Chapter Text
"And you love him?"
"I think so," she whispered quietly. "He's- he's helping me, I feel more… myself."
"Okay, Alex. I just want you to be happy, you know that, right?"
She- he- Klaus gave a nod.
~~~
Things were good.
König sank into the comfort of his lovers, watched the private checkmark on his calendar come closer – an entire year, since he had first been brought into the 141 and met John and Simon. It felt like it had passed in the blink of an eye, all the events that had transpired between stepping into their home base for the first time to now.
He had come a long way since then, through all the bumps in the road.
The eighth of February, just a year before – it was a wonder how far he could come. From an anxious, twitchy mess with only pent-up rage and sadness to call his own, to… this.
Being able to watch John poke and prod at Ghost while the lieutenant trained up recruits, Simon putting up with his- their lover's antics with a smile hidden in the creases around his eyes.
"König, I'm right, aren't I?"
He was startled from his thoughts by Soap pulling him into the conversation, the man slipping under his arm almost like an excited Labrador. He glanced to Ghost and back down to Soap, only to shrug.
"Depends, how much trouble would I get in if I agreed?"
He was rewarded by Ghost's quiet chuckle and a "good lad" barely heard over Soap's offended squawking. He silenced the sergeant easily enough though, leaning down to kiss his forehead through his hood before pulling him close and letting the man bury his face into his collarbone.
"Schatz, what makes fire white?"
It made John pause in thought, and König grinned as he could almost feel the man's pyromaniac brain spinning gears next to his heart.
"There's a few different ways ye can get white fire, ye ken," he started cautiously, obviously aware that he was being redirected.
"What is the easiest way?" Idly, his hand came up to scratch at the back of the man's mohawk, feeling him relax further.
"Epsom salt and alcohol," he muttered, nuzzling into him further. "Doesn't burn for long though, nitromethane and methanol lasts longer if ye can get yer hands on it."
König hummed and rested his chin on top of the Scot’s head. "Have you tried it before? The Epsom salt?"
"Aye, a few years ago. Burnt the shite out of my helmet." John's chuckle was contagious, pulling the taller into it as the recruits ran by. "Worth it though, made one of the guys think he was seein' things."
"Sounds like you had fun," he murmured, his arms tightening around the sergeant for a moment.
"Aye, I definitely did." Lips pressed to his collarbone through his shirt, and König smiled – there was nowhere he'd rather be.
~~~
It was a few days later when all three of them were woken up by John hauling himself out of bed. The man had been pulled into early-morning training, which meant that he had to get up at a near-inhumane time.
Both Klaus and Simon were given sweet kisses, grumbling as the sergeant tugged on his pants, nearly tripping over the hem of them as he tried to find a shirt for himself. He ended up with one of Simon’s instead, black with blocky white letters spelling Riley over the back.
Klaus could practically feel Simon preening at that and stifled his smile into his pillow – the good thing about a man built like Ghost was the fact that his clothes could still fit on both John and Klaus.
“I’ll see the two of ye lovelies later,” Soap murmured into the room, before the door clicked closed behind him.
It was only quiet between the two remaining for a moment. Then Simon sat up with his own sigh, stretching his arms above his head until one of his shoulders popped with an impressive sound. Klaus simply laid below him, eyes tracing over the muscle straining, rolling.
He didn’t stare, before – not quite as much as he did now. Klaus hadn't felt like he had the right to stare so openly, even when the two had invited him so close that he might as well have been theirs regardless. He had kept his gaze respectful, chaste even; only letting himself stare in stolen moments, and when he was invited along for the so-common, heated nights with the two.
Now he could shamelessly take in everything, and know that both Simon and John were his. He was theirs. He could appreciate the way that Simon moved, biceps flexing as he leaned over Klaus. The gentle roughness of a calloused palm pressing to his solar plexus, his thumb and fingers nearly cupping one breast and holding him down with the barest weight.
“Why don’t we get up as well? ‘S been a while since it’s been just the two of us,” Simon suggested, a slow kiss pressed to Klaus’s lips.
He nearly went limp with the kiss, reveling in the way his mind seemed to fill with soft cotton with Simon leaning over him like this. “Where- do you have something to do?”
Simon gave him another lingering kiss, Klaus soft and pliant against him. “Just wanted to show ya something,” he answered, barely a whisper.
"Alright," Klaus murmured against his lips, a smile pulling at his expression. "Then show me, Lieutenant."
~~~
To his confusion, the Brit took Klaus out on a run. The sun had yet to rise, and frankly he felt almost cheated out of his sweet, lazy morning. It felt like he had unwittingly joined in on Soap's early morning recruit training as his feet beat a steady pattern against the gravel beneath them.
But, though he did know Ghost had a sense of humor, he was sure that the man wouldn't have actually pulled him out of bed so early just for unscheduled training. Not with the offer that he had put out.
