pack, strapped to the back of his rig, right above the bottom compartment where his own massive, fireproof things barely fit into the damn thing.
Horangi breathes through his nose to settle the racing beating in his chest, and pulls his sunglasses back down.
Trying his best to deceive them both into thinking he's not at all hit by the memories of König's massive hands, and how it's perfectly normal to get your coworker his own gloves to keep in your rig.
“Good to know! I'm gonna try sleeping before Declan starts snoring again.” Horangi answers.
Then proceeds to settle in against the wall. Closing his eyes behind the sunglasses, pointedly ignoring how he can feel König's eyes still lingering on him for a few more moments after they've both gone quiet.
Only just suppressing how searing hot the spot feels where their thighs touch, pushed together in the small space.
Eventually, Horangi hears König shuffle in his spot. Settling back into his seat.
Opening one eye, Horangi sneaks a look at him from behind the safety of his dark glasses.
Closing his eyes firmly when his gaze lands on König's lap where he's put his hands to rest as he relaxes.
Only just catching the sight of König tracing the line of the scar in his hand, and out across his fingertips, for a split second before he pushes this whole thing away for good.
It's nothing.
A big, wide, gentle, nothing.