a/n: Apologies for the delay! I'm glad this story is gaining a little traction.
Krueger awoke feeling distinctly unrested. The same sickening pain in his eye throbbed in time with his pulse. Still alive, then. A wave of resignation washed over him. He felt the skin of his leg, too hot and oddly tight under wrappings, and wondered if he would be afforded a crutch once they reached a proper hospital. His lame eye was still prickling; that would surely become a problem in the long-term, left unchecked.
Now that he was up, he had plenty of time to focus on these sensations rather than avoid them. He waited for his eye to re-adjust to the darkness, searching for the horizon in muted grey. Pressed back against the worn canvass of the cart, between the shoulders of wounded—enemy—soldiers and tried to convince himself that he was lucky to be alive at all.
He supposed it could have been worse. In the event of fascial dehiscence, the doctors would have picked him out within the hour or less. Surely then he would be discharged—if he were lucky. Executed on the spot, more likely. For who could imagine a monster from Paradis, slinking into the ranks of his own oppressors who were also suffering the risk of war at his country's hand? A refugee from an island of POWs, of hopeless bastards whose legacy preceded any chance at sympathy from the outside world who now lay at their feet, pleading mercy they had done little to deserve.
Krueger had heard enough words from the other men. He recalled his old self—scrappy, ready to stand up and argue vehemently. He couldn't hold the fear against them, but it did not quell his own unease. Had Reiner felt the same, horrible clawing at his guts every time he heard the name Armoured Titan, or just pushed that feeling so far into the back of his mind it became nebulous, trading the soldier's duty for a brother's? Had Bertholdt known he would die a painful, shrieking death in the jaws of the enemy he had once pretended to befriend, or had they told him he was a martyr, a hero of Marley—and had he believed it in the end? Had Annie felt nothing, crushing the bodies of countless enemy soldiers like termites—and what would compel such an obedient soldier to defy her own reputation as a cold and calculated murderer? Each child begging to be heard, and in the end, they were met with silence.
Krueger had decided a long time ago to drop his hatred for them. They were all only human, able to carry out orders to the best of their abilities until their bodies ceased to function. But human nature was not so easy to temper—too often, the whims of the heart defied logic.
Darrach was whispering to himself, but Krueger couldn't make out what he was saying. Many miles away from home, the hours of isolation had worn heavily on him as much as anyone else.
So he'd have to stay in hospice for a little while. He had no idea how far away he was from their destination, or the front lines. Perhaps their cart would be ambushed or blown away before they had the chance to arrive. His best option now was to try and sleep.
Inhaled, exhaled. Still tense, jolting with every bump on the road or distant explosion. Just breathe, for now. Slowly, grudgingly, his frame relaxed. There. That's better, isn't it?
He'd become excellent at losing sense of himself, a prisoner in his own mind. There was a sort of poetry in that, perhaps—the shifting of the cart against the road did little to calm him. Mostly, he wished he had something to drink.
In a compromised state, he was only going mad under the circumstances.
He must have slept but didn't remember it well. Constant auditory interference, and men like him, still rattled from their previous environment. All around him, whispers.
The light blinded him at first. Like an animal he shrank back from it, very weak, past the point of stiffness after several ill-rested hours; the needling pain in his lame leg reignited. As Krueger's eye adjusted he noted both of them were in uniform.
With his throat too dry to speak, he raised an arm as though to defend himself.
The younger man saw this and said: "We're not going to hurt you."
In a while he and the surviving men were shepherded out into the light — early morning, and the nurses came out to assist the men who couldn't walk.
Johannes and Michel were separated, as they could walk fine. Darrach still refused to speak a word to anyone and was taken elsewhere from the group. Krueger provided his name and previous division as necessary but declined to mention Marley again. When he entered the hospice, it was as though he'd never met anyone on the cart.
The hospital was really an old hotel repurposed. When he and the others suitably wounded were, at last, in the correct ward, there was a strange sense of ill-belonging, at least where Krueger was concerned. He hadn't had a proper wash in… well, more time than he cared to admit, and would need a good scouring before he even dreamt of resting, and food — he'd nearly forgotten, with all the excitement.
So with one thing and another, he was cleaned up enough to be presentable and fed. He didn't know how long he slept the first night, thanks to his restless nature brought on by the constant stress of the battlefield, but eventually he managed to catch some rest.
When he awoke the sky outside was light enough to indicate a few hours had passed since morning or maybe a day. Initial pain in his leg had dulled, throbbing with his pulse. He pulled the sheet back to find new flesh freshly scabbed over and fresh bandages. He looked around with an air of detachment that belied exhaustion and his eyes settled easily on the younger orderly with flaxen hair.
No less than ten seconds passed 'til she turned around to fix her two eyes to his one — could she feel him watching her? — and finally, she hesitated. She did not address him explicitly, but frowned as though anticipating some callous remark and turned back to whatever had held her interest previously.
Perhaps he could have tried smiling. Such a brusque façade was easily disproven by lack of will. Krueger contemplated asking what day it was but decided it would, ultimately, make little difference while bedridden, and he didn't want to annoy her.