So he settled his thoughts and followed the man as the distance was eaten up by his long stride.
One mile, almost two, and at the crest of a hill Simon finally slowed.
He fell into step with the lieutenant, catching his breath with a steady in-and-out before nudging an elbow against the Brit's side. "What did you want to show me, then?"
Simon simply nodded towards the horizon where the sun had yet to rise, the sky slowly turning pale and pink over the rolling hills around them. There were only sparse bunches of trees speckled around the area, a couple of old oaks standing half a dozen paces from where they had stopped.
The realization took a moment to hit, before Klaus smiled underneath his hood.
Simon had taken him out to watch the sun rise.
"When did you find this spot?" He reached out and took the other man's hand, entangling their fingers before he sat down in the grass. It was still cool and dewy, a bit too chill for the way he would usually stretch out in the sun and relax on warm days.
Simon joined him, one of his knees clicking with the movement. "Couple weeks ago. Caught the sunset here, thought maybe the sunrise would be alright as well."
It made Klaus's eyes wrinkle with how widely he smiled. Even if Simon didn't outright say it, he had likely been planning to bring Klaus out here for a while – a quiet moment, just for the two of them.
He squeezed the Brit's hand gently, and laid his head on the other's shoulder. This was Simon's way of showing Klaus that he loved him, his way of making up for all the unspoken confessions of love, where John always seemed to be able to muster the words.
Klaus hoped that one day he would be able to show Simon that he didn't need to say it. As much as he loved hearing the man murmur soft 'love you's, Klaus could only hope he knew that both himself and John could feel every ounce of love he put into his care for them.
Every gentle touch, every cup of coffee beside his own tea, every time he put his body between Klaus and the little, stupid things that scared him when they weren't in the field.
"It is beautiful," he murmured.
"The sun hasn't even risen," the Brit responded with a grumble, his smile audible.
Klaus gave a chuckle. "It does not need to, not when I have you."
He was gifted a small laugh at that, dark eyes flickering over to meet his. Through both of their masks that they had pulled on to get through the base, Klaus saw the affection that Simon held. Sometimes it was a wonder that such emotion was held in reserve for him as well.
"Sappy," Simon muttered.
"Ich liebe dich, mein Süße."
He saw the way that the man's eyebrow quirked up under his mask, curious. "That's a new one. What's it mean?"
"Mein Süße?"
"Mmhm."
Klaus smiled, and pulled his hood off to leave a kiss on the hard-shell cheek of the skull mask. "My sweet."
~~~
The eighth was approaching, and Klaus took a day for himself. A day to plan, a day to rest and hide away from the gentle burn of social interaction.
For now, he had a simple stack of notebook paper that he was practicing on – folding, getting frustrated, but slowly working his way to what he wanted. He hadn't dabbled in origami in a while, the delicate folds and trying to read hard-to-understand instructions and diagrams online.
By the end of the day he had three perfect foxes, tails folded across paper bodies. He didn’t know why the foxes stood out to him, but he was sure that they would be endearing either way. Perhaps it was stupid, but Klaus was proud regardless – it was the best he could do without going off-base, anyway.
Maybe next time.
~~~
The foxes weren't presented to his lovers as much as he simply left them on Simon's desk before joining the two in the mess hall for dinner.
He slid into the space they cleared for him between them, carefully pulling his hood off. There were still people in the room, but it wasn't the usual rush and bustle of the mess hall at the beginning of the serving hour. Between John and Simon, with Gaz sitting in front of him, he felt safe enough to remove it.
"Oh, what have we done to deserve the sight of yer bonnie face, then?" Soap spoke up from his right, grinning around a mouthful of food.
Klaus just laughed, hooking his foot around the sergeant’s ankle. "Perhaps I just decided to treat you today, Schatz."
"Well, I'm not complaining," the shorter man said, leaning closer to steal a kiss that tasted like the stray smear of gravy over his lips.
"Ew, gross, stop being gay in front of my…" Gaz trailed off in his teasing, nose scrunching up as he raised his fork with a chunk of some nondescript meat on it. "Chicken? Is that what this is supposed to be?"
"Pork," Ghost provided helpfully.
"Yeah, stop being gay in front of my pork." Gaz grinned at the two, which only made Klaus grin in return as he leaned down to plant a much more obnoxiously sloppy kiss on Soap's lips. Much to the fake disgust of one sergeant, and the great delight of the other.
Eventually though, Klaus pulled away to eat his own food, and the conversation moved on to other subjects. Safe, loved, and warm with his thigh pressed to Ghost's and his foot still tucked around John's ankle, listening to Gaz talk about some Netflix series that he has yet to finish.
A… family, almost. Brothers-in-arms, and two partners that give him a world of happiness. He didn't know if there was anything more that he could ask for.
~~~
He shrugged off the questions about the foxes, later.
