Todesengel - Ch. 1
translation: angel of death
Obsessed! Hitman! König (COD) x Gender Neutral Reader Summary: Listless, discharged from the army and working a dangerous job, König is ready to end his life in the forest before heaven drops you into his lap. Trigger Warnings: Depression, Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Neurodivergent Reader, Familial Trauma/ Death mention, minor character death, Implied Physical and Emotional Abuse, PTSD, Unhealthy relationships / DARK romance, angst (with a possible happy ending?) erotic, jealousy, possessiveness, obsession, stalker, explicit language, suggestive content, Violence, Blood, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut a/n: story / background world building with you in this universe, plus you and big man's little reunion. We start slow... but trust the process beloved.
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Chapter 1 | 3.9 words | 'angel tears'
It was all so wrong.
You weren't supposed to return to your hometown. You were supposed to have broken out into the big, wide world. It had so much more to offer you beyond this stupid city.
You worked to the bone in high school to keep up in academics. You were never good at socializing. After a while, you stopped trying. You kept your head bent over your textbooks. You allowed connections to wither in favor of academic achievement. You were successful for the most part. You managed to move to another town for university on a scholarship. For a few blissful years, you were free, untethered. Life is laid out before you in an enticing banquet of opportunity.
It wasn't always perfect. You struggled with your own mental, emotional, and financial setbacks. Getting older only made you worse at interacting with others. The complex, head-scratching art of forming genuine relationships got more remote. Interactions with others made you feel alien. You constantly overthought every movement. So you stopped going out. You hated and regretted instantly whatever fell from your mouth. So you stopped talking.
The effort exhausted you. You kept ignoring calls and texts until your phone fell silent. You kept yourself wrapped in aching memories of your childhood as an excuse. You pushed everyone at an arm's length. You kept going until you didn't know how to be near anyone.
Despite everything, you made it work. For a little while. You were like an old cartoon. You kept running off the cliff; you could keep going, going, going, and you wouldn't fall as long as you didn't look down.
Then your Grandmother got ill.
Your parents were part of your life for a bit. But that was a long, painful story. Your early childhood remained a bottomless black pool at the edge of your mind. You tried to steer clear of it, for your sanity's sake.
Since you were thirteen, you and your grandmother were thick as thieves. She raised you. She was your best friend and knew everything about you. She was keen to know how bad you wanted to leave your hometown. So she didn't send for you at first. She let you fool around and live your stupid young life until she was barely clinging to this earth.
It was as if the engine that kept you existing as a regular human sputtered and died. You dropped everything for her. You quit your job in your new city. Then you moved home to take care of her, only for her to pass a few months later. Despite everything, you didn't regret for a moment being there with her as death collected her in her sleep.
After it was over, you did not leave your childhood bedroom for days. Hours of sleeping and staring at the ceiling. You sat listless under the pelting water of a shower. The water turned lava hot until it was icy cold. Mundane gray spools of unwinding time.
The world had been unkind to you and would continue to be unkind. The war had ended. Then the economy stagnated. A classic symptom of the good old complex short-circuiting without its purpose. You had nothing. No job, just a bit of money, and your old Grandmother's house. Nothing to sell, the house filled with things of nostalgic value only to you. Leaving was too hard, but staying was driving you insane.
Months blended into one another. Mundane gray spools of unwinding time. In the cruel summer, you could not bear to leave the house. As the year slouched towards winter, you could not stand to be home. You spent long days out in the library, lurking in stores. You bought nothing, read everything. You charged your phone in cafes, dozed on park benches. You lingered at a diner at all hours.
The forest just outside of town, you had stumbled upon by accident. You didn't stray from the popular, easiest trails. You never stayed longer than when the sun had begun to dip from its highest point. To give yourself more time as the days shortened, you began to slip out there in the mornings.
One day, something dark and soft had fluttered onto the trail you took. At first, in the distance, you thought it might be some injured animal. You walked closer to discover it was cloth. Hand-sewn seams with cut-out red streaked eyeholes. You didn't have time to be chilled by the ominous thing. You caught a glimpse of that hulking figure on the ridge. It was pure luck. He was barely visible. A dark outline perched on the ridge sloping along one side of the path.
Just that once, you stepped off the trail.
It had been a week or two since then. You never saw that man before or since. He was literally a giant: It would have been easy to spot him anywhere. Maybe he worked on the base and lived there too? It made sense; he wasn't local, or at least his accent implied so. The military base was large and attracted international attention. People worldwide flocked to it. But they usually remained on the sprawling army base that civilians could not enter.
