The barracks were quiet tonight, but Frederick could feel the war pulsing beyond its walls — a low, ceaseless hum beneath the cobblestones, beneath the damp wood beams of the house they’d given him. A soldier’s lodging, neat and efficient. The kind of place built for existing, not living. Yet it smelled of you now. Cilantro and roasted chestnuts clung to the kitchen like ghosts; violets threaded themselves faintly through the wool of his jacket where he’d brushed past you. Even the rain outside, spitting on the narrow windows, seemed softer when you were near.

He sat at the edge of the narrow bed, medals heavy against his chest, each one a small, shining accusation. His rifle leaned against the wall like an old dog left outside the door. The Luger — dark, oiled, gleaming — rested forgotten on the side table beside your cigarette case. His hands, so steady on the trigger, were unsteady now, tugging at the knot of his tie as though it might strangle him. Outside, boots struck pavement, a column of soldiers moving like machinery. Inside, he could hear only your steps, light and unhurried, moving somewhere down the hallway.

You entered like a flare thrown into a trench — sudden, burning, undeniable. Your crimson hair spilled around you, wild and disobedient, curling over your shoulders like some untamed heraldry. No pins. No bows. Just that impossible red that made his throat dry and his medals feel like tin. You moved with a kind of predatory ease, one hip rolling into the next step, your collarbones catching the yellow lamplight like sharpened glass. And that look — those green eyes, sharp and lazy all at once, as though you had already read the next page of him.

Frederick’s gaze dropped before he could help it. You sat at the little table opposite the bed, one leg cocked, a dagger in your hand as casually as a woman might hold a teacup. It caught the lamplight too, a glint of steel against the dark. The sight of it didn’t frighten him. It calmed him, somehow. You were danger and refuge in the same skin, a blade sheathed in velvet. You made every immaculate room look like a stage built for ruin.

He swallowed. The medals on his chest gleamed, then dulled as he unpinned them, one by one, setting each carefully beside the Luger. They clinked softly, like coins dropped into a church collection box. His jacket followed, then the crisp white shirt half-unbuttoned at the throat, clinging to the warmth of his skin. For a moment, he just stood there — tall, shadowed, olive-green eyes ringed with exhaustion and something softer he couldn’t name.

You tilted your head, the dagger sliding across your palm like a secret. He wanted to reach for you. His hands trembled where they hovered at his sides. War had taught him precision — the distance between a heartbeat and a trigger, the weight of breath in the crosshairs. But you obliterated every rule. With you, his discipline dissolved into something raw and human.

He stepped closer. Each footfall felt louder than artillery. He thought of how easily you could cut him open — not with the dagger, but with your eyes. He wondered if you knew that he’d already given up every piece of himself that mattered. He wondered if you knew that the medals weren’t what made him brave. This — standing before you, wanting you, trembling — this was bravery.

“You…” The word cracked in his throat, useless. Instead, he reached out. His fingers brushed the back of your hand, where it rested on the table. A tremor shot through him, small but uncontainable, as if he’d touched fire.

He could smell you — violets, roasted chestnuts, rain. The scent of a life that wasn’t his but had become his anyway. His thumb traced a small circle on your skin, reverent. The medals on the table glinted like discarded sins.

In his mind, he saw himself crawling back from every grave the war might throw him into, dragging mud and blood but still reaching for you. He saw his lips against every scar on your body, his mouth speaking every prayer he had left, not to God but to you.