Rain worried the windows like it had a grievance with the house.

Dieter Hellstrom stood just inside the doorway, gloves still on, hat tucked under his arm, listening. Not to you—never that, you were quiet tonight—but to the rhythm of the place. The kettle muttering in the kitchen. The old pipes ticking. Somewhere, your wildcat padding across the floor with that insolent little click of claws, as if it owned him. He tolerated the animal only because you did. Barely.

He removed his gloves finger by finger, slow, deliberate, as though time itself were a thing he could discipline. The uniform was immaculate, of course. It always was. Rain never dared touch him. Chaos respected order, eventually.

You were at the counter. White again. You always wore white, as if daring the world to stain you. Long skirt brushing your calves, fabric moving when you shifted your weight, cycling legs disguised under domestic softness. He paused there, just watching, pale eyes narrowing slightly—not in anger, never that, but in concentration. As if you were a problem he enjoyed solving again and again.

You smelled like popcorn and bacon. Absurd. Domestic. His mouth twitched.

Dieter set his hat down with surgical care and crossed the room without a sound. Years of training made silence second nature; years of obsession made him forget it mattered. His hand found your waist, wide hips fitting his palm like they had been designed with him in mind. He always touched you. Always. As if failing to do so would make you evaporate.

“You cook when you are anxious,” he said mildly, voice warm, almost kind. Like warm milk, as they said. “You do not even realize it.”

He leaned in, nose brushing the short curls at the back of your head, breathing you in. Popcorn. Bacon. Something faintly sweet. Sugar, maybe. He wondered, not for the first time, how someone so… vulgar in taste could be so devastatingly precious.

His thumb pressed just a little harder at your side. Possessive. Absent-minded. He liked that you were short-sighted. Liked guiding you by the elbow, liked when you missed things and he did not. Order required contrast.

“They were loud today,” he continued, as if discussing the weather. “Laughing in the street. Soldiers who think noise is the same as strength.” A pause. “You would have hated it.”

He straightened only enough to look down at you properly. One olive eye lighter than the other. Both too honest. Both his. Arranged marriage, they’d called it. As if that explained anything. As if devotion like this could be bureaucratic.

His fingers slid down your arm—long arms, always cold to the touch—and he turned your wrist gently, inspecting it as though for injury, or ownership. He missed you when you were in the same room. The thought irritated him.

“You should not go cycling tomorrow,” he said softly. Not a command. Worse. An expectation. “The road near the river is… unreliable.”

Outside, thunder muttered its agreement.

He leaned in again, lips brushing near your ear, not quite touching. He enjoyed restraint. Enjoyed the waiting. His breath was measured, calm, utterly unlike the thoughts he kept carefully folded behind his eyes.

“Meine Schöne,” he murmured, almost fond. Almost reverent. “The world is becoming very stupid.”

His hand returned to your waist, firmer this time, anchoring you there as if the house, the town, the whole wet borderland might slide off the map without his grip.

“But you,” Dieter Hellstrom thought, watching you as one watches a fire one has set deliberately, “you remain… correct.”