Schatz, an Eroica story
with Klaus interruptions by Sue Castle. Rated NC17,
no copyright infringement intended. Spoilers for books 4-7.
Heartfelt thanks to the fan translators who made this fandom accessible in
English. This was fun -- an American writing about an Englishman and a
German created by a Japanese artist, set in
On a cliff side in
The safety of his agent, useless little
transvestite faggot that G was, and the capture of Maija
Bulgakow should have been the only things on Major
Klaus Eberbach's mind. As his subordinate yelped unmanly things about falling out of the car,
he leaned out the window and took careful aim.
"Now, that's a good position," he muttered to the wind as the
.357 magnum in his right hand bucked. The bullet went precisely where it was
meant to go : into the rear tire of the automobile
being driven by the hostile agents attacking the Earl's frivolous Maserati. If it had been a good, solid German car it
wouldn't have been so easy to overtake.
It wouldn't have gone over the cliff.
"Major! The Earl's car ..."
He threw himself with controlled violence from his own car and skidded
to a stop at the edge of the cliff. To his chagrin, he couldn't control his
clenched teeth, his wide, staring eyes, or the wordless exclamation that
escaped him as the little red car crashed and bounced several hundred meters
down into the pounding surf. No more could he control the stunned need to
stand, staring blankly for long moments, at the ripples in the water where Eroica had plunged to his death.
In that instant, truth was born deep in his mind. The thief had been a
nuisance, an abomination, and a queer to boot. He'd gotten in the way, mucked
up assignments, and hindered Eberbach's duties.
He had eyes that would make the sky blush from jealousy and an air of
mischief about him that made Eberbach forget himself.
His skin under Eberbach's fists had been softer than
any rose he'd ever touched. Something within Klaus had drowned along with Eroica.
The wind was in his ears, and his heartbeat as
well. It was no wonder he almost missed the shaky English voice.
"Major?"
Peering over his left shoulder, he saw a ghost. He turned further and
looked more closely.
No. Ghosts didn't bleed.
Dorian Red Gloria sat against the base of the hill, G prone beside him.
One elegant, bruised hand rested on the agent's back. His hair was falling in
his face. His foppish shirt was ripped and torn. One shoulder and the opposite
forearm were bleeding. One knee was scratched, showing through the hole in his
trousers.
Eberbach had never seen
anything so lovely in his life. He stared into the face of the man he'd just
realized he loved. He couldn't move.
"H'lo." The Earl's voice was
whimsical. It matched the look in his eyes. "Long time no see, eh?"
"What ... " Klaus had to swallow to
get enough moisture in his mouth to finish his sentence, "are you doing
over there?" He sounded mechanical even to himself. He had no idea what
his expression was giving away. He had a nasty suspicion his usual Iron Klaus
mask had slipped completely.
It degenerated from that point. It always did. He yelled, Eroica flirted, G protested his
innocence and was ignored. Eberbach tried to
concentrate on terrorizing his subordinate; it wasn't nearly as much fun as it
usually was. Even in that, the thief wouldn't let him be.
"Major ..." he seduced Klaus again with that voice. Klaus
glared at him.
Dorian's eyes were soft, in a face scraped and bloodied, as he looked up
at Klaus. "I think an entanglement of wire rope and a rose vine is a
rather sadistically wonderful combination."
Eberbach intensified the
glare. Eventually, it burned through the irritating glow in what passed for the
Earl's brain, and the idiot had the sense to look at least a little nervous. It
helped, both with intimidation and to burn off his own
nervous energy, when he grabbed the front of Eroica's
shirt and nearly lifted him off his feet, screaming into his face. Those long,
deceptively strong white fingers waved at him as Eroica
lifted his hands in surrender.
The glare melted into a stare. He didn't know what to say. He didn't
know what to do.
He didn't know how to deal with knowledge he'd just as soon never have
gained. With love he couldn't admit, and would never act upon. With the
betrayal of resolve that could kill him if it was given purchase in his soul.
Eroica glanced at him
over one scratched, bloody shoulder. Klaus sighed.
"I can at least give you some mercurochrome."
Of course, Eroica whined. Then the rest of his
alphabet of subordinates showed up, late as usual, and the mission he'd thought
completed blew up in his face. Again.
The KGB bitch had escaped.
