Kindred Spirits
Disavowed (Krauser x GN! Reader/Krauser x Leon) - Chapter 10
1999
Krauser wonders what to do about the two survivors under his command.
(Cross-posted from Ao3)
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January 28th, 1999
20:57
Camp Tango, GA
It didn’t feel like winter - much to Krauser’s joy. He’d never liked the cold. All day, the sun had been bearing down throughout drills, through melees and obstacle courses and several-mile marches. Not quite sweltering, but enough to keep him and the men under his command warm. The men he was training to fight mysteries.
Months into this new post, Krauser felt like he’d finally found his footing. Touch and go at the beginning, sure, but now he’d settled into his command comfortably.
Even if the circumstances that brought him here had been anything but comfortable.
Even if he felt like a chicken with its head cut off sometimes, running from teaching one squad to another.
Even if there were still pieces of the puzzle that were missing; that Simmons and Benford refused to give him.
Pieces that had lodged themselves in you and his newest recruit like shrapnel; dug in deep and hard to pull out.
Leon Kennedy was proving to be exactly what Krauser had thought he would be: a stalling force. The kid was a good shot, he would give him that, and knew his way around how guns worked, but that wasn’t enough. For the first few weeks in his time with STRATCOM, the still-healing wound in his shoulder had forced Krauser to adjust his training. By the time he was able to properly join in the drills and take part in any sort of contact sparring, he might as well have been a boy with a stick up against a pack of wolves.
And he was eaten alive by them.
His squadmates had all been Army or Marines. Most had been in those positions for years before moving to STRATCOM, and most didn’t bother to show the one-day cop any mercy. Those that did, that hesitated . . . Krauser trained them out of that bad habit all too quickly.
“Come on, Alenko, you gonna give an enemy a chance to win just ‘cause they’re shit in a fight?” the Major had barked one day, as Leon coughed from a blow to his gut, kicking up dirt around him. “Finish it.” His opponent hadn’t looked pleased with the order, and neither had Leon for that matter.
Good. He didn’t need to like Krauser, so long as he learned.
“Isn’t the fight over, sir?” Alenko asked, a half-hearted attempt to spare his comrade more pain.
And Krauser had just tilted his head in a shrug. “I dunno, Lieutenant. Let’s ask the rookie. You got any fight left?”
More dirt was kicked up in answer, as Leon pushed himself to his feet. In the pale winter sunlight, Krauser could see that anger was what brought him up to raise his knife in a guard once more. Anger at the Major’s words, at the frustration of being overwhelmed or at the fact that he was here at all, it didn’t matter. So long as he had something to keep him fighting.
The younger man bared his teeth, but all the rage in the world didn’t mean much without the skill to wield it. He managed to get a hit in, but a blunted knife was driven into his gut all the same.
And now, in the evening, Krauser could still picture the look on the rookie’s face. One of defeat and shame, yes, but of rage too. Rage that Krauser had felt in a handful of scathing glances the rookie had thrown his way.
He could glare and pout that pretty mouth of his all he wanted. If he couldn’t stand up to an opponent who would offer him mercy . . . what would he do when he was up against someone without it? Someone like you?
In those two months that Kennedy had spent playing catch-up, you had been filing yourself down to a killing edge.
You’d given him a few more details of what happened that night over the last few months, but most of it, he could tell, you didn’t want to speak of. You didn’t want to give it further life by voicing what had happened. No, you were focused entirely on outrunning the shadow it had cast over you. Krauser could see it in the way you seldom spoke to the others in your squad. The stone-like focus you’d carved for yourself as you listened to his instruction. And, most of all, in those evenings when you asked him to spar with you.
You’d gotten better, that much was beyond doubt. Combat was becoming more natural to you. You didn’t flinch away from the knife as much anymore when you circled each other, and you could even land a few hits on the Major when you were focused and fast enough. If you were fighting Krauser alone, you might have actually stood a chance.
The trouble was that you’d made an opponent of yourself.
He saw that much that night, as he caught your wrist in a hold that you couldn’t break, and your eyes burned with self-loathing. He poised his blade to cut your jugular, had it been edged. Had the fight been real.
“You’re getting sloppy.” He pulled the knife away and, immediately, you lunged at him again. Another round, then.
Krauser moved to bat your arm away, spinning his knife into a sabre grip and shoving it forward. His defense didn’t end up mattering, though, as you slashed at his belly, making him retreat. You might have had him, if you’d followed through. If you’d actually reached for him instead of just slashing. Like you were trying to get him away from you rather than going for a kill.
