Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You slumped into your sofa when you got home. You wanted to cry but the tears that threatened to fall were held back only by sheer exhaustion. Maybe you could have cried once. Once. But since then, after a certain point after you became a fully fledged adult, your body decided that your body could no longer lose any more water through crying alone.

You were trapped in an endless maze of piling paperwork, ticking clocks hung on empty grey walls and glitzy nights out with people you couldn’t bother to remember the names of. In all fairness, you'd be surprised if they knew yours. The only reason you were invited out was simply out of politeness and a system involving office politics that still made no sense to you. It was all an empty inertia that whispered through you like morning fog rising off the surface of a still lake. In the first light of dawn, you could just make out the joy and laughter of those around you, yet from where you stood on the shore there was only a suffocating silence holding you together.

The only joy that had registered as more than a blip on your radar had happened over three months ago in a bar. 

The beat of the club thrummed through your core as you sat alone at the bar, ignored even by the bartenders shaking cocktails to the beat. You saw the sweat on your coworkers’ skin glisten as they grinded on the dance floor, flashing in throbbing magenta lights juxtaposed by indigo blue shadows. Their teeth were bright behind painted red lips and their eyes were shut in the orgasmic bliss of alcohol, ecstasy and carefree dancing. They were light and bright on that Friday night. They were alive as you watched on from the shadows.

From where you sat, you could almost feel some of their happiness soaking into your skin. Almost. There wasn't much joy to be had when you knew that you were only brought along so they could let loose and get a safe ride home. You were a little pet to pat and coo at before leaving behind to sit in an empty house. You were there to bring joy to others, not to yourself. 

In all fairness, you'd given up on your own happiness long ago.

You were sipping your drink when a strangely long shadow overcast you.

"Hello?" you asked dumbly as the shade turned to face you.

When you finally got a good look at him through the strobe lights, your jaw dropped.

Before you stood a colossus. He was a mechanical giant, honour and glory personified in a burning pyre dedicated to a lost god. He was glorious, defined like Michelangelo's son yet cryptic like Da Vinci's daughter. He was a melding of masterpieces, and that was all without his face.

He was hooded, looking as though he'd bring an axe upon your neck at any moment. But where you expected cruelty and coldness in his eyes, they seemed to be wide with wonder. How anyone could hold such kindness and beauty in a world as artificially sterile as yours astounded you.

"Hallo," you strained to hear his accented timbre, “is anyone sitting here?" 

You looked out into the crowd but your coworkers were lost in the throng of grinding and gasping.

“No. Do you want me to move?"

The man looked shocked, worried even when he slid into the stool beside you and said, “Not at all. Actually, I'd like you to stay.”

"For what?” you frowned.

The man leaned in a bit closer, albeit hesitantly, "To get to know you. You looked…”

"Lonely?” you snorted bitterly.

"Beautiful,” the man offered instead.

Your eyes widened momentarily. Before you could dismiss him he continued.

"You’re sitting where I usually sit when I'm dragged out here,” the man smiled with his eyes, "it's nice to be alone, but it's better being alone with someone who understands." 

That was all it took for him to win you over with open arms. 

He knew. He understood what it was like to be the weird one, the odd one out. You could sit in your little nest and be ugly ducklings together while the golden geese gaggled together on the dance floor.

And for a beautiful couple of hours, you felt seen. You felt you could breathe fresh air after years of crushing weight on your chest. He was the lightness you'd craved ever since you'd moved away to the city. He seemed to fill a niche you'd never known existed within you. He was the balm to the burning pain of existence. You wanted him completely and entirely, and the drink urged you to make good on that feeling. But just as you did manage to get close, he left.

He said he was going to the washroom, and not a minute later, your 'friends' were dragging you out the door as their designated driver.

“Please," Amy whined, “I just wanna go home!" 

“Can't you wait a bit?" you asked.

“She wants to go home now," Hailey glared at you with a stark coldness that left you shivering.

“I just met somebody-" 

“Now." 

You couldn't argue. Amy was crying and the others looked at you with disgust and disdain, almost offended by your attempts to try and stay for just a few minutes longer.

“Why do you even want to stay? It's not like you actually like coming out with us." 

“I bet she was just making that guy up or something,” you heard someone mutter behind your back.

You looked across the room to where the washrooms were tucked around the corner. With a sigh, you realized that whoever that man was, he probably left. Maybe he just used the excuse of a washroom to leave you. She was right. There was nothing for you here.

"I'll start the car," you muttered and pulled your keys out of your bag.

You heard the women mutter gross sneers behind your back as you left them for the parking lot. Moments later, you brought your car around front and let them pile into it. Amy sat beside you, bawling into your sensitive ears the entire way back as you prayed that she’d keep her stomach contents contained. You debated smashing your foot into the accelerator and aiming at the nearest telephone pole. The only thing stopping you was the fact that you were too tired to even try.

Three months passed and the image of that man still hadn't left your mind. He was always there, a distant dream to tease you with when filling out legal forms and writing up contracts. You imagined what it might have been like to let those powerful arms weave around your shoulders. He seemed so terribly gentle when you talked to him. When you spoke together, it was like the world faded away. It was only you and him. His eyes were so brilliant as they soaked in your form. He was the only man you could ever honestly believe when he told you that he truly desired you. It was a strange feeling, but it was exciting and new in a tedium world. He was there making orange juice for you when you skipped breakfast in the mornings. He was over your shoulder and whispering encouraging words into your ear when you felt yourself breaking down at lunch. Most of all, he was there lying in bed beside you, behind you, on top of you when you closed your eyes to sleep.

In those three months afterwards, life had only gotten worse. Now that you had a taste of passion, you were dying in a desert of attention. To be seen was to be loved, as foolish as the thought was. It had become so bad that you swore you started seeing the man around you. Sometimes it would be a glance into a window of an out-of-the-way cafe, or sometimes it would be in a shadow behind you as you got into your car at night. Everytime you thought you might have seen him your heart swelled in your chest for a painfully brief moment. And just as soon as hope entered you, it was crushed by cold reality. No man would ever take that sort of interest in you.

In fact, you were so boring and uninteresting that your coworkers had slowly pulled away from you in the months that followed. Your Friday nights became quiet, and somehow you ended up feeling lonelier than before.

As the months passed, strange occurrences that might have once frightened you became reasons to ignore the world and retreat into your fantasies. Finding your door left unlocked was just a sign of how forgetful and sad you'd become. Things going missing were just normal parts of your day. Sometimes, you left your window open at night, as if inviting someone to steal you away. Maybe, if you were lucky, the man at the bar would magically find you and whisk you away from the hell that had become your waking life

But that was all just another lie you told yourself to make it through the day. It was always just another lie.

You pulled yourself into a ball on the sofa, your form swallowed by ratty pillows from third or fourth-hand furniture stores. When was the last time you called your parents? When was the last time they called you? It had been so long, you'd started to wonder if they even remembered you. Considering your last words to them, you doubted it.

It's not like they missed you, not when they had your siblings to focus on. Your sister was their golden idol, your brother was the black sheep. You just became the skeleton in their closet. You could touch the coattails of your sister's glory, but you were always within reach of your brother's failures. Ultimately, you were forgotten between the two of them.

Most people forgot you even existed until they had a task for you to do. You didn’t blame them for it. Why would they remember you when your own parents forgot you? Your only worth came in being used by others for their own meaningless agendas. You could be a designated driver, or you could be the office coffee runner. Most often you were the person to clean up a coworkers' paperwork when they were on a deadline. You were like water, flowing in and filling the cracks as they were made in the grey concrete. You wedged yourself into the tightest spots, ultimately trapping yourself into unwanted favours or deals that were never returned to you.

So, you sat alone on your sofa, crying with dry eyes. You did it every night. It was a ritual you followed dogmatically. What had happened to you to make this your reality? Where did you go wrong? No matter how many times you asked yourself the questions, answers never formed. Maybe it was the fact that you didn't try harder in school. Maybe it was the fact you didn't try harder to stay in touch with the people who at least pretended to be your friend in college. It would've been nice if you could lose yourself in the big city and reinvent yourself like they always did in those glitzy Hollywood movies you liked to watch at night, but you were shackled to your mediocrity. Your reality. Since moving out, you'd become a shadow lingering on the edge of the city of lights.