And she'd taken the Buddha that Eroica had
come to steal.
It was the final straw.
"She stole MY Buddha?!" Eroica
yelped.
Eberbach gave him a glare
that would strip paint off a wall at twenty paces. Eroica
matched him glare for glare. A prickle of unwilling admiration for the man's
determination when it came to his thievery slid through Eberbach;
as usual, he ignored it. Also as usual, he warned the thief, "stay away!"
Then he stomped over to his Benz and screeched off after his Soviet
prey.
Only to pull a quick turn-around, roll down the window and toss a bottle
of mercurochrome at the Earl. Who caught it. Sans cap. All over his chest and arms.
Eberbach staunchly refused
to think about how appealing Eroica had looked,
staring down at himself, mouth dropped open, an appalled expression on his
sharp-nosed English face. He had a duty to perform. A job to
do. The secrets of NATO to protect.
A secret of his own to bury.
He managed to avoid seeing the Earl face to face for the rest of the
mission. After that, he returned to
If his thoughts escaped his control at times, late at night, and he went
to sleep with the image of bright wide blue eyes and wild golden curls against
the black of his bedroom ceiling, no one knew it but himself.
He would deny it, even to himself, in the light of day.
And so life continued.
The Earl of Red Gloria's castle,
This had not been the way Dorian expected his party to go. He had
more than enough stress on his plate hosting the annual underground conference
at his castle. He certainly didn't need the unlikely trio of NATO, the CIA and
the KGB to move into the neighborhood.
Such terrible timing.
Although he had to admit Klaus had looked absolutely delicious standing
in his foyer, one elbow balanced carelessly against a column, trench coat
flowing romantically behind him, fringe brushing the tips of his eyelashes.
It had even been worth having to explain a NATO agent to his fellow
criminal peers to see Klaus' reaction to being hit on by the polished Mafia
blonde. Then all the other little spy clones had shown
up, Klaus had gone into one of his little rants, as usual, and promised to
spoil things. So Dorian had stopped him.
"IDIOTS!" he bellowed in his very best version of 'Eberbach on the warpath.'
To his amused surprise, it stopped the Iron Major in his tracks. Along with the KGB and the CIA. The rest of his guests had
looked impressed. He managed not to giggle and ruin the effect.
"Don't cause an international incident here!" he ordered.
Especially not here, he added silently; none of my guests can afford that much
media exposure. "What about your supposed
missions?"
With that pithy reminder, the spies flew in all directions ... except
Klaus, who looked at Dorian and asked him, politely, where he'd learned to yell
like that.
"I just imitated you, Major," he answered truthfully. An
expression that looked very much like a suppressed smile glittered in Klaus'
beautiful green eyes. Or it could have been repressed temper. It was hard to
tell with his German madman.
"I've said this much too often," Klaus warned him, eyes
locking with Dorian's, "but don't EVER interfere with my mission, Lord
Gloria." The usual angry growl was oddly absent from his command.
"Roger," he teased back. "National
Defense
"Idiot," was all Klaus tossed over his shoulder as he left. It
sounded almost affectionate.
The party went on from there, with the guests taking the spy sideshow in
good-humored stride. Dorian even got some information that he was able to pass
on to Klaus. He saved it for that night and rang up NATO headquarters. If the
only contact he could have with his Major was illicit, he'd make it as illicit
as possible. He dressed in satin night clothes and reclined against
over-stuffed pillows, staring at the lush hangings of his bed and wondering
what lightly tanned skin, raven-black hair and Mosel-green
eyes would look like against the amber velvet.
About the time he decided Klaus would look a veritable visual feast
against that backdrop, the object of his fantasies picked up the telephone.
When Dorian told him he was in bed, Klaus nearly hung up again. He
barely stayed on the line long enough for Dorian to give him the information on
the Neo-Nazis that he'd gotten from his Italian friend at the party. Listening to
the raspy voice on the other end of the line, Dorian couldn't help himself.
"You sound fatigued, Major." He
nestled the receiver between his shoulder and ear and wrapped his free hand
around his knees. He could picture Klaus, narrowed eyes, hand brushing through
his hair, tie loose around his neck. It made him shiver. "Why don't you
take a nice long hot bath and get a good night's sleep every once in awhile?
And smoking so much is unhealthy for you. Are you eating properly?"
