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"Fuckin' hell, König, you look like shit."
The words hit him like a thrown brick, slicing through the dull hum of the mess hall. König blinked, lifting his head from where it had been hovering over his barely touched tray. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a sickly glow. Across the table, Krueger smirked around a mouthful of food, elbow nudging the man beside him-Horangi, who didn’t laugh, didn’t even glance up from his coffee.
König swallowed. His throat felt tight, raw. "Couldn’t sleep," he muttered, thumb pressing into the edge of his tray hard enough to turn the knuckle white. It wasn’t a lie. Sleep had been a distant concept lately, chased away by the restless buzz under his skin, the way his thoughts spiraled every time he closed his eyes.
Krueger snorted. "Yeah, no shit. You look like you got run over by a truck." He leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Or maybe someone kept you up all night, huh?"
König's fork clattered against the tray, the sound sharp enough that a few heads turned their way. He could feel Horangi's gaze flicker up, but couldn't bring himself to meet it. His pulse hammered in his ears, drowning out Krueger's ugly chuckle. The implication sat like bile in his throat. *If only,* he thought bitterly, fingers curling into fists under the table. If only it were something so simple, so human, keeping him awake instead of the gnawing void in his chest.
"Shut up," Horangi said flatly, stirring his coffee with deliberate slowness. His tone wasn't defensive, just bored. Like König was an afterthought. Like he wasn't worth the breath it took to defend.
Krueger rolled his eyes but mercifully changed the subject to some op they'd all survived by the skin of their teeth last month. König exhaled shakily, grateful for the reprieve even as his stomach twisted. He should say something-laugh, contribute, *exist* like a normal person, but his tongue felt like lead. Across the table, Horangi's knee brushed against Krueger's under the table, casual, unthinking. König looked away before he could see if it lingered.
The rest of the meal passed in a blur of half-heard jokes and chewing sounds. By the time König stood, his food was cold, his coffee untouched. No one noticed him leave.
The barracks hallway stretched too long, too bright, König's boots scuffing against the linoleum with each unsteady step. His pulse hadn't slowed since the mess hall. If anything, it had worsened, a trapped bird beating against his ribs. He fumbled with his keycard twice before the lock clicked open, the door swinging inward to reveal his sparse quarters: a neatly made bed, an untouched desk, the faint smell of gun oil lingering in the air. Normal. Controlled. Nothing like the storm inside his skull.
He shut the door harder than intended, the sound reverberating through the empty room. His hands shook as he tugged off his gloves, fingertips brushing the fresh cuts along his inner arm, hidden beneath the sleeves, always hidden. The sting grounded him, sharp and clean compared to the gnawing ache in his chest. *Pathetic,* he thought, pressing a thumb into the tender flesh. One indifferent brush-off from Horangi, and here he was, unraveling like a cheap thread.
The bottle of vodka in his footlocker called to him with the same siren song as the razor blade tucked beneath his pillow. Liquid numbness first, then the sharp clarity of pain. König wrenched the bottle free, unscrewing the cap with his teeth before taking a long, burning swig. It seared down his throat, heat pooling in his gut. Better. Not good, but better.
A knock at the door nearly made him drop the bottle. He froze, breath catching. "Who is it?" he called, voice rough.
"Maintenance," came the muffled reply, too gruff, too unfamiliar to be Horangi. König exhaled, shoulders slumping as the tension bled out of him. Of course it wasn't him. Why would it be? He took another swig before answering, the alcohol burning away the foolish hope. "Come back later," he growled, pressing his forehead against the cool metal of the locker. The footsteps outside retreated without argument.
The silence that followed was worse. It gave his thoughts room to spiral. Horangi's knee brushing Krueger's, the way he hadn't even *looked* at König except to dismiss him. Another drink. Then another. The room blurred at the edges, the sharp lines of his quarters softening into something bearable. He stumbled toward the bathroom, the tile cold under his knees as he collapsed in front of the sink. The mirror showed a stranger: hollow-eyed, light stubble dark against pale skin. Disgusting.
The razor blade glinted in the dim light, familiar as an old friend. He pressed it to his arm, just above the older scars, and dragged. The pain was clean, bright, something he could *control*. Blood welled up, dripping into the sink. Another cut, deeper this time. The world narrowed to the sting, the red lines, the way his breathing evened out.