The nurses were somewhat understaffed the first week, and Krueger felt sorrier for some of the orderlies as they fought to keep up with all the men being ferried in with their infections and bloodied limbs.
Krueger, for his part, held his tongue and tried to be civil in spite of his discomfort. The steady prickling in his leg and lame eye had not abated in the time since his arrival, the same phantom pain — one leg and one stump masked by unremarkable bedsheets. As long as he kept the wound dressed, there was less chance of healing; this was, he surmised, an effect of getting older, wearing out his body's inhuman abilities; thus, he found it easier to slip into character.
There were several others occupying the ward besides himself; a man, half-concealed behind a curtain—confirmation of his presence came in the infrequent register of his voice, asking for news in a foreign tongue—assuming the worst from the way the nurse answered—not since yester-day, dear; we're waiting for news.
He'd caught only a glimpse of the boy some indeterminable time previous, a hole in his face where the jaw should be, revealing teeth and the hollow mouth inside. There was no way of determining if he was still alive or not beyond the curtain. Strange, to see the human body rended this way, clinging to what life remained in spite of a pitiable existence assured.
If Krueger managed sleep, he usually woke up trembling, almost silent but for the sound of his own irregular breathing.
After several dreams of an unpleasant nature he supposed he could try and write about the dream before it escaped his mind into obscurity, to try and understand it ― alive in unfamiliar territory, and I don't even know your name but you are an enemy, the same as that boy beside me, and I am sorry for what I must do ― but his hands would not obey him, and he knew his own weakness to be a blessing when the younger orderly came over and asked what was wrong.
Wordlessly he attempted to convey the nature of his own defeat. A look of timorous comprehension crossed the girl's face. "What are you writing? Maybe I can help you."
Shook his head. He could anticipate the moment where she would attempt to pry the pen from his unsteady fingers ― did not hesitate to grasp her small wrist with enough force to make himself clear, the alarm in her face registering tardily ― but felt no remorse in the moment, just a violent desperation to protect himself as much as her from the horror in his mind.
"It's nothing." His voice was harsh from lack of use. "Just leave it, please."
Old guilt pulled at him, unable to be discarded. Images of a life before his own existence became tangible yet not quite reachable, and next, a potent sense of emptiness.
"Feeling all right, Mr. Krueger?" It was the nurse. Her dark gaze lingered on the bandages around his left eye—he did not flinch.
"Yeah. Thank you." Deliberated, then added, to the girl: "Sorry."
"It's all right." Silence for a moment. The girl's attention was drawn in tandem to the boy behind the curtain, stirring. Krueger listened intently, but there was hardly a conversation to be understood—rather, the sound of the girl talking indistinctly.
It was easy to imagine anyone in the boy's place, missing a jaw or a cavernous space where their eye had been, the white skull exposed, bleeding freely without the ability to replenish.
This war did not favour the lives of anyone in armed combat. Old thoughts betrayed him—mere aberrations and nothing more.
Each morning, around six hours or so, he could discern the steady beat of footsteps on solid wood and learnt to recognize the same orderly girl — he didn't know her name, but he supposed this was not so important in the grand scheme of things. She smelt of lavender and had green eyes and a bright voice that didn't fit the grisly circumstances, yet she was not abrasively optimistic either.
She was busy most often, but she had taken notice of him more than once, and he'd managed to get a few words out of her: about the weather, the war, his improvement with the crutches and talk about faux-legs — "hardly any of the men want to use them, it seems a waste" — and he supposed she was trustworthy, for now. After two weeks, he'd learned she had a mum and dad back home — she didn't talk about them much.
The bedridden boy didn't seem to be getting any better. The curtain remained drawn around his bed until one day where he was escorted out on the basis that he was sick and there was a new technique to fix his legs — something the nurses talked to each other about in dark tones when they thought the wounded were asleep. The boy was either too weak to protest or did not care.
On the day the boy was departed, Krueger tried to watch him to get any inkling of what was going through his head. Then, gently, he felt himself ushered back against his own bed — the young orderly was talking to him, smelling of lavender soap, hushed and a little anxious — I'm sorry, I don't know what will happen to him — and the whole situation reminded him of some vague facsimile of childhood — realised he was trembling only when she cupped his wounded head. The gauze would need to be changed later but not at this moment — and this time he could not stop shaking and his good eye squeezed shut before he would allow himself to succumb.
He couldn't remember the last time he had thought of his mother without the context of his own grief or furious vengeance. She divested herself without lingering, glanced at his leg, or the flat space where it should be. "Does it hurt much?"
He shrugged, allowing himself a half-truth: "Nothing I haven't dealt with before."
"I'm sorry I can't give you anything more for the pain." she told him. "Just try and rest."
After three weeks he'd gotten well-acquainted with the staff; the older orderly, who had darker hair and an accent that reminded him strongly of home, was decreed to help him wash.