To his surprise, Klaus didn't immediately slam the telephone down. His
heart lifted.
"You'd make someone a fine wife," the Major growled tiredly at
him. "I don't have time to listen to this bullshit. Good-bye."
Unable to resist, Dorian murmured, "I'll pray for your fortunes of war, Mr.
Tank Commander. Good night." He kissed the air in front of the receiver,
and gently hung up on the sound of Klaus screaming "Idiot!" on the
other end of the line. For a moment, at least, he could pretend that he'd just
finished a conversation with the man he loved, who loved him back.
If one was going to fantasize, one might as well be thorough.
Two days later, directly back from a trip to
He made certain, when he allowed himself to be caught, the stage would
be set. He was wearing lace and velvet, awaiting his Major in the privacy of
his bedroom. Klaus stalked in. He sighed in appreciation.
He'd been right. His German lion looked magnificent against the sapphire
and amber of his bedchamber. He tried to make light conversation.
Klaus ordered him to take off his pants.
His throat went dry and his knees refused to cooperate. He stared,
wide-eyed, up at Klaus. Klaus pointed at him.
"You heard me. Take them off!"
As romantic lines went, he'd heard much better. From
virgins. Even from women, frightening as that had been. But if this was
the best Major Eberbach could do ... who was he to
quibble? He gave Klaus his best, most melting sideways glance.
"You could've been honest and told me before now." Dorian
certainly couldn't deny he found the whole situation arousing. He was just glad
he'd decided to meet the Major in his bedroom. "Well, I suppose this is as
a good place as any to --"
"No need to take the shirt off," Klaus interrupted him. He froze.
"All I need are the trousers. Hurry up!"
His erection wilted a tad, but refused to fade. He gulped, trying
desperately to maintain his composure. "You really are direct. Are all
military men like you?"
Any semblance of prospective lover faded as Klaus started yelling at him
to get undressed immediately. The urgency in his voice made up, somewhat, for
the abrupt manner of his expression. Not wanting his delicate suit to be ripped
to shreds by the impatient man, Dorian quickly stepped out of his trousers.
Only to have Klaus demand ... his underwear.
To his horror and embarrassment, Klaus turned his underpants over to a
subordinate, barking something about codes and stitches. Dorian felt a bit like
the leftovers at a bridal feast; all decked out and ready to party, left behind
to get cold on the table whilst the party went elsewhere.
"Is that all?" he asked in a small voice.
"I needed the underwear," Klaus informed him, holding the
clothing in question between two fingers as if it was infested with wildlife.
"I don't need you."
Dorian was crushed. "Really," he said wistfully. "I'm
disappointed." Not completely surprised, but definitely disappointed.
"When you told me to take them off," he continued, needing to say it
even though he had a feeling such confessions would cause Klaus to explode like
a bomb, "for a moment I was overjoyed. I thought you'd finally decided you
wanted to ... do it." He put every ounce of suggestion he could into the
last two words, and from an expert such as he, that was one hell of a lot of
suggestion.
As expected, Klaus grabbed him by the shirt front and growled at him
like a feral wolf. He very nearly shook what few clothes remained right off
Dorian's back. By this time, arousal, doused by embarrassment and crushed by an
audience, had twisted into anger of his own. He sniffed in disdain at Klaus'
pushy subordinates. He allowed Klaus to bark at James without so much as
lifting a finger to protect his miserable accountant. In fact, he snarled at
James himself, for putting him in such a humiliating predicament.
For allowing his hopes (and other things) to be raised, only to have it
(them) dashed cruelly. Really.
It was beyond belief. He went off in a huff, managing to disregard the fact
that Klaus had departed in a huff that mirrored his in nearly every detail.
Of course, the huff didn't last long. Not when there was adventure to be
had, and Klaus to torment. So he followed his Major back to the place where the
conference was being held, ignored the other spies, and performed a daring
maneuver to lift the explosives-laden vase from between the US and Soviet
leaders on international television with none being the wiser that Eroica had just saved the summit for world peace from
disaster and the world from possible nuclear war.
Just another day in the glamorous life of Eroica, international art thief and host extraordinaire.
