Todesengel - Ch. 10
'stay awake'
This work IS NSFW - MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. Trigger warnings can be found on the Chapter Index.
a/n: kaboom x 2. Thank you for all the lovely support; I'm so happy on all the kindness and feedback I've been getting. Like I've mentioned before, this fic is the first writing i've ever published publicly....ever .... so... I really have just been soaking up the love. I may not reply, but please know it's because I'm keeping in in my inbox so I can keep reading all your nice messages over and over :) So please keep replying and inboxing me, I love to see it
this chapter is part of a series. Please see the chapter index to read from the start!
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The reality of the Americana landscape was that so much of it was the same.
As much as you hated your hometown, being torn away like this was an awful way to go. But after a few days on the road, fragile, hesitant relief crept in. Distance from the lonely walls and memories of youth, your grandmother, and your life before offered a glimpse of how sick you'd become: an insect trapped in a tacky trap of your own making, suffocating in inertia.
If you drove far enough, maybe you'd escape the dingy fast food signs, washed-out strip malls, and trite patches of grass among seas of roaring asphalt. Dull greens peeked from beneath loaves of snow. Stubborn leaves clung to branches that scraped a colorless winter sky as you sped down the highway.
Yet it all remained, following you, no matter how far you ran.
You hoped escaping it would ease the wound your grandmother left behind, too. But everything was still cast in shadow. Her loss textured everything, her memory around every corner, hazing everything in view. Did your grandmother's death drain all the color from the world? Was everything now doomed to gray-brown oblivion?
You felt something knock at your knee. A wrapping of knuckles. Three times, as always.
"Komm zurück auf die Erde, Engel. Almost there."
You turned your head, pulled from your reverie. König glanced over, your eyes connecting for a moment.
Well, at least, there was also a little bit of blue.
Your head snapped toward the window, stomach lurching from nerves.
Don't be stupid.
Retreating internally was easier than talking, pretending everything was normal with shallow conversation. If König minded, he never said so. Maybe it was easier for him, too. Both of you settled into surprisingly comfortable silences.
König previously claimed you were in charge of navigation, but that wasn’t quite true. You navigated until your phones regained signal, then he took over, insisting on driving to 'the safest destination.' For him, that meant zigzagging across highways, taking random back roads and exits to stay unpredictable. He said it made you harder to track. Clearly, he was experienced at this. You let him lead. You had a feeling that neither of you knew exactly where you were headed.
Strangely, though, that was alright with you. It was kind of what you needed, what you were doing anyway: drifting.
It was also very apparent that your travel companion was exhausted.
No stops along the way satisfied König; he always pushed a little farther—just one more gas station, another rest stop. When you offered to drive, he waved you off, telling you to sleep or watch the map for decent places to eat. At most, he'd pull over and close his eyes for an hour, until some internal clock sent you both back on the road.
The motel he finally pulled into looked no different than the twenty or so you'd driven by. It was wedged between a dollar store and a gas station. a lumpy, L-shaped building with a low roof, unwashed brick, a drained pool, and unfriendly, narrow windows. No rhyme or reason, you suspected he simply recognized sleep deprivation was close enough to killing you both if it went on. When he got out of the car, you did too, eager to stretch your legs. The landscape was bleak sameness: cars rushing by, dirty slush piles of snow scraped into mountains at the edges of the lot.
He tapped your shoulder and quietly asked you to go check in.
"Right now, if I talk to anyone, I will strangle them." He grunted, pinching the bridge of his nose.
König dug in his pocket and handed you a wad of bills so thick it made your eyes pop. You were about to ask him where this possibly could've come from, but he didn't seem to be in the mood for questions, rubbing his temple beneath his hood. Well, he had been doing a lot, so it couldn't hurt to do this one thing for him. You wanted to, even.
Poorly scraped away ice crusted the walkway into the lobby, forcing you to watch every step. A clerk checked you in, reminding you of the waitress at the diner back home. Her eyes, doused in spidery mascara, widened when you sheepishly handed her the wad of cash. "A double, please," you mumbled, rubbing your eyes and stifling a yawn. Hopefully, the shower wouldn't be too gross. In the corner, a mop and hazard-yellow bucket gathered dust. A hint of what your room might look like.
