It is so that he is camouflaged when he lays down in the snow! It’s a tactical decision!!!!

But in all seriousness: in my mind, Nikto usually wears your long sleeved things when he goes out. He has a bad circulatory system and therefore is always cold. It doesn’t bother him too much to dress in multiple layers so he keeps the habit of the summer :) this man just doesn’t have a reason to get tan! And since he has such a light complexion on top of that, he usually stays under a roof when they happen to go on vacation/spend time outside during work. Aside from that, he uses sunscreen when it gets like SUPER sunny, since his skin burns easily and he hates the feeling.

Krueger on the other hand… lives in the sun. Magically avoided skin cancer for now. His tan lines are insane and while a “beach vacation” means fishing and at least wearing a shirt and a hat for Nikto, he loves to just lay around and relax. He does burn slightly, but it doesn’t get that bad that it starts peeling. This man has insane tan lines and the whiteness of his asscheeks after a vacation/deployment is startling when contrasted against his legs and his chest.

So, to sum it up: Nikto has a light complexion, prefers to cover up and his ideal vacation simply doesn’t consist of simply laying in the sun.

Thank you so much for this ask, it made me think of @ratratratratratratratratratratras drawing of them hitting the beach. Perfect freaks!

Edit:

I feel like this question was surprisingly important to you? So I hope this answered it :D

So… that’s a tough one. I do not really see Nikto being on his phone a whole lot, aside from doing sudoku/crosswords when he couldn’t take his puzzle books. I do see him playing War Thunder on mobile (Krueger probably showed him) and he really plays it like an old, salty man. Probably has to wear his glasses. He gets overly agitated over the game and things get heated. Fast. I like to insert my own issues and have him be salty about the Ural4320 not being a playable vehicle in the game.

Nikto is absolutely the type of guy to leak classified documents in the War Thunder forums to support his point if someone tries to get cheeky and argue with him. If you know, you know.

Krueger (and I stole this hc from the wonderful @cerosin-bis) is on reddit a lot. When it was still around, he also liked life leak.

I could personally see him being on the dark web now and then, (both for shopping and gore porn reasons) but on mobile, it is a bit of a hurdle so that’s more of a computer activity for him. It’s not just disturbing things, he just likes scrawling and clicking on whatever he thinks of as interesting. (You would be surprised how many cooking videos he watches and saves! Nikto profits from that.)

Thank you for always giving me such interesting arts, I do enjoy them THOROUGHLY!

Nikto is totally the one to pick it up. Not that Krueger wouldn’t, but he doesn’t because Nikto will enjoy it way more than him (Nikto has issues around money/wealth and the fear of not having enough ressources in my mind. Bit of a “hoarder”.) If Nikto doesn’t see it, Krueger will either point at it like: “Look, which poor fucker let this fall out of their pockets?” Or he will pick it up and tease Nikto about it in a friendly manner.

I can see Nikto deciding to spend it on something trivial. For reference, its a bit more than ten Euros. So maybe cigarettes, if they are out or some snack, a sixpack of beer, some weed… things he would usually expect Krueger to buy for them. After all, its free, additional money.

(Here we have Krueger’s approach to religion…)

But ohhhhhh a delicious ask!!! How perfect for me to spill some hc I had for some time now!

First of all: the back tattoo wasn’t my idea. It belongs to @cerosin-bis and the original design I used was inspired from artwork a friend of hers designed. Nowadays, it has evolved because of multiple factors, not least because I preferred it to be a bit more… elegant? Sorry, I am just a girl and I like elegant things :) don’t ask why I am into these two, hahaha :D

I don’t believe that Nikto still practices. In Winged Hussar, he was praying obsessively, but that was mostly a response to his guilt and he hoped to save his soul. He was absolutely still somewhat a believer, but more like a person with abusive parents “believes” in them. He is salty and bitter and he wants distance, but it is hard to fully turn from it. With age, I think he finds more peace in his faith and starts to believe that god actually doesn’t hate him for being with Krueger. He consideres Krueger reparation payment for his horrible life in some way.

In my present day hc… Nikto grew up with it, he was baptized, he can still pray the rosary in his sleep, but he very seldomly does. And when it happens, its self soothing. Maybe after a night terror when Krueger isn’t there, while he has a smoke. Moments like these where he just wants to collect himself.

He only attends church at Christmas. It is almost a meditative work, he thinks of the past year, himself, what changed since the last time. You can read more contextually framed about this in my last Christmas one shot Orthodox, which deals with this amongst other topics. It contains a scene of Nikto at church, showcasing how he acts.