Of course, it helped that he had an excuse to work with Klaus, in any
capacity he could get. He took it. Running from the house with the vase in his
hands as the seconds ticked down on the bomb, he threw it to Klaus, who dashed
off with it, looking very fetching as his slacks stretched over the tensing
muscles of his arse and thighs. Dorian followed, unable to maintain his
distance, as Klaus pitched the vase with a perfect aim that would make any
cricket bowler proud, then turned back to him.
"Lord Gloria!" he shouted. "Get back! Duck!"
Then Heaven intervened and granted him a boon, because Klaus threw his
body atop Dorian's and bore him to the ground, rolling them both in fresh
spring grass.
The vase made a very large boom when it exploded.
Dorian lay beside the Major, chin pillowed on
his arms, watching in quiet disbelief as the tensions of the past few days
caught up with then melted Iron Klaus. It touched him that, regardless of what
the man said when he was awake, he trusted Dorian enough to watch his back as
he slept.
So Dorian did.
He fantasized about making love to him. Admired the
long lean lines of his body in the dark suit, sprawled against the bright green
grass. Plucked a leaf or five from the flyaway dark hair, and sent them
fluttering away in the wind with a puff of air from his pursed lips. But he
didn't touch him. He simply sat, there on the hillside, and watched over him. Smiled at him. At himself.
Wondered when he'd been fool enough to fall in love with a man who would
never feel anything but contempt for him.
Well, contempt, and a tiny portion of trust.
Shrugging away the thought, Dorian blanked his mind, and concentrated on
the moment. The smell of spring. The
sight of Klaus. The might-have-beens.
The maybe-laters.
Laughing to himself, he waited for Klaus to awaken. When he did, Dorian
didn't say another word. He simply handed Klaus a fallen leaf, and walked away.
On the border between
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Go to
The meeting at the Turkish airbase had gone well. He'd screamed at the
stupid Wop who tried to lecture him on cultural sensitivity, abraded him for
his incompetence in getting no more than a single name in three months of
sitting on his lazy ass and drinking tea, and fitted agents E, H, K, L, M and I
out in native costume in order to cross the border into Iran. The sheep smelled
disgusting, the mules slightly less so, the camels decidedly moreso, and after enough time under the stinking sun in the
middle of the filthy desert, so did he and his agents. But he could put up with
any unpleasantness to fulfill his duty.
Until this.
He'd lied to the sentries at the crossing, getting through the gates
with ridiculous ease, even being complimented on the beauty of his wife, a fact
which had caused great consternation to Agent H. Perhaps it was the eyebrows.
He'd been nearly through the danger zone when an accented voice exclaimed,
"You must be European!"
His blood turned to ice in his veins. Showing none of his sudden
adrenaline surge, as usual, he turned casually and glanced over his shoulder. A
light voice babbled brightly to the stunned-looking guard, "Oh, yes, I was
a BBC reporter before that."
His heart stopped, further cooling his body. He felt frozen, numb. He
pivoted on one boot heel, eyes flying wide as he recognized the man who was
usually only a nuisance but could, in this case, actually get him killed. If he
called Klaus 'Major' or said one word about NATO, his life and those of his men
would instantly be forfeit. It must not be allowed to happen.
Eroica stared back at him
with an equally stunned look on his face, blue eyes impossibly wide, mouth
slightly agape. He should have looked like an idiot. Instead, he merely looked
impossibly attractive.
Incredibly dangerous.
Eberbach's thoughts
chased themselves for an eternity that was in reality only a few seconds. A
plan was formulated and implemented instinctively.
"Allah-akhbal!" Literally, it was praise to Allah; in reality, it was both more
fervidly prayerful and closer to an obscenity than one might expect. He flung
his arms out to sweep Eroica into a powerful embrace,
not surprised in the least when the man reciprocated.
Leave it to the queer to cop every feel he could take.
Refusing to acknowledge how apt that thought was to himself as well as
the thief, Klaus whipped his pistol out of the holster and nudged Eroica's abdomen with the barrel. Under cover of greeting
and hidden between their bodies, the onlookers had no idea how close they were
to witnessing murder.
"Don't say a goddamned word, Eroica, or
I'll blow a hole in your belly."
At that moment he felt an unexpected prick at the base of his throat. A
thin cold sliver of highly-sharpened metal whispered against his skin.
"It cuts both ways, Major."