"I wanted to learn something new," he half-lied, smiling at the two of them. It felt somewhat foolish to be embarrassed by them now that he had given pieces of paper as gifts, but that burn was still there. The anxiety would likely never completely leave, but if there's anything that he had learned in the year that he'd known the two men beside him, it was that they would be there to catch him when needed.
Simon gave him a knowing look that he skillfully avoided returning, before the blonde stepped closer.
A gentle, scarred palm brushed along his cheek and pulled his gaze to the man – standing close enough to feel the force of his presence, and Klaus found himself staring straight into rain-dark eyes. Beautiful, predatory, tender.
"It's been a year already, huh?"
Klaus couldn't help the way his head tilted into the hand on his cheek at that. Sometimes he couldn't believe that it had only been a year, with how deeply he had fallen for these two men.
"A year since…?" John came closer as well, leaning into Simon with an arm around the lieutenant’s waist, gaze flickering between the two.
Klaus reached over, curled his pinky in with the sergeant's. "... since I first came here. Since we met."
At that, John looked shocked for a moment – before a grin curled over his face, heady with its brilliance. "Really? Ye kept track of the date?"
"Ja- it was the best thing to happen to me in a long time," he murmured, closing his eyes as Simon's thumb brushed back and forth over his cheek. "Ich liebe euch beide."
"We love you too, darling," said in a whisper against his lips.
~~~
"Forgive me, min forlovede. It won't happen again."
"Okay," he whispered back. His fingers did not shake, did not waver – curled into the edge of his sweater instead, swallowing back tears.
"I'm sorry, Alex. I didn't mean to."
~~~
A soft click of his tongue, a hand carefully held out, and the little grey tabby came trotting out of her hiding place in the bushes to rub a cheek against Klaus’s fingers.
"Oh, yer some kinda cat whisperer, huh?" John smiled at the scene, before slowly lowering himself down to sit beside the Austrian’s crouched form.
"She is very friendly for a stray," the taller murmured. "If she was not so thin I would think that someone had taken her in."
Indeed, the kitten was mostly skin and bones – spine and ribs painfully obvious under her short fur.
"Poor lass, just a wee thing," John reached out and offered the kitten a sniff at his fingers before he gently scratched the top of her head.
Klaus hummed. He knew they couldn't keep the cat, but with a proper carrier and something to lure her into it, and they could at least get her to a local shelter…
He eyed her silver fur, the adorably pink nose, white socks coloring her paws up to her ankles.
"What about Stirling?"
John looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Stirling?"
"A name for her. She is a very pretty silver…" he trailed off, seeing the wide-eyed look from the sergeant as John stared. "What is it?"
A blink, surprised as if brought out of a stupor. "I love ye," the sergeant blurted, cheeks turning pink under Klaus's gaze.
He smiled in return, his hand leaving the newly named Stirling in order to squeeze John's hand in his own.
The loss of attention pulled a quiet mrrp from the kitten, and a subsequent chuckle from both Klaus and John. The hand in his squeezed back, and Klaus lifted his hood just enough to kiss the sergeant's knuckles.
"I love you too, mein Schatz."
~~~
With a jolt Klaus found himself waking between warm bodies. He could tell who was who only based off of their positioning in the darkness – Simon's hand clinging, fingers half under the waistband of his boxers, John's leg loosely flung over both of his own.
His movement roused both men for a moment, hypervigilant and trained as they were, but Klaus eased them to sleep once more with a quiet apology and soft kisses.
"I am alright, go back to sleep."
"Y' sure?" John could barely be bothered to lift his head, fingers tracing lazy lines over his navel.
Klaus pressed a kiss just above the other's eyebrow, smoothing over the soft wrinkle that resided there. "Nothing to worry about, Schatz."
His only response was a half-coherent mumble as the man settled down again, and Simon followed suit at a slower pace.
It was only when John had readjusted with his back against the wall and Simon had dug his hand further in around Klaus's hip that he took a moment to think about the dream that had woken him up. It was slipping away now, turning into vague impressions and fuzzy snapshots, but he… knew the scene.
Soft yellow light shining through the window, plush carpet beneath his knees. It was an odd sensation to remember, but such was the way of dreams.
He remembered lips against his. A voice whispering encouragement into his ear.
It made his stomach swoop with some undefined emotion, his skin crawling.
The dream was just an old memory, twisted into something that wasn’t quite realistic, but not quite far enough to turn into a proper nightmare. Not anything that would warrant such an uneasy reaction, not like the bloody night terrors that haunted everybody in the base at some point or another. And yet still, it left a pit of anxiety in his stomach, like looking over the edge of a cliff.
As he stared at the ceiling and idly hoped for sleep to return, he felt like something was changing. What it could be he wasn’t entirely sure, but he could feel the weight of it.
He just hoped that it wouldn’t crush him.