The clerk glanced past you into the lot and offered a surly, lipstick-stained smile. Only when you turned did you understand: König's broad form leaned against the truck bed, stretching; his jacket and shirt lifting and unveiling just a sliver of pale skin before his belt.
Maybe it had been the hours cramped up in the car, and you'd forgotten, but he really was just so large. The forest giant who had swept you into the wilderness, far from home. You were all too familiar with how large he was now, every part of him. Your waist still burned with the feeling of him pushing his thumb against the bone, pulling you down to —Stop. No.
How could you so easily forget he was a killer? That he was violent? You'd reached a semblance of peace, but was it really wise to let your guard down?
König slung his navy backpack over his shoulder and grabbed your bag. You led the way to room #1427, the same number on the key. As you fumbled with the lock, he leaned over you, casting a shadow. Like a bear resisting hibernation, he grunted, herding you inside as he heaved himself through the door.
The smell of mothballs and cheap cleaner rushed into your nose as you entered the little room. Yellowed smoke-stained walls, blinds o match. A table with one chair, a ratty dark carpet hid stains and—of course, of fucking course— one goddamn bed.
"That lady clearly didn't hear me. Let's go get another k-" You almost slammed face first into König's stomach as he steamrolled past you, dropping both the bags and falling face first onto the mattress. He didn't even bother to take off his coat or his boots, his long legs hanging off the bed.
The giant grumbled into the pillow, the springs of the cheap bed shrieking in protest as he crawled a little farther onto it, and pulled his hood off, throwing it somewhere. In a matter of seconds, he was softly snoring.
You kicked off your boots and peeked into the bathroom. Aside from one long, blonde hair in the sink and a rind of scummy soap in the shower, it was tolerable. Hot water hit your skin and drew a groan of relief as you scrubbed yourself raw, finally ridding yourself of the filmy layer that the rest-stop sinks couldn't touch. You rushed through, skipping your usual depressive lingering—the water turned ice-cold within minutes.
Wrapped in a ratty towel, you realized your bag was still where König had dropped it. Steam billowed against the low roof as you peeked from the bathroom. König, a dark lump on the bed, had managed to kick off his boots and toss his jacket aside.
You hesitated. Since your close encounter the other night, it was hard to even look at him without getting nervous. You were no virgin; college and generous amounts of imbibing and trailing after half-acquainted classmates to parties had assured so, but you still felt a childish shyness. Probably because it had been so long since anyone except you had laid a finger on you in that way, let alone grind themselves against your ass and clit until you were seconds from cumming.
But again, König was very dangerous. How could you so easily forget he'd pointed a gun at your throat? Although, you'd started it...
Not to mention he'd already seen you naked, tending to your wounds. Sneaking past him in a towel shouldn't be a big deal. For extra caution, you turned off the bathroom light and navigated the gloom for cover. You scuttled to your bag, set it down, and unzipped it. Underwear, check; shirt, check; but only stiff jeans and pants. The lounge leggings you'd peeled off were too ripe to put back on your clean body.
As quickly as you could, you changed into what you had, but for the sake of your shyness, you kept the towel wrapped around your waist. Double-checking, you glanced back at the bed. You could see the soft rise and fall of König's back. His hair was longer than it had been when you last saw him unmasked; flaming auburn ribbons obscuring the scarred cheeks, unshaven jaw, relaxed in slumber. Trace threads of silver here and there, glinting in his beard.
You'd never seen him so vulnerable before. He'd never let you. Only when his body and mind were on the brink did he break down enough to do so. But you were glad for it. He was much less intimidating this way, and you allowed yourself to take him in much more easily when he wasn't staring right back at you with his cutting gaze.
You fished around in König's backpack and nibbled on the protein bar you found, and gulped down room-temperature bottled water. On the tiny bedside table was the landline. Gingerly, you sat on the very furthest edge of the bed that you could. The bed was unreasonably small compared to his sprawled body; you might as well both be sleeping in the backseat again. That's what you convinced yourself of as you picked up the phone to call the lobby and try to get another room with another bed.
The clerk grunted into the phone. "No vacancies. Good night."
"Well, what about—" Click.
You clicked your tongue and stared into the receiver as it droned the dial tone back to you. Maybe you could pull some pillows and lie on the ground, or in the chair. Or you could wake König up and have him go talk to the clerk. He’d probably be much more effective than your meek, non-confrontational self.