Krueger is mostly supportive. I think he finds it a bit silly but it doesn’t really touch their day to day life. He always goes to church with Nikto when he goes. He leaves him an hour or two to mull about things alone and then joins to keep him company and prevent Nikto from getting too melancholic. A bit of after care, you could call it.

Thank you for this ask, it is absolutely wonderful!

Heh, I do recognize that username!

You are SO welcome!!! It is a pleasure to create for all of you 🫡 Thank you for this sweet message, it had me purring like the happiest, little worm.

Krueger told me to tell you that he is not disorganizing them, he has a system and he is using them as inspiration for what to do with Nikto when they have a ✨special day✨ together. He also thinks you should be concerned about your preferences :)

Haha, that’s actually the point! It is a joke, sure, but there is actually a lot of lore behind it in my head.

For Nikto, it started after he had been caught and tortured by Mister Z. Some victims of sexual abuse drop their personal hygiene routine, especially if they were abused systematically. It is a combination of not feeling up for the effort since they are traumatised and a “hope” that their abuser(-s) will cease finding them attractive/will think of them as repulsive. Not that sexual abuse is inherently about attraction, but that’s another kind of worms.

Imo, Nikto was one of them, since he was raped repeatedly. Before his torture he was actually quite popular with hookups, since he had middling looks but a lot of confidence and a great physique. So since he liked hooking up, he did put a normal amount of effort into grooming himself. After being rescued from capture, I feel like there was a catatonic phase where he just couldn’t shower. They didn’t touch him as much when he was reeking or pissing himself due to passing out/exhaustion/pain and he kind of internalized the safety of being disgusting. (I mean this in the most compassionate way)

He didn’t train either and since his muscles were already pretty withered, he found comfort in being less “attractive” in this regard too. I think it was a struggle between being strong enough to fight people off and just… having given up a bit?

Around that time he also got diagnosed with DID and was forced to start working as a system. Subsequently he went private and joined a PMC. He started doing better there but the condition for being hired were twice weekly therapist sessions and a medication plan. That’s when he got better but since he had lost a lot of sexual appetite and was still extremely depressed, he never found energy for bodily hygiene, neither in the mornings nor in the evenings. In addition to this, his nose was ruined by acid vapours and he had no frame to sense his own smell. Also no person close enough to gently tell him to take a bath and brush his teeth/dentures.

(I mention it too little but in my hc, Nikto has little of his original teeth left. Most are implants. Both from having them beaten out of him and loosing some to poor dental hygiene.)

Over the years, his hygiene stayed low but acceptable and honestly, no one cared enough for him. The people he hooked up with were probably not those you find in “polite society” and had their own struggles.

Enter Krueger.

Krueger loves how Nikto smells. It has something primal to him, to smell and just identify his partner via his odour. Usually, his partners smelled in a normal extend but he (semi-secretly) enjoyed them after a bit of time in the field or after a good gym session.

And Nikto just returns this sentiment! Krueger smells enough for Nikto’s damaged nerves to be able to pick it up, to be present, to be there. This smell gives him safety and easy, Krueger is a soothing, protective and stable presence. He kind of revels in rubbing his face against him in private, both the physical sensation that is quite grounding and the intimate touch/smell. I feel like it becomes an obsession just because Nikto is intense about each part of their relationship. He didn’t experience real connection on that level for so long, everything feels like it’s tuned up to 10. And he likes it that way.

And Krueger… well he is less complicated. He is a chameleon, a trickster of sorts. Krueger adapts to the needs of the people around him, he knows how to serve, how to make himself indisposeable. Once he is done with a person, he has fed off of them, has taken enough of their stability away that once he gets bored and leaves, the remaining structure just… collapses? He finds it a fun challenge to make people so dependent, to figure them out piece by piece.

He doesn’t care for hygiene too much as he is used to being on the run/on lengthy deployments. So when he meets Nikto, he does what he always does. He changes his own patterns to fit into Nikto’s routine, to worm his way in. (He soon finds that he doesn’t have to change too much. Just a bit here and there. He is very much himself with Nikto and this is what keeps him content and entertained. He has figured Nikto out, but it’s just homely for him… in a sick sense)

So Krueger doesn’t shower because he is unbothered, it fits his lifestyle and Nikto likes it and Nikto doesn’t shower because of learned patterns.

All that to say that yeah. They are into it, kinkily and just as a preference. Damn, they enjoy each others smell, it’s home to them. Safety, routine, ease.