Your apartment was a brumous sanctuary from the blinding glory of the world outside. Here you could take refuge in the water dripping from your kitchen ceiling, steadily filling the pot you kept in place below it.. There was a strangely meditative quality to the dripping faucet in your bathroom as you stayed up too late on your dingy sofa. The lights were left out, leaving the tv as a glowing monolith to a life you couldn't afford to have. The laugh track from the sitcom you put on echoed off the unwashed walls.

You didn't have enough for therapy, but you had enough for an Amazon Prime subscription that fed you with chocolate bars and episodes of whatever mindless drivel you found before you crashed. You had some reality tv show on, but the words were muffled and the colours bled together. At this point, you only watched tv to have some semblance of company. The actors at least laughed with you.

Aside from the tv, there was a shrouded quiet in the apartment. It was a familiar, albeit unwelcome aspect to your life. If you could have a pet you might've jumped at the opportunity, but you didn't know if you were allowed to have one and your landlord only answered an email if it had a lawsuit attached to it. Anyways, if you did have a pet, you worried it would consider you boring too. Maybe it would be animal cruelty to force a creature to love you as you were.

You were occupied by the philosophies of ethics of losers like yourself keeping pets when you were startled by a large crashing sound behind you, followed by a stream of hushed cursing.

You whipped your head to look behind you, where your kitchen window had been opened and a mug had been smashed on the floor. A dark figure rose up like the ominous omens of a croaking crow. You watched as the figure turned to look at you.

He looked... Familiar.

Just as you thought to pick up your phone, the figure lunged at you. A cloth was pressed to your face. You should've screamed. Instead, you thrashed desperately before feeling a sudden weakness overcome you. 

“I’m sorry,” you heard a strangely familiar voice say.

In an instant, your world became hazy, and darkness enveloped you.

Chapter Text

You woke like embers stirring in ash, your mouth felt as though it were full of dust. You blinked wearily, your head pounding and your stomach like a ball of lead. You groaned and flopped your head back. Back? Back! Why were you upright?

Hold on, there was a chair underneath you now. Not your dingy disgusting half-assed excuse for a sofa, but a metal folding chair. With a padded seat, if you were feeling it correctly. And your hands, why couldn’t they move? What was stopping you? Wait, moving them hurt. They hurt? Why did they hurt? You shifted again, but your hands were held down by some scratchy thing. Was it rope? It felt like rope.

You let out another pained groan. You just wanted to watch your Housewives of Wherever in peace. Why did you have to be here?

You blinked as the Edison bulb above you flickered faintly. Where was ‘here’, anyways? 

It certainly wasn't home. If you'd fallen asleep on the sofa again, your neck would hurt more. Frankly, despite the pain in your wrists and ankles, waking up in a metal chair had been one of the finer mornings in your life. Wonderful, even. Wonderful... Why did you consider it wonderful?

Oh. You wouldn’t be going into work. Based on your estimates, it had to have been Friday. If you lived through the day, you'd have taken your first day off work in three years. You guessed you'd saved up on vacation days for long enough, you thought with a snort. You damn well deserved a break. Hell, if you ever got out after this, which you were slightly hoping you wouldn't, you deserved a whole holiday. They'd probably forget you asked for the days off and book you in anyways, but dammit you'd make it work. Somehow. If you ever went back.

You didn't really want to go back though. By that point in your life, you decided that you'd had enough. You could safely say that dying in that room would’ve been the perfect way to cap off your shitty existence. You guessed that maybe you'd suffered long enough for some higher power to finally have mercy on you. If being raped and brutally tortured before being slowly killed was how you were going out, so be it. At least an end was in sight.

You sighed and settled back into your spot. You might as well get comfortable before getting your toenails ripped out, right?

You were humming to yourself when the darkness before you split into bright light. You turned your head as your eyes adjusted and hissed.

Loud, heavy thumps came closer to you, and then the dark figure from before broke into the dim lighting haloing you.

"Hallo, my little pet."

What a lovely voice. It reminded you of that man from so long ago...

"How are you more beautiful than I remembered you? Just incredible…" his voice was soft, loving even. The long fingers that caressed your cheek cherished you like a precious porcelain doll.

You said nothing, instead focusing on the red streaks trailing down his clothed hood, running like bloody tears from his soft blue eyes.

"From the bar..." you whispered, but evidently it was loud enough in the silence of the room.

"You remember me, ja?" the man pressed his stinking cloth mask to your face, swallowing you in darkness briefly as he wrapped his arms around you, then stepped back, "you have to. Please, tell me you remember me.”

"Mostly.”

That seemed to make him happy.

“So you remember me?” he said eager.

You hissed.

“I don't remember your name, though. I’m sorry," you told him plainly. 

You were slowly putting the pieces together, but just barely. You were still adjusting to what had just occurred to you. 

You'd only spoken to him for a couple of hours, and yet there he stood. Was he… Was he there to save you? Or…

Oh.

It figured that the one person who brought light into your world would be the one to bring you into the darkness.

"I am so sorry that you had to find me again like this," the man lamented, ignoring your comment about his name, "I did not realize you were home. I thought you were out again, and I just wanted to rest in your bed again, but, well, there you were. I don’t understand why though. You’re always out on Fridays with those…” his eyes narrowed and his fists tightened, “nevermind. I kept trying to see you again, but you kept slipping away before I could get close enough."

He leaned down to look you directly in the eyes.

"But now, look! You’re here! We’re together again! I’m just so sorry that we had to meet again like under these circumstances. I hope you can forgive me in time."

You looked into his eyes. It was so obvious that this man was dangerous now. How could he not be? Such big hands could only be used for suffering. They were built for grabbing women and crushing them down into dust. His thighs were designed to crush skulls between them. How could you fool yourself into thinking a man built like a beast could be anything other than feral.

"You must be thirsty," the man stepped back, cursing himself for his inconsideration.

"What are you going to do to me?" you heard yourself ask.

"Cherish you, my pet," he declared from behind you as he filled something out of view.

"You won't hurt me?" you pressed further.

"I would never," he assured you as he stepped back in front of you, “I promise you, I’ll take care of you. All I ask for you to do is love me like I love you.

“Not now, that will come in time. But for now, just know that I love you too much to ever hurt you.”

Your face was below his crotch when he stood in front, or rather, over you. You couldn't help but notice how filled out his pants were. Just from where you sat it looked like he barely fit inside his pants. He seemed so large, it scared you. But if he was hard already…

You sighed. It was easier to just accept it than fight it.

"I could help you with that," you offered.

The man tilted his head.

“Help me?” he asked, “with what?”

You nodded your head at his crotch and he yelped as you nearly hit him.

"If you're already hard, we might as well get it over with, right?" you shrugged.

The man stumbled back and spluttered, "Hard!?"

"I have eyes, you know," you rolled said eyes, "I can see your cock through your pants.

The man looked down at himself, then back at you in disbelief.

"Just fuck me and get it over with already," you sighed, "but if you're going to rape me, can you at least be quick about it? I just want to get this over with."

"I am not going to rape you!" the man snapped.

You winced at the harshness in his tone.

"But you're... Like..." you used your head to gesture at him, "are you wearing something or what?"

"I just can't find pants that fit well!" he exclaimed, "I’m not fucking ‘hard’, dammit, I just look like that!"

You stared in disbelief.

"Stop looking!" he snarled, "it's hard to find pants when you're this big!" 

“Big, huh?”

“You don’t understand! I have to go to specialty shops for clothes!”

"I can only imagine. I mean, with that in your pants..."

"I meant my height, not my schwanz!" he pushed a cup of water to your lips, accidentally sloshing a splash over your chin, "drink! I should be scrubbing your mouth out with soap for all that talk about… Ugh..."