Admittedly, the clear distinction between him — his height, especially — and the population of your hometown snagged you, drew you in. You let your mind wander about where he might have come from, what he was doing here. As you mentally reexamined the encounter, questions had begun to crop up: what exactly was he doing up there, holding that gun so tightly? Was it even hunting season this time of year? You didn't care to know about such things. You abhorred violence, and guns made you nervous. Your thoughts inevitably trailed out into darker things, possibilities that sent shivers through you…
The cold slates of his eyes as he donned the mask (try as you might, you couldn't remember any features other than the flaming auburn hair and his blue eyes). The memory suggested something deep inside you - an animal instinct. A little pinprick of alertness, of danger. He smiled - at least you think he did. His voice was soft as cotton, with a hoarseness implying his usual tone was much rougher.
Ja, Danke.
I was looking for this. I thought it was lost.
It's nice, right?
And, oh, those scars on his big, big hands, the columns of fingers gently picking up the cloth from your own hand…
A bell jingled, disrupting your fantasy. It was the sound of the diner's employee shutting the door. She turned to click off the humming 'Best Coffee in Town' neon light perched in the window. Then she flipped the sign so the Closed side faced outward. The waitress then glanced at you pointedly. Another server behind her was sweeping and putting up chairs.
Embarrassed, you stood up with a scrape of the chair behind you. Stupid, inconsiderate you. A leech on these people's time and patience. You had lost yourself in your daydreams again and sighed softly.
You were buoyed by how oddly pleasant that interaction was, with that giant in the woods, if a little strange. You preferred letting your thoughts slip to him and his mystery rather than the plethora of problems screaming for attention in your life.
"Goodnight," You said softly in passing to the waitress, who grunted and opened the door, closed and locked it behind you with a soft click.
The parking lot was almost deserted, save the cars you figured were the employees, and your grandmother's - yours, now - old gray hatchback, fallen leaves skirting over the roof, fogged yellow headlights.
You pressed the button on your key fob, but nothing clicked in the door. You had to take the key and physically turn it in the lock to open the driver's door. When you did, no interior dash lights came on.
God damn it.
You must have been stupid and left a light on. You slid into the driver's seat, the door still open, one of your feet still on the pavement. Your phone informed you that the emergency mechanic shops had closed, and a tow would overdraft your bank account so severely you wouldn't be eating for a few days.
There was no one to call, either.
You could beg one of the diners' employees for a ride home, but they could be going the opposite direction. But how could you? You dreaded the thought of them hating you since you went there so often and had previously kept them from going home with your loitering. The walk home would at least be an hour, and the only light left in the sky was a blood orange streak on the horizon.
You sighed shakily and placed your head on the wheel. This small inconvenience fell upon your shoulders like a ton of bricks, bringing with it an avalanche of repressed emotion you'd stored in yourself for months prior. It was just too much, the cold reality. It seared your chest, hot and painful.
You swallowed thickly, willing yourself, urging yourself fervently not to cry, but the tears came anyway, warm and salty as they slid onto your trembling lips and dimpled chin.
You were alone, and that loneliness had finally come to collect - a gunpowder gray wave, washing over you, swallowing you up.
You wanted to — huh?
You felt a prickle at the back of your neck. Something instinctual and innate, muted but distinct. Presence.
Something was watching you.
You lifted your head and blinked through tears, and for a moment you thought for sure you were going insane.
The giant from the woods stood there in the parking lot.
You blinked rapidly, and he remained, looking over at you from the side of a humongous, darkly covered truck that matched his size.
He was wearing his mask—was he cold?—his dark clothes blending into the night. But he was real, solid.
"It's you?" you said stupidly, not having the mind capacity to say much else with how stunned you were.
He blinked, tilting his head as if he had just recognized you, though just a tad delayed. "Well, well, we meet again." The giant said airily. His eyes wandered about you as you sat in a rumpled mess in the driver's seat. He blinked slowly.
You tucked your head down and scrubbed your eyes rapidly with the loose sleeve of your jacket. White hot with embarrassment. But somehow seeing him made the faucets behind your eyes ease up; the floodgates had opened, and it was too late, big tears falling faster than you could wipe them away. "Uh-" You breathed in sharply. Your face crumpled as you eked out a choked sob.
For being so large, he was bizarrely quick and quiet on his feet. In what seemed like seconds, he had crossed the lot and was inches from you. The giant radiated warmth from his body - you could feel it even from where you sat. He tutted at your tears.
"Easy, easy," The giant said. He was silent for a moment before adding quietly, "Did I frighten you?"
You shook your head no and heard him release a breath of pity, or perhaps relief.
"Du armes," The giant sighed. "Please don't cry, Engelchen."
Still, you hiccuped into your hand, and your shoulders shook with sobs.
