Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13382640.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Dark_(TV_2017)
  Relationship:
      Ulrich_Nielsen/Helge_Doppler
  Additional Tags:
      Underage_is_for_1983!Ulrich, dare_i_say, Fluff, ?_-_Freeform, brief
      sexual_fantasy_mention
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-01-16 Words: 2326
****** Super Cleaner Helge ******
by Fluffinson_(orphan_account)
Summary
     1983 - Ulrich is a rebel, he fights the power by protesting with
     graffiti and property damage. Then, he does it just to see the
     adorable man with Bambi eyes who always comes to clean up his messes.
     Amusement is something he hasn't felt in a while.
 
 
He has to stifle his amusement - so close is he to laughing. The man blinks
down at the mess thirty feet away with his big sad Bambi eyes framed by dark
lashes. He has a stiff bristled broom in his hand and a bucket of sudsy water.
Ulrich can almost hear it.
Who would make such a mess? the man is probably saying. The words he's mouthing
to himself are soft and rounded, nothing at all like curses. His expression is
like an all you can eat buffet - there's a hint of confusion, a dash of
disappointment and the most sweetest bite of resignation.
He doesn't even sigh, just sets straight to work scrubbing.
Ulrich is on the other side of the gate. He's in plain sight among the
shrubbery and bushes but the man doesn't notice him. He's painfully obvious -
expression open and body language unguarded. He shuffles along with the broom
and bites his lip when there's a particularly stubborn spot.
It's all so cute Ulrich just wants to squeeze him.
It isn't the first time Ulrich has done this. It isn't even the fourth but the
fifth time. Ulrich still feels a little guilty about the time he'd crashed a
brick through the man's car window. His aim had been off. The man had come out
after work and hemmed and hawed sweetly while covering his broken window with a
plastic bag and scotch tape.
Then the man is muttering something again with a frown, brows furrowing down
and mouth becoming pouty.
An intense desire to hear the man's voice hits him.
"Hey!" Ulrich yells, because he has no impulse control whatsoever.
The man startles - it's a full body wince, his eyes widen in surprise as they
come up to meet Ulrich's. He doesn't say anything though, which is a shame.
Ulrich dissolves into giggles and runs away.
 
 
 
Ulrich doesn't giggle. He chortles softly sometimes, huffs in amusement. But he
doesn't laugh.
Mads is possibly the only one who could ever had made him laugh.
Ulrich doesn't show it but it's with him all the time. That dark oppression of
his lost brother. His likely dead brother. Ulrich has heard the statistics. The
chances drop off so sharply after twenty four hours they may well have not
existed.
Katharina is there for him. They're both kind of fuck ups. They're friends and
they love each other. Ulrich loves her. Even then though he can see it's a
passing familiarity. If he's being honest he expects her to move on. Not from
being his friend - never that - but from her interest in him.
She pressures him to sleep with her. Since Mads nothing of that nature has
crossed Ulrich's mind. He doesn't really want to do it. Isn't sure it's a good
idea.
Katharina is insistent. She thinks it'll take his mind off of things.
No kids, she says, and Ulrich agrees.
He doesn't want to lose anyone else.
 
 
 
The episode in jail is short.
Egon is a jackass.
I know that look Egon says, like Ulrich is the worst kind of criminal You're
hiding something I feel it in my bones.
You should get that checked, Ulrich snarks back, could be cancer.
He's pleased with himself.
But then Ulrich sees Katharina and understands what Egon had seen and why he'd
acted that way.
Thinks maybe he's a jackass too.
 
 
 
Ulrich hangs out at the Power Plant, it's like it's the only place he can feel
normal. Where he doesn't have to deal with loads of shit.
It's late enough that Ulrich is only catching everyone getting off work.
It started as a form of protest but Ulrich can admit to himself it's changed
into something else. Because now he watches for something specific. Someone.
Now he walks around with 'NO FUTURE' written across his back as if daring a
certain someone to catch him.
The thought of the man - so slight Ulrich is sure his growth will out pace him
by the end of the year - trying to apprehend him is ridiculous. The thought of
the man trying to scold him - and how fast Ulrich could turn that around -
causes something warm to light in his belly.
The man looks downtrodden on the march to his car. Face dark and hurt.
Ulrich hasn't seen him like this before.
And maybe that's the start of all his troubles, when he thinks of leaning in
close and saying, Want me to kiss it better?
 