You took a tentative sip, then greedily gulped down the chilled water. You'd been drugged once, so what was another time? It didn't matter to you anymore.

Once you'd finished drinking, you heard a metallic clinking from behind you. You took a deep breath. It was time to see if this man was true to his word.

You prepared for what was to come, but all that came was a cold metal clack around both your ankles. You opened your eyes.

"What did you do?" you asked curiously.

"This chair is not comfortable. You should lie down, rest," the man explained as he knelt just out of sight, "I gave you a leash. Now you can go to bed."

"You leashed me?" you asked softly.

"Ja," the man snipped your restraints off and quickly stepped back, "I don't trust you to stay out of trouble. You ran away once. That was enough to hurt me."

"So you're keeping me leashed in your basement?" you raised an eyebrow at the notion.

"For now," the man shrugged as he stepped in front of you.

"For now? Does that mean I won't always be down here?" you asked hopefully.

"If you behave, I will reward you," the man said fondly, "I promise you will be out of this place soon, my pet. Just be good and I'll give you anything you could ever want for."

You slowly stood from the chair, wobbling uncertainly before finding your footing. You looked around yourself, seeing a freshly made bed ready for you. It looked so plush, so inviting...

"You look tired. You should rest for a bit," the man urged you gently.

"Did you drug that water?" you asked numbly as you trudged to the bed.

The man seemed to walked over to tuck you in carefully.

"I only did that to get you here," he fussed over you tenderly, "you're tired because it's late at night."

"What time is it?" you asked with a yawn.

"Three AM," he told you, then brushed the hairs from your forehead.

You nodded, feeling your eyes drift shut again. The bed was far more comfortable than the one you had at home. You could feel yourself drifting off to sleep, but you had one final question.

"What... What's your name?"

The man hummed, then said, "You will call me König."

Without another word he turned and left. His footsteps made heavy thuds as he slowly marched up the dingy staircase. You heard a light switch and the Edison bulb died, leaving you alone with your thoughts in the dark.

You heard the door click shut, and you were lost to the world.

Chapter Text

You spent the next few days coming in and out of sleep in a waking nightmare. Just when you thought you’d adjusted to your new surroundings, something else would change, and then you’d go through the whole process again. Each day brought a new wave of isolation and fear before it was lost in tepid attempts at escape. 

The first attempt had been the most laughable. You’d taken your plastic water bottle and thrown it at his face in an attempt to disarm him, but he only caught it and gave you a disappointed look. He’d put it down, then sat across from you and pulled out a protein bar.

“You must be hungry, ja?” he asked.

You looked at it with disgust.

“I’ll leave it here for you when you’re ready.”

He put it down on a side table and walked away, leaving you back alone in the dark.

The next day, he came down with a meal of hearty broth and bread. You noticed that there was no knife present.

“Soup?” you asked as you took the warm bowl into your lap.

“Homemade,” König said as he sat across from you in the folding chair he’d tied you to, “I thought something light on your stomach would be a good idea. You haven’t eaten much lately.”

You both winced when the chair let out a tired groan from under his weight.

“I need to get a better chair down here,” he muttered before lifting his hood up with one hand to put a spoonful under with the other.

He looked rather bizarre, holding the cloth up between his pointer and his thumb in a thin attempt to obfuscate his face from you. It worked, you still couldn’t see under that deathly hood, but it made him look more comical than threatening.

In fact, instead of threatening you into being his captive, König seemed to be intent on making you as comfortable as he possibly could. Each day you woke, and more and more of the basement was cleaned and packed away to make the dreary space somewhat more comfortable. He’d even mounted a TV on the wall at one point, but your chain had been too short to find a remote or to sit on the sofa in front of it. As such, you were left in the damp musty darkness, alone with your hands and a shockingly thoughtful selection of books.

“Are you going to eat with me every day?” you asked a few days later as you ate together.

“I will try to,” König said, “I want to make sure you’re comfortable here.”

You looked down at the reasonably firm mattress he’d chained you to. The sheets were a finer quality than any you’d ever bought for yourself, but the comforter left something to be desired.

“It’s cold at night,” you told him.

König looked at the comforter as though it had personally offended him

“I find it hard to sleep when it’s this cold,” you said.

He put his plate to the side to inspect your bedding. He held it up, gave it a couple of squeezes, then nodded.

“I’ll get you a new one for tonight,” he concluded, “this one is far too thin. I must’ve given you a summer quilt by accident. It’s only just turned to spring here.”

You watched as he bundled it under his arm before putting it down beside his chair. He slung a leg over it and picked up his plate again.

“How long have I been here for?” you asked.

König shrugged, “Not too long. A few days. Why?”

“Has anyone noticed that I’m gone?”

König sighed, “I don’t know. I hope so.”

“You hope so?” you scoffed.

He waggled his chin from side to side, “I’m not worried about being caught. I am worried about your social life before I brought you here. I’d like to think someone cared for you.”

“What, so you can enjoy ruining my life?” you sneered.

König shook his head.

“No,” he took another mouthful, “so I know that you weren’t so lonely before I met you. I don’t want to think you were left alone for so long”

The consideration was terrifying. It would have been easier to hear that he wanted to hurt you, or maybe even hurt the people around you, but once again he stressed that his primary concern was your wellbeing. The wellbeing he facilitated by locking you into a basement with barely any form of stimulation.

You stared up at the window, the smallest shaft of light that helped you keep a sense of time in your head.

“I hope somebody noticed,” you said in a painfully quiet voice.

König nodded and swallowed his mouthful, “I hope so too.”

—

That night he gave you a warmer blanket. It was softer, too. He’d put a great deal of thought into choosing just the right one for you. In fact, it reminded you of the one you had back home, except warmer. Once again, he was keen to remind you of his wealth in an attempt to win you over.

You would’ve said it wasn’t that easy, but you caught yourself smiling for the first time in days as you snuggled into bed with the comforter wrapped around your body. You hated to admit it, but his wealth was certainly having an effect on your opinions. An alarming effect.

The next morning you woke to a plate of scrambled eggs and a bowl of freshly cut fruit artfully laid out over a small bowl of plain yogurt. Beside the plate, a note sat.

Eat, it said, I’ll join you for lunch. I have a work meeting this morning. Hopefully not many more after this one :)

The smiley face had been slightly insulting, but at least he had the good grace to tell you where he was. That was better than your boss. 

You held the note in your hands and looked over it again and again. It was written in clean English on a piece of cardstock. It wasn’t ripped from a notebook or written last minute, it was planned and neat. You’d quickly learned that König always planned ahead. Each move of his was decided on well in advance, then executed to perfection. Neat, simple, deliberate. Those were the words that defined König’s character in your mind.

You tossed the card to your wastebasket and settled in for a long morning of reading.

Books kept you occupied. Some were good, others were better. You’d tried to find a book you could say was distinctly not to your tastes, but König must’ve combed your library back home to find what suited you best. You wondered what happened to all those books back at your old apartment. You didn’t have many, but there were the few of meagre belongings you could keep in your spartan lifestyle that weren’t explicitly for the purpose of surviving day by day. Each one had been carefully weighed against your waning budget and chosen with utmost care. You couldn’t afford to buy a bad book, even secondhand. It simply wasn’t in your budget.

Here, you had a decent enough selection to keep you occupied for ages.

Or at least that would be the case if you only read.

You, much to König’s misfortune, were a human being, and you needed more than just a good book to sustain you. All around you, there was a dark room filled with possibilities that were just beyond the reach of your chain.

There was a wall with tools on it, all different shapes and sizes, and you knew that if you got close you could’ve used one of those saws to get your chain off. You ended up staring at those tools for hours if you weren’t careful.

If you weren’t looking at the tools, you were looking at the worn desk that sat below them. It was covered in debris of some sort, and around it hung a vast collection of knives, all different shapes and sizes. Some of them had odd bends in the blades where others looked more like tiny sickles than knives. All of them looked well used and well cared for. Perfect for torture. You avoided looking at that corner of the room for too long.