Initially Krueger felt a little awkward — not that he had much use for modesty in the trenches, but for the fact that she simply wasn't a soldier. She had a good spirit about it though, and treated him about as honourably as he could have hoped.
Eventually it was the younger one's turn to assist him, though she held no strange attitude about doing so.
His hair was growing without a proper cut, and thus stuck to the sides of his face when wet, got into his good eye. He pushed it away, almost at ease, never able to convince himself of it fully. There was a tension in the room that had not existed with the older woman, and the girl, despite her professionalism, seemed to steal glances at him when she thought he was preoccupied; still, Krueger wondered if he was just being paranoid.
"Wait, miss."
"Yes?" Her hand was very present on his naked arm, rising to his shoulder. It was only a wash, and it would probably not be the last one.
He often struggled to keep himself taciturn when he looked at her; if it were any other woman, he would not have cared. But she reminded him of someone he'd forgotten about, a long time ago — the thought always made him feel lonely. The girl was nearly a woman, with her long blonde hair she kept back and soft features unmarred.
His naked face revealed the scar from his brow all the way down to his left jaw — he could hide it well enough beneath bandaging.
Krueger could not discern what she looked like beneath her clothes — in fact, it had never occurred to him previously. He ought to stop while he was ahead, but what else could he do in the company of his own thoughts?
Unexpectedly, her hand slipped into the water and he gasped when her fingers kneaded at his naked thigh. "Does it hurt? Your leg."
Krueger shook his head, unable to look at her or close his legs without drawing further attention to himself. He couldn't help his reaction to the touch — it was not embarrassing so much as mildly awkward — but he did not wish to alarm her, or get her in trouble. He knew he did not love her; was it necessary?
Glancing down, she did not recoil. "It'll go away on its own," he muttered, waiting to see what she would do. Her mouth was close enough to his temple that he could gauge the steady puff of her breath on skin. He should do the right thing as a proper soldier, and push her away, tell her to forget this had ever happened.
"I can help, if you'd like," she suggested.
Her hand went a little higher up his good leg and he inhaled harshly — anticipation was always worse than its outcome — now she was looking him in the eye, and his heart was pounding as he croaked: "You — you don't have to do that for me."
"Do you want me to?"
She was flushed, but her tone and gaze were unwavering; Krueger was only human.
The water was tepid by now, but he felt as though he was burning as he sat up straight, chest constricting. He twitched a little once she palmed him fully, startling her.
"Sorry," he muttered, self-conscious. "It's been — a while." The girl shivered. "You can go harder than that, it won't hurt." She wrapped her hand around him and began stroking, too gently to be relished. "Harder," he stressed, "I don't bite —" took her wrist in his hand and pumped once, emphatically "— like that, see?"
"All right." She sounded annoyed but nevertheless started handling him with authority. He grasped at the edge of the basin, wishing he could draw her into his arms, not to escalate the situation but merely ensure the reality of it. She drew closer to him as she worked, and, resting his forehead to her temple for the simple want of intimacy, his lips grazed her cheek — she froze, murmured: "None of that."
He shrunk away, but took her wrist and guided her into a pace that would suit them both — up the very length of him, thumbing the head 'til he realised with an awful jolt that he was essentially just masturbating in front of her. "Come closer," he muttered.
She thumbed him at the tip; he squeezed his eye shut, gasping weakly. "This is what you want?" she enquired.
Krueger nodded. He was not thinking of her hand or her in particular when he screwed his eye shut. The girl was nothing like a soldier, not quite as hardened but not so pure in the sense of typical naiveté; this was a far cry from dressing wounds.
To quiet himself he bit his tongue and clenched the edge of the tub, white-knuckled, hissing when he came, graceless, polluting the water. She wiped her hand while he cleaned himself off in turn. Nothing more was said as she gave him a thin towel and left the room at his polite, yet firm insistence.
By the time he made himself decent, he caught sight of her remaining near his table. Perhaps she was gathering medicine for another patient, he told himself, but was unable to believe it wholly.
"You're still here?"
She scoffed. "Don't be strange. I have to make sure you're all right, don't I?"
The words struck deep enough to ache, and the intensity of this sensation alarmed him. It had been months since anyone would talk to him like a regular person, let alone pay him an innocuous compliment or allow him the luxury of human intimacy.
"I don't love you, you know," he said quietly, so only she could hear.
"I don't, either." Krueger stared blankly at her. The orderly girl did not seem to be worried in the slightest. "You're the only one who looks at me like I'm an ordinary person. And you forgot your medicine, also," she added plainly.
"It's O.K.," Krueger said, limping over to the bed, feeling mildly nonplussed but also relieved in a way. "Just leave it on the table."
She smiled at Krueger in a way that reminded him of her age rather than her profession. "All right, sir. How are the crutches?"
Krueger huffed; she couldn't be much older than he. "It's better than the wood leg, I suppose."
Silence descended upon them. Some of the men had started to take notice. "I'm good for now, thanks," said Krueger gruffly. "Go help someone else."
She departed, leaving Krueger alone with his thoughts and a lingering sense of confusion he quickly dismissed.