Then…too deep. A mistake. The blood pulsed out in a steady rhythm, too fast, too much. König stared, detached, as it spilled over his wrist and pooled in the sink. He should move. Should stem the flow. But the vodka sat heavy in his veins, sluggish and warm, and the thought of standing seemed impossible. His vision tunneled.
The first thing König registered was the distant sound of dripping. Slow, rhythmic, like a leaky faucet in an abandoned house. Except it wasn’t water. The sink beneath him was a mess of crimson, the porcelain streaked with careless smears where his sleeve had dragged through it. He blinked sluggishly, trying to piece together why the edges of his vision were darkening. *Oh.* Right. The cut. The one that hadn’t stopped.
A weak laugh bubbled up in his chest, but it died before it could reach his lips. Of all the ways to go, this was almost poetic. Drunk and bleeding out on a bathroom floor, alone. No grand last stand, no heroic end. Just silence. He wondered distantly if anyone would find him before the smell did.
His head lolled against the cabinet, the wood cool against his cheek. He should’ve been panicking, should’ve been scrambling for a towel, for help, but the vodka had sapped the urgency from his limbs. Instead, he watched his own blood swirl in the drain with morbid fascination. *This is it,* he thought. The irony wasn’t lost on him: a man who’d survived gunfire and grenades, undone by his own hand.
Then…a sound. Not the drip this time, but the sharp *click* of a door opening. Footsteps, too quick to be maintenance. König’s breath hitched, but he didn’t, couldn’t move. The bathroom light flickered as a shadow filled the doorway.
Horangi’s sharp inhale cut through the thick, metallic air like a knife. "König-" His voice cracked, raw with something König had never heard from him before. Fear.
König tried to lift his head, but the movement sent the room tilting dangerously. His vision swam, the edges blackening further as he registered Horangi’s boots striding across the tile. A hand seized his wrist, pressing hard against the wound, and König hissed as pain flared bright and sudden.
"Fuck," Horangi spat, his other hand gripping König’s shoulder, shaking him. "Look at me. *Look at me.*"
König blinked up at him, slow and unfocused. Horangi’s face was pale, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. His dark eyes burned with something König couldn’t name. Anger, maybe, or terror, or both. It was the most attention Horangi had ever paid him.
Horangi's fingers dug into König's wrist like a vice, the pressure making the blood ooze slower between his fingers. "You idiot," he hissed, voice wavering between fury and desperation. "What the hell were you thinking?" The question wasn't rhetorical. Horangi's gaze pinned König down, demanding an answer even as König's vision blurred at the edges.
König tried to laugh, but it came out as a wheeze. "Not much," he slurred, his tongue heavy with vodka and exhaustion. The admission hung between them, raw and ugly. His head lolled back against the cabinet, the cold wood biting into his scalp. He wanted to close his eyes, to let the darkness swallow him whole, but Horangi’s grip on his shoulder tightened, shaking him back into the moment.
"Don’t you fucking dare," Horangi snarled, his other hand releasing König’s wrist just long enough to yank his own belt free. The leather hissed through the loops of his pants, and before König could process it, Horangi was wrapping the belt above the wound, cinching it tight with a sharp tug. König gasped, pain flaring white-hot up his arm, but Horangi didn’t relent. "Stay awake," he ordered, voice cracking. "Look at me."
König blinked up at him, slow and unfocused. Horangi’s face was too close, his breath warm against König’s cheek. He’d never seen him like this- jaw clenched, nostrils flared, his usual composure shattered. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was ecstatic. König wanted to reach for him, to trace the tension in his brow with his fingertips, but his limbs felt like lead.
Horangi's hands were shaking. König could feel it through the grip on his arm, the tremble in his fingers as he tightened the makeshift tourniquet. It was strange to see him like this. Horangi never shook. Horangi never panicked. He was the ice in the middle of a firefight, the steady hand on the trigger when everyone else was losing their minds.
König wanted to tell him to stop, to let go, to stop wasting his breath on someone like him,, but the words wouldn’t come. His throat was too dry, his chest too tight. Instead, he watched, dazed, as Horangi pressed both hands over the wound, his fingers slick with König’s blood.
"You *idiot*," Horangi muttered again, but this time it wasn’t anger in his voice, it was something softer, something cracked open and bleeding. "You stupid, reckless—" He cut himself off, jaw working like he was fighting back something else. His thumbs pressed harder into König’s skin, as if he could will the blood back inside by sheer force.