There was even a little spot for exercise on the far side of the room. There was a treadmill and a set of weights, all far too heavy for you to even consider lifting. Still, the potential was there.

You had so much possibility, but all of it lay just beyond the reach of your fingertips.

You complained to him about it a few days later once you’d finished your latest novel.

“I’m getting bored,” you told him.

He looked at your stack of completed books and raised an eyebrow.

“I want to do more than just read,” you explained.

He drummed his fingers on his bouncing leg as he considered your words. He glanced down at your arms, and then back at the TV.

“I could give you a longer chain,” he offered.

“What would that do for me?” you laughed.

“You could go to the sofa and watch movies,” he said, “as it is, you can go to the bathroom, and that’s about it.”

“Would you be able to do that for me?” you asked, hope crawling into your tone despite your efforts.

König’s eyes crinkled with warmth, “I could do that for you tonight. Just be sure to go to bed at a reasonable time, okay? I don’t want you up past midnight.”

“Would you stop me?” you asked.

König considered your test, then shook his head in a strangely paternal fasion, “I wouldn’t. But I don’t want you going back to bad habits.”

“You’re saying I had a bad sleep schedule before?” you scoffed.

König crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair, “I think I remember you sleeping for four hours before going to work every day.”

“You timed me?” you asked.

König huffed, “I didn’t time you. I checked a clock.”

“So you watched me when I slept,” you concluded.

“Of course,” König said, “what sort of admirer would I be if I didn’t?”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘stalker’,” you said cynically.

König narrowed his eyes, “I think I said what I meant.”

You ate silently after that.

You’d expected him to ignore you for the rest of the day, but at dinner he came down with a key and a loop of metal chains.

“You’re still giving me more room?” you asked curiously.

König gave you a confused glance.

“You said you wanted more things to do,” he slowly asked, “isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Weren’t you mad at me earlier?” you tested, “after what I said?”

König clicked the lock with a short laugh, “No, that’s not enough to make me mad.”

“What would make you mad?”

König met your eye with a hidden smile, “I don’t think you want to do that.”

You left it at that.

—

Days turned into weeks, or so you figured. The grease on your body was coating you significantly. You hadn’t been able to change clothes since the day you’d arrived. Not that there was a change of clothes provided, nor would there have been a way to actually take you current clothes off or put new clothes on. Still, it would’ve been nice to at least have been able to try.

König noticed your discomfort over dinner as you plucked at your front when a new spot formed.

“What’s wrong with your shirt?” he asked.

You glared at him, “It’s dirty.”

“It’s dirty?” König asked.

“Uh, yeah?” you sneered, “I’ve been wearing this for how long now?”

König didn’t say anything.

“Are you going to keep me in these clothes forever?” you asked bitterly, “is that your plan? Make me wear them out or something?”

König shook his head, “I didn’t want to force new things on you.”

You rolled your eyes, “I think kidnapping me is forcing things on me.”

He stilled. His eyes washed over your form before he finally hummed, “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” you laughed, “maybe? How about absolutely. You kidnapped me, König. I’m…” you threw up your hands, “I’m trapped in a dark basement all alone with nothing to do but read and sleep! I don’t even get to close the door when I shit because this stupid chain is in the way! I can’t talk to anyone but you, and…” you sniffled, “I don’t know. I don’t want to go back, but I don’t want to keep going this way either.”

König slowly put his plate to the side.

“I miss being able to listen to other people talking,” you admitted, “they didn’t talk to me, but I could listen to them while I worked. I had things to do. I had purpose. I don’t have anything here.”

Your captor looked at you with a discomforting pitiful look.

“Why?” you whimpered, “why did you do this to me?”

König sighed, “Because I wanted you to be happy.”

“Does it look like I’m happy?” you jabbed at him.

König shook his head, “No. It doesn’t.”

He picked up your plates and stood once more. His eyes trailed over you, then trailed down your body to your legs, and then down to the cuffs around your ankles. He lingered there a moment longer before grunting something and turning around. He walked up the stairs silently before he turned to lok at you once more.

“I’ll find a way,” he said, “I’ll find a way to make you happy,” and then he carefully closed the door behind him.

It took an hour for you to realise that he was entirely capable of quieting his footsteps.

Chapter Text

You bared your teeth at the man in front of you, refusing to so much as budge before him.

“Please, pet,” König sighed as he tried to encourage you into his arms, “don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“I don’t need your help!” you snarled.

“If you want to take a shower, then you do,” König crossed his arms and stared down at you with paternal dissapointment.

You rolled your eyes. You hated him sometimes, you really did. You had gotten used to the basement, but sometimes König knew just the perfect way to worm his way under your skin. Today, he’d determined that you needed a shower.

By all means, König wasn’t necessarily wrong about that. It had been somewhere close to a month since you’d last showered, or so you figured. Maybe it had been longer if you were perfectly honest with yourself. You were absolutely filthy by the time he’d told you to get ready. A part of you was surprised König hadn’t forced his hand earlier, another part recognised that he’d been biding his time quite patiently. 

“I won’t let you do this,” you growled as menacingly as you could.

“Why are you so against me?” König sighed as he leaned against the banisters by the stairs, “I’m just doing what’s best for both of us. What’s best for you, honestly.”

“You’re doing what’s best for you,” you snarled.

König shook his head, but he kindly let you continue sulking. He wasn’t one to try and shake you out of your fits. Rather, he was just disappointed in your petulant behaviour. 

A part of you wondered if maybe he had a point. Why were you being so defiant? Were you really so opposed to König seeing you with less clothes? More importantly, you knew you needed a shower. You smelled yourself, and you smelled putrid. Not only that, but your clothes stuck to your body via a layer of rank grease that had soaked through the fabric. You were disgusting and you couldn’t stand yourself. You had gotten to the point that you actually had dreams of taking a shower and being free of the perpetual oil that layered your body.

And yet, a part of you still balked at the idea of showering with your captor. He was just that, a captor. He was a monster in human skin, stretched taught over a nearly seven foot frame. He was sick, disturbed, diseased as carrion by the side of the road. He was sickness of the mind of man, he was poison flowing through your veins. But, unfortunately for you, underneath all the sores of his existence, he was the keyholder of the shackles around your ankles.

“Why do you need to shower with me?” you scoffed, “it’s not like there’s anything you haven’t seen.”

“Can you ever tire of a sunset?” König snorted, “just because you have nothing to hide doesn’t mean you have nothing to give.”

“But I don’t want to give you anymore,” you protested.

König’s eyebrows lowered, “Haven’t I given you so much? Look,” he gestured to the room behind you, “look around you. Look at all I have given you. This bed, these clothes, this tv, these crafts and these books. And that’s not the end of it, is it? All your old belongings, all your old clothes, all your freedoms and privileges, haven’t I given them all to you? I’ve given you so much, and all I ask for is one thing, and you’re too selfish for that?”

You hesitated.

He pounced on the opportunity, “Even you can see how much I’ve given. I’ve been selfless in all that I’ve given. I’d give you my flesh if you asked, I’d give you my blood until the last drop. I’d move mountains for you with a shovel and a wheelbarrow if you desired. And I have! I’ve done everything to make us possible. And yet,” he sighed pitifully, “it’s not enough, is it?”

You balked but he steamrolled over you.

“I’m sorry, I’m being stupid,” he lowered his face to the ground, “I’m the selfish one. I’m asking so much of you, but I haven’t given you nearly enough. I know that I’m a monster.”

You winced.

He glanced up at you briefly, “See? I know, pet. I know what you think of me. I know that I’m a monster, that I’m evil and disgusting. I imagine you probably hate me, don’t you?”

“I don’t hate you!” you cut him off before he could say anymore, “I just… I wanted to do this myself.”

“But I’m here to help!” König insisted.

“I get that, but I don’t want that,” you tried desperately to reason with the man, but it seemed to only push him further away.

König’s eyes flashed wide with rage before quickly melting to passive melancholy.

“So you don’t care about me,” König whimpered.