He pulled back slightly, only enough to look in his enemy's eyes. They
were sparkling. He raised his hand between them, until the end of the barrel
traced the corner of Eroica's ridiculously gaudy
collar. There was something undeniably erotic about the steel crossing his
knuckles and highlighting the black deadliness of his own gun. He swallowed,
trying to pull away.
Eroica held on more
tightly.
"Mach keinen Scheiss,"
he muttered. "Don't fuck around."
"Don't you think the audience would benefit from a little
show?"
There was a world of possibilities in Eroica's
voice. It was hotter than the desert, shimmering with heat. He felt his groin
push closer of its own accord, and forced himself to stillness. It was the
opening Eroica had been waiting for.
"Duustah mane," Eroica
whispered against his skin as he began to nuzzle Klaus' face, lying and calling
him friend. The sensation of soft lips moving so close to his rooted him to the
spot. "Mallah bevus
... kiss me ..."
His tongue was thick in his mouth, and his brain was thicker still in
his head. Finally, he managed to grunt, "What ... You ... Verdammt noch mal!"
"Carter --" Eroica kissed the corner
of his mouth, "and Brezhnev --" and the other corner, "hugged
and kissed --" a nibble along his jaw line, "each other."
"Don't compare me to a Yank and a polar bear!" He was really
quite proud of the fact that he'd managed a complete sentence. What it lacked in
vehemence it made up for in coherence, at least given his current mental
weakness.
Eroica drew back and had
the effrontery to rub the tip of his nose over Eberbach's.
"How about Chancellor Schmidt and --"
Finally! An insult to which he could react! "Are you insulting my
country?" he barked quietly. "Bist
du verrueckt? Are
you insane?"
The arms around his neck tightened, feeling uncannily like a noose, and
that damnedable mouth took aim at the side of his
neck. Between bites, he thought he heard something about suspicions and not
being so tense. It was difficult to determine, since his English was draining
out of his skull along with his mind. Eroica was very
talented with his mouth.
Not to mention his hands. The hand that wasn't playing in the hair
hidden under his burnoose was around his waist, pulling them tightly together.
It had to be stopped. It simply must. If they got any closer, Eroica would certainly feel the erection Klaus was trying
so desperately to ignore.
If they got any closer, he would not be held accountable for his
actions. Since he didn't want to actually commit murder, be taken into custody
and have his identity discovered, he'd simply have to throw the man to the
ground, rip off his robes and fuck him to death.
This was the
God, even if Klaus didn't believe in Him, was merciful. A guard wandered
up to them and tentatively asked them to hurry, since they were clogging up the
passage at the gate. Eroica finally let him
go. He tried to take a deep breath and couldn't. His groin hurt too much.
Ignoring everyone and everything, he stomped over to his mule and
mounted with much more care than he allowed the others to notice. Once over the
border, Eroica attempted to question him, and he
fobbed the fop off curtly.
"Das geht dich einen
absoluten Scheissdreck an. None of your fucking business. Stay the hell
out of my way."
The fool then had the audacity to wish him good fortune.
"Forward," he bellowed at his men, turning his back to the
nuisance and wishing irrationally that the mule could stomp as loudly as he
himself wished to stomp. Out of sight of Dorian's caravan, he called for
antiseptic alcohol. He had to get the feel of that mouth off his skin.
It burned.
"I don't think he's contagious," Agent L dared suggest.
"God only knows," he countered. He tried telling himself that
he hated Eroica more than anyone he'd ever met in his
life.
All the way to
It was bad enough to love the bastard. Eberbach
was not in the least happy to discover that he desired him, as well.
King Pahlevi's treasure had drawn Eroica to
James was fussing again as Dorian reluctantly unwrapped his arms from
around his darling Major. The guard whispered in a commiserating tone that he
understood why he'd want men when his wife was so ugly, and he managed not to
stutter as he agreed.
"You were snogging with the Major, weren't you?" James bawled.
Dorian sighed, watching the last of the dust fade behind the NATO caravan.
"What are you whinging about,
James?"
"What was going on between you two?" his jealous little
accountant demanded. "You were holding on to one another for a whole minute
and a half!"
Was that all? Dorian wondered. It felt like forever. Not nearly long enough.
"A gun and a knife," he answered carelessly.