“Come on, you can do better!” he urged, his long legs carrying him forward. The distance between you two remained, though, when you dodged away from his attacks.
You tried to sneak hits in as you backed away - and it might have worked on a less experienced combatant. With the Major, though, all it did was create openings for him to attack. He did just that as you slashed at his attacking arm, only to miss when he flicked his blade down, drawing the implication of a cut along your thigh.
He stopped his advances as you backed away, giving you a toothy smile as you tried to recenter. “Your reach isn’t that long,” he reminded you. “You wanna hit me, you’re gonna have to get in close, Sergeant.”
You didn’t say anything in response, your nostrils flaring. You were angry. Pissed. And it showed in your movements, sharp and forceful. You moved faster when you were angry, he would give you that, your focus sharpened into a single-minded goal: to win. You went for a double feint this time, stabbing left, left, then switching to your other hand to go right. The effort almost paid off, and Krauser gave you a wolf’s grin.
“Not bad,” he praised, feeling the adrenaline that came with a challenge at last, as he delivered a counter cut that you evaded. “Now use my attacks against me!” he went on, going for you again, stabbing straight for your heart.
You backed away from the strike again, avoiding cornering yourself against the officer’s barracks that shadowed your fight. Even so, Krauser didn’t let you get far. He even gave you the courtesy of attacking in the same way, trying to get you to do something. To take advantage.
The effort was better, with you sidestepping instead of retreating altogether. You reached out, trying to grab at Krauser’s wrist, readying your own knife for an attack if you managed to pull off your plan - but the Major was faster. He saw what you were trying to do and pressed his blade down fast, avoiding your attempt and preventing you from striking all in one move. At the same time, his free hand struck out. Were it an actual melee, he would have struck you in the nose or the throat. As it was, he grasped onto the collar of your T-shirt, yanking you hard towards him.
And towards the slash he aimed at your gut.
He saw your eyes widen. Your jaw tense. Your free hand went to block, stopping him just before he could land what would be a mortal blow, and he did just the same when you arced your knife for his throat in retaliation. Locked there for a moment, the two of you breathing hard, Krauser smiled. “That’s more like it.”
Something in your eyes changed, he swore, a flash that was almost too quick to catch. Just as your next movements were.
Your grip on his wrist shifted as you angled your body back, and you pressed Krauser’s forearm against your belly, holding it there. Taking his weapon out of the equation, if only for a moment. At the same time, your other arm pulled back from his guard, and Krauser had nothing to do but block as you stabbed at his chest.
At least, until, now locked side to side, his knife arm pressed against you, he saw his opportunity. The front of his knee collided with the back of yours, and he pushed with all his strength against your torso. A moment later, you were falling backwards, and Krauser was moving down with you. You might have caught yourself on his arm otherwise, but with him following you down, you grunted as your back hit the dirt. Your knife scraped clumsily at Krauser’s side in what would have been shallow cuts before he was on top of you, pinning that blade and the hand that held it to the ground . . .
But you weren’t done. Not yet. He hadn’t put his full weight on you, so you kicked against the ground, sliding up on the dirt. The move allowed Krauser to pull his knife arm free from the hold you’d had it in, just as you brought your leg up and sent him stumbling backwards with a kick to the chest.
One that connected harder than Krauser had been prepared for. One that made him smile all the wider.
You rolled then with the space you’d created, coming up into a crouch before Krauser as he recentered. He avoided your first slash, watching as you used the momentum from the swing to spin upwards. He caught the second strike, though, before it could connect, he caught your wrist and gave a spin of his own. You crashed hard against the wall of the officer’s barracks, and the momentary shock let Krauser bring his knife, once more, to your throat.
The blunted edge couldn’t cut into the skin. As it was, your eyes bled anger rather than your throat bleeding red. You’d been at it for almost an hour already. That didn’t stop you from voicing a single word. “Again.”
Something in Krauser bristled. “That sounds an awful lot like an order, Sergeant,” he said, keeping his training knife against your windpipe, a clear warning in his eyes.
Immediately, your jaw tightened and your gaze faltered. “Sorry, sir,” you said after a moment, with none of the disregard for authority you’d once had.
He should have been satisfied with the deference. He wasn’t.
Lowering his blade, he stepped away from you at last. Shook his head. “You’ve been at it all day. You’re not gonna learn anything if you’re exhausted.”
“I’m fine, sir,” you shook your head, but Krauser cut you off before you could lie to him any further.