Your heart broke into heavy glass shards that scattered the floor, upon which you scampered with bare feet as you hurried to his side.

“No, I do, I really do,” you assured him, “I’m… I’m sorry,” you conceded, “I shouldn’t be like this. I mean, you’re right.”

König perked up slightly.

“You’ve done so much for me and I’ve just been taking and taking and all you keep doing is giving and-” you shook your head remorsefully, “it’s just me being stupid. You’re probably right, and I probably do need help after all.”

“Are you sure?” König asked carefully, “you seemed so certain…”

“I’m sure,” you affirmed, “you’re not asking for too much at all. Let’s just go.”

König nodded and patted your head softly, “That’s my little pet. You’re always so good for me, aren’t you?”

I am, you wanted to say, but you kept it to yourself.

“Let’s just get these cuffs off,” König muttered as he stooped impossibly low to the floor. He held up your ankles, and with a twist of his wrist and a resounding click, you were free.

König rose up again and clasped your shoulder in one baseball glove-sized hand, “You’ll be good for me?”

“I will,” you said.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Then let’s go.”

—

He led you up by the scruff of your neck, guiding you blindfolded along like a scraggly cat that he’d managed to lure out of some back alley that had been long forgotten by time. The entire way you couldn’t help but feel minute and worthless in his grasp. Occasionally you wormed slightly when he was a bit rough, but he was quick to adjust and put you at ease. He was a surprisingly sympathetic captor, all things considered. 

It was pleasant, though. A part of you felt almost as though you were getting a neck massage as you walked. So focussed were you on the hands on his neck that you missed the lingering smells through each room.

You came up a flight of stairs and then down a hallway before you were pushed into a tiled room. You stood still as he gently took the fresh linens off your eyes to reveal the room to you.

You took a moment to look at the clean white and black minimalist bathroom. A shower, a toilet, a sink. All perfectly clean and tidied. There was not a speck nor smell present to offend you. Instead, it was as though it had been scoured to an inch of its existence. There was a scent of his cologne hanging in the air, instinctively setting you at ease.

“Sit there,” König ushered you to sit on a white wicker stool by the toilet, “I’ll get the water running for you.”

“Do you want any help?” you offered.

“No need. Just sit back and relax while I get it ready for you, okay?” König turned on the tap before shutting the glass door.

You drummed your fingers on your lap. It still surprised you how the bathroom was surprisingly neat and well kept. Clean slate tiles covered the floor before giving way to wood plank walls, as was custom to the rest of the home. Dark, rustic, powerful. That seemed to be the theme of König’s home. Looking at König as he pulled some towels from a closet to put them into a dryer, it seemed to fit him well.

“When you’re finished, they’ll be nice and warm for you,” König reasoned as he tossed the second puffy white towel in.

“You don’t need to do that for me,” you insisted but König wouldn’t have it.

“No, pet, this is more than necessary,” König grunted as he pulled himself back up to his full height before turning to you. Despite the mask, you could see the softness of the smile that crossed his features.

You gave him a smile in return. He seemed to rejoice in your kindness.

“Well, we can’t have you showering in those clothes,” König told you as he stepped forward to you.

You winced. You tried to hide it, but König was perceptive as ever, and leaned back to give you some breathing space.

“I’m sorry pet,” he held out a hand to help you stand, “but it has to be done. I promise it won’t be so bad.”

You patted your grease-ridden hair, then sighed and took his hand. He hauled you to your feet with a single tug that nearly had you crashing into him, only stopped last second by another hand clapped onto your shoulder.

“Sorry,” you chuckled as you righted yourself.

“Never be,” König muttered as he let you go.

You stared at him, waiting for him to turn to give you some privacy, but it seemed he had other plans.

“Aren’t you going to…” you twirled your finger in the hopes he’d get the hint.

“Nein,” König stated gruffly, “what does it matter anyways? We’re sharing the shower.”

“We are?” you stopped midway through pulling your sweatpants down.

“Why not save water?” König offered as he proceeded to pull his shirt off.

Without a second glance, you turned away with a blush coating your cheeks. You could hardly believe the immodesty of this man, but you figured worse could happen. He seemed to be perfectly content with the current situation, at least. Something about how brazen he was in his ways put you at ease.

Without another word between you both, you were both undressed and ready for the shower.

You avoided looking up at König while you stepped into the shower, pretending not to notice how crammed the seemingly spacious shower was now that you were in it with König pressing close behind you. You went to turn back around, but König was quick to stop you.

“Give me a minute,” König whispered into your ear, “I’m not sure I’m ready for you to see me.”

“What do you mean?” you asked.

“I can’t wear my mask in the shower, can I?” König chuckled behind you.

You flushed and turned to stare straight ahead at the shower rod. A large hand reached overhead to grab a bottle of shampoo and tug it down into your hands.

“You’ll need this,” König stated as you took some from his hands.

The feeling of scrubbing the thick layer of oil that had soaked your head for weeks free of your hair was practically euphoric. Just as you were getting into a rhythm, König swatted your hand away. You were about to grumble something when König pressed his hands into your hair. 

He reverently pressed down into your scalp before he began to massage the suds into your hair, careful to avoid the mats that had formed in your time below the surface of the earth. He was careful with you, delicate and thoughtful in how he handled your form. You’d become a shell of yourself, and yet here he was to fill you with warmth and kindness in abundance. He worshiped you where you stood. He bathed you in his unending love as he rinsed the shampoo from your hair. You felt like you could fall asleep standing up with him working his way through the strands of your hair.

And just as he gave, he took his hands away to scrub his own head of hair. You nearly turned around to look, but he gently pushed you to face forward.

“Not yet, pet,” König murmured as he scrubbed the suds through his hair.

You nodded and kept your eyes forward. It was the least you could give back, right? It wasn’t like he asked for much in return, anyways.

Finally, König’s hand came forward to put the shampoo down and pick up the conditioner.

“Here,” he offered you a dollop onto your outstretched hands.

He took some for himself, then returned to scrubbing your hair.

“It’s nice to clean up, isn’t it?” König chuckled.

You nodded mutely, simply taking in the feeling of König’s hands in your hair. You were only barely able to keep your footing beneath you as you slumped into König’s hands. You’d never known affection like this before. You wanted to fully take it in, absorb it into your skin, tattoo it into your veins so that with each beat of your heart you’d feel this warmth again.

König’s hand came forward again, but this time he took some soap and a washcloth.

“I’ll do myself first, but then I’ll take care of you,” König told you as you heard the pop of the cap of a lid.

You waited patiently as you looked forward. You could hear the sound of the cloth against König’s skin as he cleaned himself. Instead, you allowed yourself to absorb the steam of the shower, soaking up the warmth as the water pitter-pattered against your skin. You closed your eyes and let the water stream freely down your face. In that moment, you were not a person kept in the basement against your will, but rather you were someone sharing a shower with your lover. Did you really wish for König to be your lover? It was certainly preferable to what he was currently.

Bringing you from your reverie were König’s hands grasping your shoulders.

“Please, please let me do this,” you could feel König press his chest into your back, “please…”

You held your breath as you waited for him to move.

“Say something.”

You closed your eyes again, “Go ahead.”

His hands traced over you reverently, passing over the curves and slopes of your body with a different washcloth, this one a dark grey. He was gentle with his movements, careful not to stray in one place too long before diligently moving on.

He started with your back, carefully mapping out the muscles that curled along your spine. He pressed down in certain spots, easing some of the tension you didn’t know you’d been carrying. You couldn’t stop yourself from arcing into his greedy touch. He relished in your abundant cooperation, having clearly dropped your dignity by the door with the rest of your clothes. You couldn’t care less that he could see your whole body. Not anymore.

He stepped closer until you could feel the bottom of his chest against the back of your head, changing to take the time to wash your front. He lowered himself and hung his head beside yours, breathing in deeply through his nose before letting his breath fan over your form with the rising steam. He heaved in your scent, basking in your radiance with each breath he took. You could feel the stubble along his jaw as he finally dropped his chin onto your neck, nearly bending in half to do so.