His eyes narrowed with piteous concern. One of his thick arms held the car door open, the other leaning against the roof on the other side of the opening. You planted both your feet on the pavement, facing him. His huge body caged you there, close enough to smell him - plain body soap, unremarkable detergent.
"Take a deep breath." He instructed in a low voice.
You haltingly obeyed, letting in a shuddering breath smothered behind your wet fingertips, looking at him through wet clumped eyelashes.
He was staring right back. Expectant.
After a minute or two more of pathetic weeping, you were finally able to choke it down, sniffling into your wet hand. You kept it clasped to your face, deeply horrified that the man before you might see the disgusting visage of tears and mucus that smeared your nose and lips.
Clarity from your calm nerves led you to realize that you had just broken down in front of a stranger. Of all strangers, too, it had to be him. You could've died of embarrassment.
"That's it," He encouraged, words in a soft tone that sent a trill up your spine.
"S-sorry," You whispered hoarsely into your hand, using your elbow to wipe the disgusting excess off your face. You looked down to hide your splotchy cheeks, tucking your chin to your neck.
He removed his arm from the car's roof and crouched, the heels of his massive black boots lifting slightly, the canvas of his pants stretched over the columns of his thighs.
"There is nothing to apologize for." He was so tall, he only had to tilt his head slightly, craning his neck to urge your eyes to meet his. "What is bothering you?"
"My — my car isn't starting." Airing the problem to him immediately made it sound childish and stupid. "And, and—" What could you say? That you were unemployed, stuck in a house you dreaded in a town you hated? That you were crying like a little child over your dead grandparent?
How terribly lonely you were.
You sniffled. Your throat was too constricted to speak, anyway. So you just faced the giant miserably. You looked anywhere but his face. His throat was obscured by the black cloth of the mask that draped down to his shoulders. Even beneath autumn layers, his body was stunningly built, his jacket clearly stretched over muscle. The skin on his hands, which you did see, was rough as the pavement, calloused, and scarred. What was a broken-down car compared to anything he'd been through?
You shrugged. "It's — I can't—"
He shushed you, his fingers ever so slightly nudging your calf. You instinctively tucked your knee up and away from the sensation - making yourself smaller to give him more room, not because you didn't like it. Truthfully, it sent a zing up your leg that embarrassed you. His hand retracted again immediately, giving you the space without question.
He turned his masked head to look at the front of your car, then up and around the door you were framed in, then back to you.
"May I look?" He asked softly.
You blinked, nodded once. There weren't many other options.
You traded places with him. Your car comically shrunk, his great form having to adjust your seat all the way back and down even to slide halfway in, his cloth-wrapped head ducking down, pressing this and that. He turned to you and held his hand out.
Stupidly, you almost put your own hand in his, your fingers hovering above his palm, but — you hesitated, confused. Is that what he wanted?
"Keys," He said patiently.
"Oh," You wanted to kick yourself hard. Why were you jumping to touch him, you weirdo? "Sorry." You scrambled to put your keys into his hands, then tucked your arms to your chest. It was getting cold. The dusk layered the world with gloom.
He pulled his hand to him, and you saw him take a moment to bemusedly thumb through the little charms you decorated your keys with. He put them in the ignition, and the engine did nothing despite his turning the key. Completely dead. He removed himself from the seat and popped the hood of your car with ease, his long torso leaning a bit as he inspected the innards of your vehicle.
He grunted, poking here and there, his eyebrows creased into the eyeholes as they knit together in his concentration. You frowned, coming closer. You looked, too, around the muscle of his arm. Cars weren't your thing. You had no idea what you were looking at. He harrumphed. That didn't sound good.
"I'm fucked, aren't I?" you blurted out.
His large arms rested at the lip of the open hood, his eyes searching. "Not yet. I think I can fix it. But I will need to go home. Get tools," He explained.
You huffed, biting down on your lip, tears threatening to return. He seemed to sense you were working yourself up again and snapped the hood of your car shut. "Now, now." He dared to put a massive hand on your shoulder. "I can take care of it for you, Engel, no problem. "
"But why?" You cried, hesitating suspiciously at his warmth. You stiffened beneath the massive paw of his, swallowing up your shoulder.
How long had it been since anyone touched you?
You really just couldn't believe in the kindness, after the earth seemed determined to kick you down for months now.
The man shrugged, his hand falling back to his side. "You helped me."
"…I guess,"As much as exhaustion tugged at you and you wanted nothing more than to throw this issue into someone else's hands…something still pinched at you. A sensation in the back of your head you couldn't quite identify, ringing bells going off. "But… I don't… even know you."
"Easy fix," The big man answered evenly. "I'm König."
"König." You echoed, and König nodded his head, delighted at your correct pronunciation.