 
 
He doesn't graffiti that night. He goes straight home. Arousal - Ulrich is
familiar with. It's almost nothing like the hunger ripping through him.
For once, the shadow of Mads isn't hanging over him.
Mads has no place here.
Ulrich's fantasies are filthy.
Filthier even than the ones about Katharina - but he makes sure to include her
too at first.
Thinks of her watching, and egging him on and running her fingers through the
man's hair. She's beautiful - has always been beautiful.
She fades into the background though when Ulrich thinks of making a mess of
another type, and this one the man will clean up with his mouth.
 
 
 
He's back at the fence the next day.
He really shouldn't be but he feels like he can't help it.
He's likely to get himself into more shit with Egon. And maybe with Katharina
who suddenly wants to do it all the time. Ulrich is torn. Seeing the man is
like a compulsion.
Always - he is amusing. Ulrich is amused.
The way the man crouches on the ground to pick up broken glass, inspecting
seriously for any stray shard. The way he clumsily sticks his finger and sucks
it into his mouth afterward without guile.
He's childlike, something sweet. Something pure, something innocent, something
so far removed from the shit hole of a life Ulrich can't seem to dig himself
out of.
Ulrich wants.
"Hey-!" he starts to say but the words fail in his throat.
Tronte - at this moment Ulrich can't call him Dad - passes by. There's a woman
on his arm. Ms. Tiedemann. Regina's mother.
The man opens the gate for them and they snub him. He seems to have expected it
though, going tense - expression displeased - in the moments before their
approach. Ulrich guesses Tronte has that affect.
Tronte's eyes stick to the man's face rudely. Take in every valley and dip of
the scarred flesh. Ulrich sees the moment the man turns into himself, the way
he hunches his shoulders and turns his scarred face away.
Ulrich understands. That's usually how he feels around Tronte - though he
doesn't show it.
Ulrich's blood boils. His Dad is a piece of shit. But he's always known that.
Ulrich can't tell Mom. Decides she can never find out.
He wonders idly if this is what Tronte was out doing the night Mads
disappeared. The thought is too painful.
Ulrich's stuck in his own world and maybe that's why he doesn't see the man
approach.
He hears his voice though. It's soft, a little high, timid and sweet.
"Are you okay?" The man asks.
There's a gate between them.
Ulrich nods.
"You're not really supposed to be out here." The man continues in a way that
suggests Ulrich should leave but the man is hesitant to make him. Hesitant to
insist.
His little politeness - and Ulrich can see his eyes catch on the slogan he's
just painted on the front - brings something predatory out in Ulrich.
He's thinking about reaching out and dragging the man forward. Or even straight
up propositioning him maybe when it hits him. He's just like his father.
Katharina is out there somewhere waiting for him and he's trying to -
It's untenable.
"Fine." Ulrich says, surprised at the gravel in his voice, "Tronte is a piece
of shit."
"You know Tronte?" the man asks, flutters his pretty dark eyelashes at him.
"He's such a fucking -- motherfucker - " Ulrich spits, before he belatedly
chokes on a laugh at his own unintended joke.
The man looks stricken, going all doe eyed and sad. Suddenly though,
unexpectedly, there's tears. The man sniffles.
"He still doesn't deserve - " He cuts himself off.
He's talking about Mads, Ulrich thinks.
Ulrich feels a mad pulse of want. An emotion completely out of time. It doesn't
make sense, how attached he is to this man he doesn't know.
Ulrich chooses not to be like Tronte.
"Don't worry," Ulrich says, even though he really doesn't want to, "You won't
get any more trouble out of me."
He turns then and leaves fast. Before he changes his mind.
 