You allowed him to brush over your skin, your breath hitching when he drew his hands over your chest, though thankfully he was quick and efficient with his cleaning. Methodical, painstakingly thorough with his ministrations over your body, but dignified in his efficiency. Even when you mewled and twisted away, he only calmly reigned you in and continued. He was patient with you in ways nobody had ever been with you.

His hands caressed your behind before reaching around to your womb. You opened your eyes and looked down. There his hands were, resting on the pouch of your stomach with a washcloth in his right and your skin in the left. You watched his hands dip down before they cupped you carefully. You held your breath as you watched him carefully caress you, intimate in his touches but cold in his temperature.

And just as he started, he had finished and was trailing over to the rest of your body. You relaxed against him and into his front, where you felt his hair and muscles press against you. Thankfully, that was all, though you suspected that if König weren’t nearly half as careful as he was now, you’d find much more under your touch. As it was, König was mindful to pull his waist back when he’d finished and allowed you to scrub the conditioner from your hair, as he did with his own.

Soon the shower was turned off and a towel was handed to you.

“For your hair,” he explained as he stepped out of the shower.

You thanked him lightly and got to drying yourself down. When he told you it was safe to get out, he greeted you with another warm towel wrapped around your core. You looked up to find he was tucking himself into his pants, a mask on his face. You turned at the obscene sight with a flush on your face, trying to forget the sheer mass he was working with.

Instead, you focussed on the warm towel in your hands.

“You’re right,” you murmured as you held it close.

“About?”

“The towels in the dryer,” you supplied.

“Ah,” König nodded, now covered in his mask, “I thought it might be.”

Once you were dry, he provided you a fresh change of clothes for you to dress yourself with. Thankfully, he allowed you to change in peace, focussing more on pushing himself into a confining uniform of sweatpants and a t-shirt that looked a size too small, though you wouldn’t dare mention it to his face. After all, if you were to be held captive like prey, why not appreciate the wolf’s clothing?

Soon you were both finished, and König was ready to take you back to the basement.

He led you there, now fresh and clean amongst the dark dinginess that surrounded you.

König looked at you strangely after he’d finished putting your ankle back in the cuff.

“What’s wrong?” you asked quietly.

König blinked and looked away suddenly.

“König?” you pressed further.

He looked at you longingly before tearing himself away to make his way upstairs. One he reached the precipice, he allowed himself one final look at you.

“You’re too beautiful to be kept here.”

The door closed behind him, leaving you to wonder what he meant.

Chapter Text

Showers became more regular with time. They became a sweet relief from the dingy basement, a chance to feel the sunlight on your skin, albeit filtered through the windows, or at least that’s what you hoped. Still though, he kept your eyes covered when he walked through the rooms.

While walking, you took the time to focus on the other sensations you felt. The warmth of the sunlight was the most obvious experience. Each time he took you up, you’d be greeted by a spectacular warm feeling. You flourished in it, subtly stretching your muscles out like a cat in a puddle of afternoon sun. It quickly became your favourite part of showering, and you made sure to focus on it as long as you could, lest the other senses invade your mind.

When you walked, you passed over hardwood, then cold tile, before rustling over a layer of thin, worn carpet that covered the spiral staircase which itched your sensitive bare feet. On some days, it felt damp all over, as though it had been freshly cleaned with a steamer. On those days you wished you’d just stayed in the basement.

But the carpet wasn’t the worst of the senses you faced. It wasn’t sound either, with the hum of a household and his off-pitch humming as he walked from room to room. In fact, on some days you could argue that the sound was comforting. It wasn’t the weight of his hot palm on the back of your neck.

It was the smell.

When you thought of the smells, you tried your best to focus on the smell of the man beside you. König always smelled comfortable. A mixture of smoke and something piney that combined under a layer of human essence. Something intangible but not entirely unpleasant. It reminded you of the body wash he used, and as such became an emblem of cleanliness and a stab at freedom. Sometimes, when you passed through the tiled room, you smelled something cooking, dinner for the night usually. Always savoury and always herby, it made you salivate as you passed. When you walked up the stairs, you passed by an area that always smelled a bit musty, papery. You had to wonder if he kept a library in his home.

Those smells were all welcome. 

It was the other smell, the one that lingered in a large open space on the main floor, that unsettled you to your core. One that even though you knew he wanted you to ask about, you refused to say a word.

Iron.

Old, faded, sometimes fought back with the sharp smell of bleach or some other harsh chemical cleaner. It lingered there, sometimes stronger, sometimes fainter. Every time you passed you tried to hold your breath.

The discovery of the smell wasn’t the only thing that changed in your new household.

König seemed to have taken a particular interest in keeping you occupied.

You didn’t want to think about the amount he invested in picking up various crafts and hobby supplies to litter around the basement. He bought tables and chairs to help situate you. If it wasn’t something to do, he was buying you something to make the basement a bit more homely. You hadn’t really taken notice of his newfound interest in decorating until he brought a lamp down for you.

“What’s this?” you asked as he set it on one of your desks.

“A lamp?” König laughed, “isn’t that obvious?” 

He hummed and then added, “Maybe I’ve kept you down here for too long…”

You wanted to agree, but you were too curious about this latest addition to say anything.

“I thought it might be easier to do some sewing if you could see a bit better,” he said.

Ah, sewing. König was very keen on teaching you to sew. He had books for patterns, books for reading patterns, books for knots and books for all the stitches you could ever want for. Of all the things he provided, he’d been most generous with the sewing supplies. As a result, it tended to be the activity you gravitated towards most.

“So you’re getting me a lamp?” you asked as he set it in the corner.

“Of course,” König said as he flicked it on, flooding the basement in a wash of warm light.

Your eyes widened ever so slightly. All of a sudden, the dreary basement you were shackled within became a cozy home to rest in. The entire atmosphere changed at the flick of a button.

“You like?” he asked.

You nodded quickly, “I love it.”

“Then I’ll get you more.”

True to his word, he added more and more lights and decorations to make your cage a comfy nest to shelter away in. Candles started appearing in corners alongside an aroma diffuser, left with a few especially select vials. He went out of his way to put a thick blanket over the back of the sofa and topped it with a selection of plush pillows, adding more as you needed. The cold cement that bit at your feet was soon covered in a lush carpet that you enjoyed sinking your toes into.

It was all so… Homely. You could feel your mind slipping into strange corners.

Sometimes, you thanked him. Not out of a need for survival, but because you were truly thankful and appreciative of his generosity. It was easy now to see him as not just a captor, but as a denizen of this household. Slowly but surely, you began to feel like a treasured guest in his home.

The thoughts lingered in the back of your mind, no matter how much you tried to beat them back. They were relentless, always whispering to you that maybe, just maybe, being kidnapped was actually a blessing for you.

You didn’t need to work anymore. You could put all your attention into focussing on personal projects to keep yourself busy. König had even provided a little whiteboard for you to plan out your steps when you needed more thorough planning. He seemed to take pride in each and every task you crossed out or checked off. Each time you did, he’d praise you for your hard work and ask to see what you were working on. You told him it wasn’t ready, but he insisted either way.

His pure and unadulterated joy at seeing your work made your heart skip a beat. Nobody had ever cared so much about what you did before. He would take each bracelet you wove up to the light and admire the beauty he found within each knot and bead. He would always give it back with a sort of sacred reverence, thanking you for letting him see something so beautiful.

It was hard to see him as a monster when he acted so sweet. You had to keep reminding yourself that this was only temporary. At some point, you’d try to escape. You were sure of it. You couldn’t be kept here forever.

And yet, escape was always the furthest thing from your mind as you went through your day. Sewing and crochet took up so much time that you ended up losing track of time. Sometimes, you’d work through the lunches you spent with König as you watched a show together. Of note was the way he always made sure to stay clear of your work, lest he possibly spill a crumb onto your next masterpiece.

Seeing how much he liked your sewing, you went out of your way to work on more little mini shirts and skirts. He always seemed to like the little doll’s clothing you made the most.