“You’re the only one who asks me to take time out of my night to kick your ass, Sergeant. Maybe it would help if you cut the bullshit and told me why.” It was too harsh, he knew. You were trying to get better, he understood that. But he also understood that if Simmons and Benford wouldn’t give him the answers he needed, you were one of the best alternatives. He wanted to know why you were so afraid - why you pushed yourself so hard.
You gave him less than he hoped for, after a moment that was a few seconds too long. “Because I need the help,” you said. “CQC is where I’m weakest.”
“No, it was where you were weakest. Communication’s where your skills are shit right now.”
Again, it was too harsh. He knew that, but he was training you to deal with harsh realities. This lesson would be as important as any other, he knew. So, even as you lowered your eyes again like he’d struck you, he went on.
“You’re never going to improve if you’re training exhausted. And even if you do, you being good with a knife isn’t going to be important if you can’t work with others in your unit.”
“I can work with my squad,” you said, and Krauser scoffed. Your defense was flimsy, and the two of you both knew it.
“You barely speak to anyone.”
“Didn’t realize I had to be friends with them to do my job.”
There you were. Even if it was perhaps the wounded version of you, it was as close to the soldier who’d waltzed up to him without a care. The one who had enough backbone to impress a Major who’d seen too many hotshots in his career. Only now, instead of being the fire that everyone gathered around, you were the one that made home an impossibility.
“It’s not summer camp, I don’t give a damn if you all sing kumbaya together. But people who trust you are more likely to have your back,” Krauser began, some grand lecture in mind that was cut off at the knees.
“People shouldn’t have to watch my back,” you shook your head, and he caught how your voice buckled. How it caved a little under the pressure of something. Didn’t take a genius to guess what. Tomorrow, it would be a year since it happened, after all - since your life had been torn all to pieces. He’d seen enough soldiers with PTSD and survivor’s guilt. Never made it better. Didn’t make the next words you spoke any easier to stomach. “I have to be better.”
He should have just told you to turn in for the night. He knew that he should have. You were just going to keep beating yourself up - or letting Krauser himself do it for you.
But there was admiration there. Too much for Krauser to ignore. You were trying to become stronger, and as much as he could argue that training to the point of breaking didn’t help anyone, he knew what mindset you were in.
“Fine,” he relented. “But after this, I’m going to bed. Some of us still need to sleep.” It was a lie. He would probably be up for another hour, pouring over reports that were half blacked out again, trying to glean what information he could. Because that was how he spent most of his nights, these days. Because in the year since Dorne Base, he’d only been given more questions.
Whatever it was that you were up against, it had made you afraid enough to push yourself this far. To train like the devil himself was on your trail. To give him a look he hadn’t been prepared for as he agreed - one of gratitude.
“Thank you,” you said, the relief in your voice laid bare.
“Don’t mention it,” came his grumbled reply. Because Krauser didn’t want to know how much this meant to you.
You almost had him in the fight that followed - you were a fast learner, after all. Had it been real, you would have given him a few new scars by the end of it. You didn’t win against him in combat that night, but Jack felt little sense of victory for himself as he turned in.
Well, turning in was the wrong word, wasn’t it? That would imply that he didn’t sit at his desk like a fool, cigarette between his lips and a set of blacked-out files in front of him. He didn’t climb into his bed until long after he left you, too busy looking for answers that weren’t there. As predicted.
Too busy thinking that, a year ago, it wasn’t only your world that had changed. He thought that night of what he’d seen at Dorne Base as he lay in bed, eyes moving in the dark. He recalled the mutated bodies, the corpses full of bullet holes outside, and of you, begging to be left to die. Krauser thought of who he’d glimpsed at that ball, and who he’d come to know now, and what had happened to change you so. And as he thought of you and the wounds you’d been dealt, he thought too of Leon. The boy who’d survived a city of death and would be rewarded with a life of more death in turn.
Two sides of the same coin, the pair of you. Both angry, both wounded, and both trying to put together new lives from the wreckage of old ones. You’d fashioned that scrap into something sharp, while Leon was still fumbling with it all. Krauser didn’t feel entirely equipped to help either of you, in truth. He was no shrink - he couldn’t get you out of your own head and he couldn’t give Leon the special attention he needed to catch him up.
But . . . hell, maybe he didn’t have to do it all himself. Maybe the solution to both of your problems was the same.
So as Krauser lay there, staring up at the ceiling, the cool air of winter finally reaching into his barracks, he made a plan.
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