That being said, there are limits. Krueger doesn’t accept when either Nikto or him smell like ass more than sweat. He also has a loose grasp on dental hygiene. Brushing teeth every two days or so. Just to keep the worst off his back. He comes from an upper middle class family and his parents were big on appearances. So being lax with those things is a bit of a fragment of teenage rebellion, but he still knows that he would like to keep his natural teeth. Which he did. He isn’t big on sugar, which helps.

So Krueger keeps them healthy and somewhat presentable with shared showers. Not for sex, just washing each other and being intimate like that. Krueger is Nikto’s partner, but also sees himself as a silent caretaker. And Nikto appreciates that.

Hahaha :D

Okay, wild! My first post for my person… wild, I kind of didn’t think that anyone would ever be interested :D Here we go.

I am in my mind-twenties, so… just a bit short. 1,58 meters, which is on the shorter side for German women but not outragously so. I usually do not have to tailor my military equipment, because military gear comes in all sizes as long as you have a relatively slender/fit body type (which I do… lucky me for shopping). My biggest issue when shopping clothing are my shoulders and my back, since I go to the gym quite a lot but in military gear, this actually helps with a good fit :D

All tactical vests/etc. are adjustable. The only things which give me issues are the gloves. If I ever find small tactical gloves, I am going to buy ten of them. I also got very lucky when buying Nikto’s G-suit. It is just my size… the arms and the legs are a little bit too long, but it’s just a few centimetres! As for the pants… I blouse them at the bottom, which makes things way easier :) the only tricky things are the accessories and I have to be careful as not to make myself seem very small by wearing regular sized stuff. I recently bought a 3-D printer and beforehand I used my friend’s to print my stuff to size. (I hc Nikto as around 1,85 meters so I adjust the gear I print accordingly… I hate calculating percentages.) My mask was fitted to size via a 3D scan of my head :) I think the trick is to make yourself look bigger by playing with your surroundings/always shoot pictures from the ground.

As for my gender… uffff I don’t even know. Biologically female but what is gender even??? Do I have one??? The last year has been confusing. Getting more buff (still a dwarf but my body has changed from hyper feminine to the middle of the spectrum I think) and wearing more pants/gear since they are in my closet for cosplaying already is odd, since I only wore dresses/skirts for years. (Imagine a fairy, chatelaine and all.) I have been (shyly) experimenting with they/them in my closest social circle irl since I feel like if my gender diverges from my sex, it is not a full 180 since I experience no dysphoria and more of a “draw” towards a more male body type/genitalia. It’s hard to explain, especially since I feel no need to label my gender or sexuality. I can only constrict and compare my lived experience. So. For now, a possible egg going by she/her mostly but gets flustered and happy over being referred by they/them (which might be a phase tho. Would still be a valid path to go down. Better explore and come back empty handed than never to venture)

Sorry for this dump. As you can see, its an issue which interests/busies my mind at the moment.

Yeah, I do agree. You look at him and you think: he is up to no good and I need my fist in his face.

This is also Nikto’s impulse whenever he sees him. Even after three years of their weird relationship, Nikto is still crazy for this vile creature :D he looks at him and contemplates just walking straight up to him and punching him right before giving him a kiss. All tongue and teeth, mouth open. As foreplay :)

Thank you for putting it into words so perfectly! I kneel before your wisdom! Hehehe

Ohhhhh thank you so much! I feel very flattered that you compliment my Nikto! I always feel too short but I guess it isn’t that much of a bother on pictures :D (Out here irl, I run around with less than 1,60 meters!)

But really, the pictures are only cool because I have such awesome cosplay/photographer friends who are up for everything!!!

Ohhhhhhhh I listened to this and its a mood (tm)! Especially the part about his smell made me cackle out loud. That’s Nikto, alright! :D

Here I am… late as always. Yes. This is them. 100%, no discussion. (There is a second, bigger bed just out of frame but they LOVE a good excuse to snuggle like that.)

Krueger just returned from a stakeout and Nikto has been keeping the bed warm, doing crosswords andnow he needs to sniff at Krueger for a bit. For his mental health. They have been apart for like 45 whole minutes! Shocking!

AGHHGSFSF THANK YOU SO MUCH! (I know that I am incredibly late, and I am sorry but this really warmed my heart. I wanted to draw for it, but I don’t have the creative juices right now :()

Anyways… LOVE BE UPON YOU! BLESSED BY SCRUFFY MEN!!!