König's vision swam, the edges of the world dissolving into a blur of bathroom tile and Horangi's frantic hands. The pain in his arm was distant now, muffled beneath layers of vodka and blood loss. He felt weightless, untethered, like he could drift away if Horangi's grip on him slipped. And yet, Horangi held on. Why?
"Hey," König slurred, his voice thick with alcohol and exhaustion. He tried to lift his free hand, the one not slick with blood, but it flopped uselessly against Horangi's thigh. "Hey. Tiger."
Horangi didn't respond; his focus locked onto the wound, his lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. His dark lashes were clumped together, damp at the corners…was he crying? König blinked slowly, struggling to process it. Horangi didn’t cry. Horangi didn’t break.
"Hey," König repeated, insistent now. His fingers twitched against Horangi's leg, barely a tap.
"Kiss me."
Horangi's hands froze mid-motion. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. König limp against the cabinet, Horangi crouched over him like a statue. Then Horangi exhaled sharply through his nose, his shoulders trembling. "You're drunk," he said flatly, though his voice wavered.
"Yeah," König admitted with a loose shrug that made the room tilt. "But I'd never ask sober." The words tumbled out before he could think better of them, raw and honest in a way he’d never dared before.
Horangi's breath hitched. His hands, still pressed against König’s arm, tightened briefly before relaxing again. "Don’t," he whispered, but it sounded more like a plea than a denial.
König blinked up at him, his vision swimming. Horangi’s face was close enough that he could count the specks of gold in his dark eyes, see the way his throat worked as he swallowed hard. "Bitte…please," König breathed, the word barely audible over the pounding in his ears. "Just once."
Something in Horangi’s expression fractured. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t pause to think, didn’t pull away. He leaned down, his hand cupping König’s jaw, and pressed their mouths together in a kiss that tasted like salt and desperation. König’s eyes fluttered shut, his whole body going still beneath its weight. Horangi’s lips were warm, softer than he’d imagined, and trembling slightly against his own.
For a moment, time suspended. The pain in König’s arm, the dizziness, the blood still seeping between them…none of it mattered. There was only Horangi’s fingers against his skin, the way his breath shuddered against König’s cheek when he finally pulled back, just enough to speak. "You-" Horangi started, then stopped to sniffle the snot mixed with tears and saliva. "You absolute *idiot.*"
König huffed a weak laugh, his forehead bumping against Horangi’s. "Yeah," he agreed hoarsely. His chest ached, but not from the blood loss this time. "Worth it."
Horangi made a noise that might’ve been a sob, pressing his face briefly into König’s shoulder before straightening again. His hands were steady once more as he adjusted the makeshift tourniquet, though his fingers lingered against König’s wrist longer than necessary. "Stay awake," he ordered again, softer this time.
The first thing König registered was the cold. Not the sharp bite of tile beneath his knees or the chill of Horangi’s fingers against his skin…no, this was deeper, settling into his bones like a weight. His eyelids fluttered open, sticky with dried tears, and the bathroom light stabbed at his vision. The sink was still streaked with blood, but it had dried now, dull and flaking. No fresh crimson. No Horangi.
His breath hitched, the realization carving through the vodka haze like a blade. Of course. Of course Horangi hadn’t come. Why would he? The kiss, the desperation in his voice, the way his hands had trembled, none of it had been real. Just another cruel fantasy conjured by his oxygen-starved brain. König’s chest tightened, a hollow laugh rattling loose from his lips. Pathetic. Even in his own hallucinations, Horangi had sounded disappointed.
The razor blade still lay where he’d dropped it, glinting dully in the dim light. König reached for it with shaking fingers, the movement sending a fresh wave of dizziness crashing over him. His arm throbbed where he’d cut too deep, the wound crusted over but still tender. It didn’t matter. Nothing did. If the first cut hadn’t been enough, maybe a second would finish the job. Maybe this time, the darkness would stick.
He pressed the blade to his skin, just below the first wound, and dragged. The pain was distant this time, muffled by the alcohol still swimming in his veins. Blood welled up sluggishly, dripping onto the tile with a soft plink. König watched it fall, detached, as if observing someone else’s body from a great distance. His vision blurred at the edges, the bathroom tilting sideways. Good. Let it end. Let it-
The blade slipped from his fingers, clattering against the tile. His head lolled forward, chin hitting his chest. The world narrowed to a pinprick of light, then nothing at all.
Darkness.
Silence.