You relaxed some, smiled faintly. You still felt cortisol hot and blooming in your chest, but König's presence, although intimidating, was making you feel just a bit better. Especially now that you know his name.
By then, any light in the sky had snuffed itself out completely. The streetlights had flickered on, casting pools of yellow light onto the pavement.
Before you could think of something to say, König spoke first. "I have something to do early in the morning tomorrow. I can bring my tools and come fix it after. But now, I will take you home. Come."
Your shoulders dropped. You were officially without a car for at least the next day. It didn't sound as if he'd take no for an answer, either, and you relented. "If it's not too much trouble…" You muttered to his broad back. In that moment, you were too distracted by your misfortune to think further about getting in a car with a man you barely knew.
At this point, he was the one you knew best in this fucked up town. Pathetic.
You struggled to convey your gratefulness. Again, it wasn't like you had much of a choice.
With one last sidelong glance, you left your car and followed him to his truck. It was black and waxed and actually looked big enough for him. He went ahead and politely opened the door for you. The truck was lifted, and you had to take his hand to hoist yourself into the passenger seat.
Quite suddenly, a trill of a phone rang into the air. Both of you turned your heads to the sound. It rang once, twice. König was frozen, still holding your hand. His attention and hands left you. He closed the door before you could ask anything. You saw him reach into his jacket and take out the offending cellphone. He answered it in another language. German, maybe? He walked around to the back of the car, his voice low and gruff, practically growling into the phone. Even in another language, you could hear he was annoyed.
So you were right - he did soften his voice when speaking to you. You turned back, looking around. His car smelled new, or clean, at the very least. It was exceptionally tidy. You would be surprised if he wasn't in the military at this point; he was so neat. It was empty, also…except for the shotgun. It rested in its leather holster, laid across the backseat. Now, you stared and caught another detail - a worn box, tucked beneath the seat. Bullets. It made something surface in your mind, a soft revelation from dark churning waters.
He opened the door, and you snapped back forward. At the last minute, something kept him from opening it further, but you could hear it with a bit more clarity. Definitely German.
"Morgen Mittag. Ja. Ich werde da sein," he barked into the phone and hung up.
Konig opened the car door wider. He settled into the driver's seat before he put his keys into the ignition. The engine turned over. As he closed the door, the overhead lights dimmed. Something clunked loudly as the doors automatically locked, sealing you in there with him in the dark of his car.
He did not excuse himself or mention anything about the call. But... it appeared the call had genuinely taken him off guard. He stared ahead, holding onto the wheel with one flexing arm, the phone on the flat of his broad thigh. Thinking. Like he'd forgotten you were there. The air about him changed; it tightened, perceptibly tense as he turned something over in his mind. Who was on the other side of that call, working him up like this?
"König," you said his name slowly. At first, you weren't sure how to say it, but then, "Why are…why did you come here, to this diner?"
König said nothing at first. "I like the coffee here." He replied flatly.
Then his great torso turned, his broad chest faced you. Anything you might have replied or asked further died in your throat. He abruptly leaned closer, one of his hands reaching to your face, closer — closer—
Past your shoulders. He grabbed the seat belt strap behind you and pulled it over your body, clicking it into place. He tugged it until it was flush against you, eliciting a soft, confused noise that slipped involuntarily past your lips. He grunted in satisfaction, then turned and did the same for himself. In smooth motions, he shifted into reverse.
His other long arm draped over your headrest. He took care to look as he pulled out of the parking spot.
"I like their food, too. I was craving it. Bad luck, but good luck also," He took this moment to tilt his head to you, his eyes smiling. He straightened his body before changing the gears again. "Good luck, to be able to see you again."
König lifted the phone from his lap. Without another word, he swiped for a second with his thumb, then handed it to you - an open new contact screen. The sections for phone number, address, and first and last name were all empty, waiting to be filled in.
An instinctive no pressed against the back of your lips, but it stalled out. Not because of König. Were you really ready to face those gloomy hallways, that cold bed? You took the phone from his big hands.
Your thumbs hovered over the keyboard. You tamped down the nagging caution coiling at the edges of your thoughts.
He was being kind. He was helping you. He was returning a favor.
Although it seemed a bit disproportionate to the one you did for him. Perhaps your meltdown embarrassed him. He probably thought you needed help.
Was he wrong?
When you filled it out, König took it back without locking the phone. You watched him read over it, studying your address and, to your surprise, clicked where you'd put your name and swiped through deliberately with his pointer finger. He added an angel emoji and a smiling yellow emoticon with the halo.
Engel.
You mulled over this as König pulled onto the street. You both were off into the night, strapped in place, locked in König's truck.
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translations:
Engel / Engelchen: Angel / Little Angel
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