Ohhhhh! While I see the vision, I personally think that Nikto was pretty mainstream in his youth. Just trying to blend in while the aware parts of his system tried to cover up his DID. Krueger on the other hand…? Austrias #1 gopnik :D oh, he loved the culture, the guys, the language… he had a troubled youth, first hanging with a group of neo nazis (which is a story I kind of started to tell in “If rain is what you want”) and a handful of years later, with the older Russian guys from the techno scene… (I know. One hell of a thing.)

Krueger lived a nomadic lifestyle so his clothing got lost somewhere along the way. A jacket in some squatters house, a pair of shoes in a lover’s flat… piece by piece they went missing and the last of it had to be left behind when he ran from the KSK. I think he sometimes misses it and wishes he still had it though… there must be some pair of shoes he misses. Perfectly moulded to fit his feet, perfect for dancing the whole night just to run from the cops when an illegal party was crashed by them. They carried the traces of his youth and now, they are stashed away in some age old evidence box, covering dust. Maybe, one day, he will get Hans to get it for him. Maybe he will buy a used pair off ebay.

Maybe, this is just a part of his life, a surreal innocence of flashing lights, widened pupils and gnawing teeth in polaroids that he will never get back…

I answered a very similar ask here.

I assume that you mean Nikto dies in active service… The long and short of it is basically that Krueger would just… vanish. Stashing some things that remind him of Nikto with Blaustein, who would be understanding and keep them safe for him. He would stay with Blaustein for a bit and then just leave and live his nomadic life again. Visits, longer ones when he is feeling particularly attached. In my hc, he used to go to church with Nikto on the 6th of January (Orthodox Christmas), so he makes sure to be in Poloski/Nikto’s bunker around that time of the year, going to service. Not because either of them were religious towards the end but because it makes him think of Nikto. If he has a new lover at that point, he will not tell them where he is going or why.

The bunker is his now, but even though Nikto was attached to it, Krueger isn’t really. It still hurts him to see it fall into disrepair whenever he is there, but it is also his way of grieving. Each year, there is more mould, the air is worse and bit by bit, all the systems keeping the thing up and “running” start failing.

When it is bad enough that he can not step foot in there anymore, he quietly abandons the idea of sleeping there and brings a tent. He doesn’t sleep on top of it, but he migrates into the surrounding forests where they used to camp and hunt sometimes. The first year he does this is a hard one. I could see this event putting stress on whatever relationship(-s) he had built at that point, tbh.

But for the rest of the year… he just doesn’t show it. He thinks of Nikto plenty. When he wakes up in the middle of the night and takes an evening smoke. When he is in some far away part of the world and hears random bits of Russian. When he checks in with Nikodim once or twice a year. When he thinks of a joke Nikto would have loved but now there is no one sharing that particular brand of humor.

Between niktos partners, Nikodim is more emotional at first, but in the long run, he adjusts better, leaving it behind. Realistically, him and Nikto were never meant to last. It becomes this weird thing he did in his 20s, something that ended violently and abruptly and left him to stand on his own feet all of a sudden.

To sum it up, Krueger still functions and moves on. But he is way more lonely. He misses something that made him whole and I think it takes a long time until he ceases to compare everyone to Nikto and their relationship. Until he realizes (and internalizes) that “different” doesn’t necessarily mean “worse”.

All of this would be a tad different when Nikto dies of old age and Krueger survives him. There will be a lot more peace and acceptance, especially if Nikto dies at night and he wakes up next to him and can easily get in another snuggle and some peaceful goodbye. In this case, I see him actually maintaining the bunker. Nikto would probably get buried near it, illegally that is. He would pay a pastor to do the honors and keep it hush hush. Nikto would have thought of it as funny, so its fine with Krueger. If Nikto dies of old age, Krueger wouldn’t search for anyone new. What happens happens, but out there, chances are slim. He is unused to living alone since he never had his own place but it still feels like Nikto’s. Like he is just on a trip and soon to come back home.

Its kind of sad to think that if Krueger dies in that scenario, no one would find him. For a long time. He desnt have friends nearby and it would be some time until someone notices that he is missing since he sometimes just stops texting for a few weeks. Maybe no one finds him because he never told anyone about the location of the bunker. I think, it wouldn’t even bother him that much. What does it matter is he is buried?

Nikto is close anyways.

And that’s pretty much all that matters.

First of all and most importantly: thank you so much! When getting this ask I had to grin very widely, I am always happy to read that people enjoy my silly little thoughts :) so… be blessed with the best of weather tomorrow!