However, it seemed the hibernating bear had other plans.
The bed creaked, and suddenly a tree-trunk arm coiled around your waist, dragging you onto your back. You yelped in surprise.
"So close to the edge. You will fall off." König's voice was hoarse with sleep, his accent thickened, which flushed you all the more.
The loosely tied towel around your waist gave way, exposing your underwear and bare thighs beneath your rumpled shirt. His eyes were still closed, and you experienced again that strength of his pulling you to him like you were his beloved stuffed teddy.
"W-what are you doing?" Your voice broke—gut-twisting, face blazing. You struggled onto your elbows, but he didn’t budge, his arm an iron band trapping you in place. You squirmed, pulse thrumming.
"Why two beds?" He sleepily countered your question with his own, muffled as he spoke from the side of his mouth not mushed to a pillow.
"T-that's what I asked for in the first place!" You protested weakly. "I thought that she'd heard me, but—"
"You don't like to sleep with me?"
The air left your lungs.
"Did not seem so the other night." König rasped into your ear, the smirk almost audible. A challenge.
It was the first time he'd acknowledged what happened; the embarrassment of it combined with the weight of his body sinking into yours buckled your elbows so you lay flat. He took advantage of your acquiescence, snuggling to you and settling back into sleep.
"Unartig. Du riechst auch gut." His breath stirred your ear, slowing as he dozed and held you.
Cool metal grazed your neck—his dog tags, chain pooling against your skin. His hair fanned across your cheek, soft and wild. The scent of him—sweat laced with grass and lemon deodorant—filled your nose, dizzying yet strangely comforting. It had inevitably intertwined with your most recent memories of your grandmother’s house, and it, too, had followed you like everything else.
Helpless, but not quite unhappy, you stared up at the slow-turning fan on the ceiling. What, exactly, was home now?
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You woke to the hiss of the shower, the handle creaking as the water faded. The bed was a mercy after nights in the car, but goosebumps prickled your skin as cold slipped through the drafty door and window. Outside, downy white flakes drifted past rectangles of streetlight that bled onto the walls of the room.
You turned and tossed, searching for the warm weight that had lulled you to sleep. Even this shabby bed was heaven compared to the car seat. You chased sleep on your side, blanket pulled up, cheek pressed to the pillow.
A click—the bathroom light shut off. The door squeaked open. Moments later, calloused fingers brushed your hairline, tucking stray strands behind your ear before retreating.
You opened your eyes. In the weak light, König's bare back glowed—scars and old punctures mapped across rippling muscle, softened by a layer of bulk. Strength at rest.
You wanted to know where all those old wounds came from. You would listen to the story if he told you.
You wanted to touch them.
He pulled on a gray shirt, worn thin at the hem. When he turned, you avoided his eyes—but you knew he’d caught you watching.
"Go back to sleep," He spoke gently. "I will keep watch."
You pressed your lips together hard. Nerves tugged at you, but your emotions, your desire, raw and to the wind, were louder.
"Come to bed?" You mumbled so quietly, you wondered — half-hoped — that he hadn't heard it.
He didn't move at first, and for a few tight seconds, you'd wondered if you'd made a mistake.
After a few heartbeats, he approached the bed. König pulled the blanket back, and you shuddered as your bare legs and part of your stomach were exposed to air.
You opened your mouth to say something, but it died when he put his hands on you.
König handled you like a doll. He clambered up until he sat on his knees. He picked up your bottom half, turning you onto your back. Both of your legs spread on either side of his thick torso, only getting wider to accommodate his size as he loomed over you. His hair hung on either side of his face. What you could see of his hooded eyes were darkened navy irises, low-lidded, and lazily meandering up and down your body.
"I am not tired." He replied finally. "I can't sleep anymore." he leaned down and met your face as you tried to sit up.
König leaned down even more, until his face settled next to yours. He lifted your pelvis easily until it rested on the flat of his thighs so that your core was lifted to him. His fingers dashed over your soft sides and rested at the hem of your underwear.
"Do you want to finish what you started?"
Your jaw clamped shut as he shifted just slightly between your legs, and you felt the warm, blooming, wet sensation in your underwear from what little movement happened. But he didn't move further after he'd asked his question. He was waiting for you.
You swallowed thickly. "Yes."