 
 
He does love Katharina, but years later, after Mikael dies Hannah seduces him
into her arms. At the time he tells himself he can barely refuse a grieving
widow. That he'd do anything to make her feel better.
He really knows it's because he regrets the chance he didn't take. Is afraid to
repeat the mistake. Only it is a mistake.
Everything he fucking does is a mistake.
It brings everything right back around.
He tries to kill Helge Doppler and fails. Tries to save Mads and Mikkel and the
others and fails.
Things happen fast. Claudia - and it's an extremely bitter and unfair thought
but Ulrich knows he would recognize his Father's whore anywhere - turns up and
he's let loose. He's given a book but he doesn't have time to read it.
Miraculously, Mikkel is alive. Mads is dead, but Mikkel - Ulrich can almost
live with himself. He's in 1986 though and Ulrich only has a limited amount of
time to make it there.
Ulrich is forced to confront everything ugly in himself when he meets Mikael -
not yet dead. The man who is his son. The man who will kill himself if they
return him.
You've seen me do it and I'll do it again he says, like it's nothing. Please
don't kill my son.
That - Ulrich can understand.
He's in 2019. Katharina is angry and she's hurt. But he tells her the truth and
she believes him. More than the evidence he's collected it's because she knows
him.
Ulrich can't let Mikkel be there alone. Not all alone. If Mikkel won't leave
1986 - if future Mikkel won't let him - then someone has to stay.
Katharina agrees it should be him.
Their parting is tearful. She thinks of Mikkel and Hannah and only cries all
the more.
"I hate her." Katharina says.
"I'm sorry I never had the chance to make it up to you." Ulrich says.
He'll never have the chance.
The rest of his time is spent holding Magnus and Martha. There isn't time for
them to understand but they let him. He kisses the tops of their heads and
tells them everything will be alright.
 
 
 
In extremely short order Ulrich is in 1986.
Mikkel is overjoyed to see him. They both cry. If Ulrich can atone even only a
small part for his sin against Mikael it will all be worth it. It's worth it
just to see the smile on Mikkel's face.
Ulrich reads the book.
Helge Doppler is Bambi eyes.
Ulrich wonders how he didn't see it - in 2019. It's obvious in hindsight.
And what Mads died for - Ulrich can't - he can't go there.
He's a police man and he knows that sometimes the greater good is at stake and
there needs to be sacrifices. The thought tears open a fresh wound.
Helge Doppler's personal sacrifice is noted, he suffered dearly. So contrary to
his nature - I'm still finding a way that might spare him this.
The words are scripted in a sharp hand. Ulrich wonders who wrote them.
He thinks about the words for weeks until the anger leeches out of him. He
can't even bring himself to judge the writer of the book - as hypocritical as
it would be. Ulrich himself had sacrificed the life - or intended to - of an
innocent child. And if the boy hadn't been innocent - then neither was Mads.
 
 
 
Ulrich finds a small apartment in town and Mikkel is over every day.
Ulrich sees Helge in town. And it's still there - that strange yearning.
Seeing the mess of scars on his face hurts. But it's worse when Helge notices
him staring and ducks his head.
Just like Tronte Ulrich thinks of himself in disgust.
"Hey." He says coolly, feels reduced to the teenage boy he once was leering at
Helge through the gate.
Helge looks like he stepped straight out of Ulrich's memories. He blinks up at
him - unsure.
It's cute, sure, until Ulrich recognizes something he didn't see in it before.
Something a little like fear. And beyond that resignation. He realizes it's
probably always been there.
"Have we met?" Ulrich asks, words sticking in his throat.
He's a piece of shit. It's only been a few months since he left Katharina and
already he's spouting cheap pick up lines. But Helge isn't some floozy at the
bar.
"I don't think so." Helge returns politely.
He looks miserable, a little sicklier now that Ulrich is looking.
Suffered dearly Ulrich thinks.
"I've just moved to Winden." Ulrich says, approaches so he's maybe a little too
close to be just friendly.
"Oh. Welcome." Helge returns, backing up a little shyly.
Ulrich thinks Helge doesn't know he's flirting.
"I was hoping to make some friends." Ulrich intones a little wryly. He has no
intention of making friends. That much is probably evident to anyone within
hearing distance.
But not Helge, apparently.
"I...w-well I..." Helge stutters uncomfortably. Unhappily, Ulrich notices. "I
wouldn't make a good friend."
There's something pained in the words.
"I don't know anyone else." Ulrich wasn't expecting to make himself a charity
case, but he'll do it - if that's what it takes.
Helge flushes in embarrassment.
"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Helge." He sticks a hand out
and Ulrich's comes up to envelop it.
It's warm and after a moment when Ulrich is still fondling it Helge pulls it
reluctantly away.
"Ulrich." he informs.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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