“Do you like it?” you asked as you held up a little frilled skirt.

He admired all the tiny stars you’d embroidered with a faraway look in his eyes. It took him a moment to realise what you said, and when he did he gave you an eager nod.

“I tried to put in some constellations I remember,” you pointed at a little spot, “that’s Orion there. I think I put Pegasus in too. Oh, yeah, it’s right there.”

“You put in a lot of work,” König marvelled as he flipped it over in his hands.

“It’s just a shame I don’t have anything to do with them,” you sighed.

König stilled. He took the skirt and brought it up to the light and hummed.

“Everything okay?” you asked.

He let his hands drop to be able to look at you.

“I could give you something to do with them,” he said so quietly you worried you might have misheard him.

“What?”

“I said I could give you something to do with the little clothes you like to make,” he said more certainly.

You laughed, “would you give me little dolls or something?”

To your surprise, König nodded.

“I like to carve things,” he said as he put the skirt back on your sewing table, “like toys. I especially like making little dolls. They’re…” he hummed, “it gives me something to do. Carving was always available, even when I was working. I could always sit down with a knife and do some work between tasks. Nobody wanted to argue with a man with a knife, so I kept carving and it kept people away and I was happy.”

“Do you do a lot of carving?” you asked, intrigued by this new facet of your kidnapper.

“I do. It takes up time, and I like painting them when I’m done.”

You took the skirt in your hands and looked at it. You glanced back up at him and wondered, “Can I see?”

König blinked.

“You want to see some of my work?” he seemed a bit taken aback.

You nodded.

He looked… confused, would be the best way to describe it. His shoulders weren’t squared and strong like usual and there was a definite uncertainty in his eyes. He seemed to be stooped over and worried, his entire body looking as though it would collapse under the sudden change in demeanor.

He glanced over to a corner and then back at you. You could see the questions working through his eyes before he finally took a deep breath and steadied himself.

Without saying a word, he lifted himself up and walked over to where the desk sat. That desk. The one under the tools with all the torture-no, carving knives.

He pulled out a box you hadn’t noticed beneath it, and from it he took out a wooden totem of some sort.

Or at least, it looked like one until he brought it over for you to get a better look at it.

You gasped in wonder. 

He put it on your desk, then sat back for you to admire it.

“It’s…” you blinked in wonder, “this is amazing.”

He chuckled, “I’m glad you think so. It took me months to finish this one.”

“The details in the fur, and the eyes, you carved them so well, I’m-” you shook your head, “I didn’t know wood could even look like this.”

“When you stain it right it, sure,” König shrugged, “it just takes some getting used to. That wolf took me ages to finish. I kept getting lost in the ruff around the neck, but once I figured that out, it was easy enough to finish,” he furrowed his brows and muttered, “actually, I’m still not sure if I’m happy with it.”

“Don’t you dare change it,” you muttered, “it’s perfect like this.”

König laughed, “Well, if you say so. I’m glad you like it.”

“Do you just make these, or do you do anything with them?”

“I go to a little market in the village to sell them,” König said and picked up the leaping wolf again, “they go for good prices. I don’t really need the money, but it keeps me occupied.”

“Are they all about this size?” you asked.

“Some are bigger,” König said, “most are smaller. As I said, I like making toys.”

“So…” you glanced down at the skirt in your hands, “you could make some dolls for my clothes?”

He put the statue back on the desk and then sat back down. He leaned back and said, “If you’d want to help me make some toys, I would appreciate it.”

You nodded eagerly, making him laugh.

“Then I’ll move my main workshop down here,” König said.

“This isn’t where you usually work?” you asked.

“Not at all,” König shook his head firmly, “I have a room upstairs I like to use. But, if it works out, I’ll bring it all down here and we can start working together.”

“Promise?”

Your voice sounded so small and hopeful. You didn’t know why you said it like that.

“I promise,” he assured you.

You felt a cozy warmth in your chest that you tried to stamp out the moment you noticed it. 

Unfortunately for you, the hope was too strong to snuff out.

Chapter Text

Once, maybe you could lie to yourself and say that you hated what your life had become in that dimly lit basement. You still tried to, but each warped reputation of the lie strained your tongue and your body ached with each act of resistance you made. Every time you begged for your freedom, you felt a little bit more hollow. Was it because you knew you couldn’t run, or was it because you were happier here than you’d ever been in years? Maybe the happiest you'd ever been, full stop. And why wouldn't you be?

After all, here you had everything you could want for at your fingertips. You had all your hobbies and crafts set up on a multitude of neatly organised tables around you and you had your own tv mounted to the wall to watch various streaming services whenever you so pleased. You still had a never-ending pile of books to read through. You could turn the tv up as loud as you wanted without any fear of complaints from your crotchety neighbours. He even gave you the means to clean your own space if you wanted to. You were perfectly at peace here.

Or at least, you thought you were. That’s what you kept telling yourself. 

It was absolutely perfect. It had to be.

König was sweet and loving, but you knew that each choice you made was not your own. He'd already decided which option you'd take long before he ever presented it to you. He knew you so well that he could predict your every move, down to when you'd be hungry or when you'd want to lie down and rest. The worst part about all of it was that there was a small (large) part of you that loved leaving it all up to König. You didn't trust him, but you were content to be strung along as he desired. It was comforting, in a strange way.

And yet still you felt lost.

You thought you kept it fairly close to your chest. You were a good liar, weren’t you? You lied to your coworkers when they asked about your weekends and you lied to your parents when they asked how you were doing. You lied to your ‘friends’ when they tried to urge you to go out to the bars with them instead of lurking in the recessed shadows of your home. If you were so good at lying, then why did König seem so distant around you?

With the passing of time, you noticed König had been acting different from his usual self. He was no longer eager to see you at least three times a day. At one point, he’d nearly tripped over his feet as he hurried down the steps to bring you your allotted meals for the day, or just to provide you a bit of company. The meals he gave had once been rich and filling, but lately they seemed lackluster and insipid in their watery flavors.

You kept waiting for him to move his workshop in, but he never did. You wondered what was wrong. When you asked, he only changed the subject. 

Maybe that’s what was wrong. König had been dodging your questions. There was no shine in his eyes when he looked at you. It felt like he looked right through you. His hollow eyes had you thinking things. Things you weren’t quite ready to think about.

Was he just feeling down? Maybe that’s what was wrong. His meals had decreased in quality, or so you believed. There was no way you could possibly tire of his decadent cooking, could you? That’s impossible. It had to be him. He had to be putting less effort into his meals. 

What worried you was how he spoke to you. It was no longer with the same unhinged fervent energy that you were used to. Where he once peppered you with questions and comments as he hovered around you while you ate, he had begun to sit quietly beside you as he asked you strange questions about how you were feeling, what you wanted to do, all sorts of pesky questions that only served to frustrate you further. 

Once, he loved to watch you eat. Sometimes, he’d even go so far as to bring his own plate down and eat right alongside you. On those days he might go so far as to light a tealight and put it between you, you sitting on the bed with your plate on a tiny foldable tray and him sitting in a chair across from you with his own dinner on his lap. You never saw his face, but you always saw the smiles in his eyes. Now they were dull. He would still light a candle, but they burned out quickly. He seemed disinterested, or did he seem too interested? You couldn't make up your mind. His eyes haunted you when he watched you.

His eyes. As you peeled the skin from your overgrown cuticles, you realized that it was his eyes that you missed the most. Not his dinners, not his kind words, not his silly off-kilter jokes or his awkward shuffling. You missed the light that he once held within those eyes. Eyes of winter ice and sapphire fields, now dead and empty with dry bones and rotten meat left out in the baking sun. He had been a savior bathed in a glorious light, but now he was encased in shadows.

You clutched your hands into tight fists.

Here in this basement you festered in a toxic stew of isolated madness, found trapped in the dust caught in spiderwebs that huddled in the corners and found within the toothbrush that lay abandoned by the bathroom sink. You would live and you would die in this hole, just like the many who came before you and the many who will come after.