Secondly… letters? No. It would be impractical. But texts? All the time. Both of them have phones on them, even if they are not supposed to. Nikto primarily for his journalling (DID and all…) and Krueger because he would get incredibly bored without his. It doesn’t matter that it could jeopardise a mission. All that matters is that they simply want it. They are both inherently selfish.

When they are not deployed together, they send photos back-and-forth, often without any explanation or context. Pictures of weapon systems they enjoyed that day, snapshots of the books they are reading, maintenance that they are doing. I could see Nikto photographing crossword puzzle with his finger pointing at a column and Krueger knows that he wants his five cents on the matter. (He will give it… it reminds him of lazy evenings spend on the sofa with Nikto randomly asking him a question like “Grandmother’s possession. 4 letters.” “Guns” “…” “Does it fit?” “Until now, it does…” (the word was “cane”). Their chat is 80% pictures or “irrelevant” things just like that. Things that make a relationship work.

Nikto’s photos are always incredibly grainy and bad. He has no patience and especially in bad lighting conditions, he won’t hold the phone still. In addition to this, he has a very cheap one with a bad camera. Krueger has a standard Samsung/HTC. It’s decent but nothing too expensive. He ruins them a lot because he doesn’t really take care of his possessions.

They do also send each other graphic pictures, corpses as well as dick pics/body shots. (Nikto is usually the one to initiate sexting though… sending a short, shaky video of him masturbating and expecting Krueger to provide him with material (photos, videos and voice memos of Krueger’s heavy breathing as he joins in. They don’t really do dirty talk though.))

To sum it up… while their contact might be patchy when neither of them has anything “relevant” to say, they continue their relationship very similarly as when they see each other. Sharing sexuality as well as very civilian things with each other. They are grown men in a relationship which they have to uphold through extended periods of not seeing each other and they will not cry about it, instead making the best out of it :) they miss each other terribly, even if they do not show it. But when they are alone and the other is asleep, they scroll through the chat just trying to picture what the other’s days are looking like at that time.

Its lonely. But they always get to see each other again…

Oh, this is such an excellent ask!

I do believe that Nikto would enjoy being a dick about it, especially when he is pissed off at Krueger. Talking to people in Russian extra fast, texting in Russian when Krueger looks over his shoulder… all of that. Krueger is better in so many areas and he is incredibly manipulative, so Nikto would enjoy having a clear upper hand due to them both living in Russia and working with Russian contractors.

That being said… Nikto does not like to speak English. Plain and simple. It’s obviously not his native language. He can make himself understood, but it is not very intuitive to him. Especially late at night or when he has consumed something/has an episode or a bad day he simply can’t be bothered.

For this reason alone, he would expect his lover to speak his language. It is a thing between intimacy and practicality. Once Krueger starts learning it, it becomes endearing quickly. He starts to have this very deep liking for an Austro-German accent in Russian, mostly because he associates it with Krueger, it puts him at ease somehow. He will still pepper remarks about it into the conversation, wondering out loud when Krueger will get rid of “that ugly accent of his”. And while it is his explicit expectation that Krueger learns it for him, he will absolutely help… in a gruff way, pretending to be annoyed. It would make him pretty smug that Krueger learns it mostly because of him, it would make him see that Krueger, who is a man who rarely does things for others, has a real interest in him. Love transcending languages. It becomes especially satisfying when they are on a trip to Austria/Germany and they speak Russian with each other. Their little secret language.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that he speaks German, even if he will pick up a few phrases (curse words and slang terms for male genitalia mostly. It’s funny to him.)

So… yes. Nikto would absolutely expect and love for Krueger to speak his language. And Krueger… he would enjoy it as well. It would feel like getting to know more of Nikto, to get closer and closer to him. To uncover his natural speech patterns and the way he carries himself in his mother language. (In addition to this Krueger seems to be incredibly attracted to everything associated with Russia in general… it would just be natural to him to speak the language next.

(In my hc, he grew up with Russian friends (second generation immigrant kids) and basically lived in their homes since he wasn’t close to his parents. At this point, Russia feels more like his nationality than his actual birthplace, so he would appreciate Nikto teaching him some more obscure words/sayings. Though with Nikto, you can never be sure if it is an actual saying or if he made it up!)

Thank you so much for asking about this…! Recently, me and a friend wrote about a version of Krueger who speaks the language, but not perfectly and Nikto ridiculing him about it before teaching him and building a bond… so that topic is incredibly dear to me!