That’s what haunted you the most: those who come after you.

You’d enjoyed this basement so much; it was safe and warm like a mother’s womb. However, with each gentle brush of your greasy hair from your face and plead for you to look at me, bitte, look at me just one more time only for you to look up and see nothing but a pair of empty glass marbles fixed in fleshy sockets. He must have only asked you to eat more of the slop he made as a form of torture. That must have been why he smiled when you forced in another mouthful.

You hated how his voice had changed. Once he had been all over you, but as days rolled into nights into longer days, it sounded like he was afraid of breaking you. Whenever you turned your back on him, he didn’t try to turn you around and beg you to speak to him anymore. He’d given up on that long ago. Now he just let you rot with all the other bodies that had passed through this basement.

You figured he was getting bored of you. You knew what that meant. Every meal he brought down for you, you couldn’t help but wonder if it would be your last. Your time was closing in, and at this point, you were eager for it. You were just sick of waiting for him to make the decision. And so, you forced your hand. If it’s what it took, you’d make the decision for him.

So when he tried to hold you close you recoiled from his loving touch. It was just another ploy to lure you into submission before he slit your throat. Maybe he thought it would be more entertaining if you loved him when he killed you. It was obvious he wanted to see the betrayal in your eyes as he slipped his knife under your fingernails and flicked upwards. You decided that if he would be the one to make you bleed, you wouldn’t dare give him such satisfaction.

You grit your teeth firmly. 

He could play with you for as long as he liked; you wouldn’t give into his games. You knew better.

Heavy footsteps brought your attention up to the stairs.

There he stood, looking down at you as though you were an insect beneath his boot, pitiful in how you squirmed like an insignificant worm as you tried to adjust your eyes to the sudden light. He was still as he observed you, not saying a word as he watched you writhe and suffer in the darkness.

“Is it dinner already?” you spat hatefully.

He tried to soften his steps, but the creaking wood was only so giving under his form. He stepped towards you in small shuffling footsteps, lambs feet in their lightness. 

There was no light in his eyes, only lupine teeth.

“No,” his voice was soft as it was pitchy.

This was different. This was not how things were meant to go.

You huddled against the back wall, furthering yourself from him as you curled in on yourself in the bed. You knew what breaks in patterns meant. You know your days of being fattened up were finally over.

König winced as you hid away from him. What could he possibly expect of you? You’d laugh at him if you weren’t so miserable.

He stepped closer, and as he did tears rolled down your cheeks. His docile shuffle was a predatory gait, the shadow he cast was as long as the souls he took before you. You’d say you didn’t notice how lost he looked, but you couldn’t help but feel a pang of hope. Your life was so peaceful, but all good things had to come to an end. They always did. You’d learned that the hard way too many times to count.

König took his folding chair and swung it so he could sit backwards on it. He hung his chest over the back as he lowered himself to your height.

“You haven’t showered.”

Simple, clinical observation.

“Why should I?”

Defiant in the face of death.

“I’ve offered you a chance multiple times.”

“And I don’t care.”

König sighed and looked away. He looked like a weak little boy. A part of you wanted to comfort him, but just as you leaned forth you caught yourself. This was no little boy. Before you sat a monster in a lambskin. You could see him for what he was now.

“What have you done today?” he asked as though you’d provide an answer.

As predicted, you gave him none.

König turned his head to look at you. His eyes were darkened by the light behind him, casting his bestial form in shadows that clung to him with little claws sprouting from infant hands. He was entrenched in his element, born from nothing and grown in a void that consumed everything it touched. Of course, that included you, child of misery and death and infinite isolation.

“You don’t smile anymore,” his voice was shaky as it was breathy.

“Why should I?” your answer surprised even you.

Quick to dig in with lupine teeth, he immediately asked, “Haven’t I done everything for you? I’ve given you everything, and yet you’re still so sad. What happened to my little pet? Where did she go?”

His words dripped with bleak melancholy that only served to further your anger.

He looked away again, then held up a fist. Immediately you winced, and in turn, so did he.

“I… I know that you’ve been feeling unwell,” he fought against himself to keep his voice steady, “I know how hard this must be for you. I talked to some friends, and they suggested that maybe I overlooked something. They said you might need this.”

At ‘this’, he unfurled the fingers of his fist to reveal a tiny capsule in his ursine paw.

You could hardly believe your eyes. This was it. He was finally doing it. You’d be no more. You sobbed, but inside you felt nothing but relief. It terrified you.

König seemed taken aback by your tears and pocketed the pill into a pouch on his jacket. He sat beside you on your bed and you wailed as you scrambled away.

“Please,” you begged as you struggled against his arms.

König’s eyes sharpened, “Why are you crying?”

You flung yourself against the cage of arms he held you in, “I don’t want to die! Not yet!”

Your words surprised both of you.

König froze, giving you a chance to squirm out of his grasp to fall flat onto the bed. He was silent as you scrambled to the opposite end of the bed, but he was quick to grab your ankle when you tried to run.

“You think I want to hurt you,” you barely heard him over your own sobs.

“I know what you’re like,” you coughed.

König hummed as he dragged you back to him, “And what is that?”

You threw a withering gaze over your shoulder, aimed directly into his eyes, now burning bright with intensity.

“You’re a monster,” you whispered before you resumed your struggling.

König froze. His eyes widened, then just as quickly as it had built up the rage had passed through him. H slumped and sighed. Without another word he dragged you back and pulled you into his lap. He dodged your kicks and punches and was thankful when you sunk your teeth into his body armor rather than the skin just beneath. He held you tight, trapping you in place until you tired and gave into his embrace. Tears dropped from your chin onto his hand.

“I won’t hurt you,” König vowed as he tucked his face into your neck, “I promised you that, didn’t I? Don’t you remember? I won’t ever hurt you.”

“You were just about to drug me,” you sniffled pitifully as you slumped, the energy all spent on futile struggling.

“My pet,” König pressed a kiss against your neck from behind his mask before pulling back, “I’m giving you medication. You’re sick.”

“I’m not sick!” you protested but he quickly shushed you.

“You don’t think so?” König tilted his head, “haven’t you noticed how tired you are?”

You looked at him suspiciously.

“You haven’t been taking your medication,” König took out the pill again, “don’t you recognise this?”

You took a closer look at the pill. As you did, realization washed over you.

“That’s one of my pills,” your voice was but a whisper.

“You haven’t been taking them,” König put the pill away, “I haven’t been able to get them until now.”

Shame washed over you. Of course this would happen. As usual, it was all in your head. It was always in your head. A part of you sparked into an indignant fury, but the overwhelming shadow of shame quickly snuffed out any embers.

“I thought you were going to kill me,” you admitted weakly.

König shook his head and murmured, “No. Never. Not you.”

“But haven’t you kept others like me before?” you asked sadly.

König laughed, “Yes, but she wasn’t here like you. She was given to me, but I didn’t care much for her.”

It was your turn to be confused.

“Really?” you asked curiously, “but then… Why haven’t you hurt me?”

“Nobody ever interested me like you do,” König’s smile pressed into your skin, “I’ve never wanted someone so badly. Everyone… It was all meaningless. I didn’t care. But you? I saw you in the bar, and I needed to get to know you. When you left, I felt… I felt empty. I needed to see you every day, care for you like you needed.

“And then I watched you. I watched you as often as I could, and I realized that you needed me. You needed me just as badly as I needed you. You couldn’t keep going for much longer. It was only a matter of time before you broke. I couldn’t let such a beautiful thing like you break. You’re too precious for that.”

You relaxed into his hold. It wasn’t comforting, but the information helped calm you. If you hadn’t been able to recognize your pill, maybe it would have been different, but as it was you wanted to believe him. You wanted to believe that he truly did care about you. It didn’t make sense, but you still wanted to believe him.

You took the pill from him and a swig from your water bottle.

“You promise you won’t hurt me?” you asked as you allowed yourself to curl into König’s side.

“Never,” König promised, “you’re my little pet. I’ll always keep you safe.”