"You were threatening each other?" It sounded like poor Jamesy couldn't decide whether to be appalled or aroused.
"Quite," he smiled slightly. From the look on James' face, the
pendulum swung toward arousal with a resounding clang, and nearly made the
little man swoon.
James' grimy face was glowing. "To threaten and be threatened, to
love and be loved ... Oooh! It's the intense esthetic
of sadism ... M'lord! I didn't know you and the Major
shared such an abnormal passion!"
Dorian watched with interest as his men took a nearly comatose James
into their care. Bonham assured him it was only heatstroke, and he turned back
to watch the distant dots on the horizon that were all that remained of Klaus
and his agents. His heart felt heavy that they wouldn't meet any time soon;
The taste of him lingered on Dorian's tongue. The feel of him tingled in
his fingertips. The scent of him mingled with the rose oil on his robes. He was
surrounded by Klaus as he headed off on his hunt. If he couldn't have the man
in reality, he'd take all the fuel for fantasy he could steal. It was, after
all, what he did best.
Of course, this being the mysterious
Klaus, also to be expected, called him a psychotic stalker and demanded
that he leave. Then he'd submitted, as had become the pattern, and they worked
quite well together to retrieve their respective treasures. There had been one
moment when he'd placed a string of emeralds against the Major's chest and
admired the gleam they reflected from eyes as deeply green as the gems
themselves. To his everlasting shock, Klaus had allowed the liberty. Not for
long, but at least he hadn't gotten slapped for it.
Well, there had been a few other wonderful moments ... following Klaus'
black-clad form through the palace halls, watching his magnificent body strain
as he moved the tiles hiding the treasure ... watching Klaus strip when they
exchanged outfits ... almost being gutted as the Major pulled him back from the
treasure's hiding place with enough force to nearly send him through the wall
... hmm. Not all of the moments had been pure bliss.
Still, perched lightly on the parapet along the top of the palace after
they'd escaped and gone their separate ways again, he'd felt as though he was
inhabiting Scheherazade's Arabian Nights.
Back at Bakhazial's home in
It was a tad lowering to discover, after all this time, that he loved
the irascible, short-tempered, emotionally frozen, unimaginative soldier
precisely as he was.
In a vain attempt to rescue something of his Silk Road Adventure
fantasies, he set off across the desert in a jeep. In a burst of generosity, he
brought James.
Halfway to
Leaving the perpetually-whining James in the vehicle, he stepped out
amongst the ruins of the city and allowed his imagination to transport him over
two thousand years into the past. He could hear the merchants, the townspeople,
the priests and priestesses, bustling through the streets. The crumbled stones
grew into temples and houses, gleaming white and painted vividly in the bright
desert sunlight.
For an instant, the splendor that had been
With a start, he realized that the steady thumping sound coming to him
on the breeze wasn't in his imagination, and he snatched up the
binoculars. The grim sight of Klaus' visage, stark as a hawk on the hunt, panicked
him. Reality was not going to give him time to enjoy his dreams!
"James!" he shrieked. "It's the Major! RUN!"
The next several moments were a scene from his personal version of Hell.
Unable to avoid the attacking helicopter, unable to outrun it, with no idea
whatsoever why Eberbach was chasing him, he screamed
in sheer disbelief when Klaus started to shoot at him.
The jeep, nearly out of petrol anyway, flipped over as he and James
jumped for their lives. The helicopter landed not far away, and Klaus and his
interchangeable agents marched toward them. He smiled internally, although he
maintained a neutral expression, not wanting to give away his plan.
So, the Major would strand them in the desert, eh? Ha. He'd still make
his escape ... he'd simply steal the NATO helicopter! It would go well with the
German tank currently residing in his garden.
"Hullo, Major," he purred once Klaus was within range.
"You wanted me?"
"Don't flatter yourself, idiot," the Major growled with a hint
of triumph. "I want the dagger you stole. Give it to me."
Dorian gave him a sideways look.
"Don't worry, you'll get it back when I'm
through with it."
For some reason, Dorian trusted him. He handed it over without a
quibble.
"That wasn't as difficult as I expected you to be," Klaus
commented, shaking a small canister from the sheath before tossing it back to
Dorian.
"I know when to fight and when to walk away," he said as
pleasantly as he could through clenched teeth. "Now that you've got what
you want, what are you planning to do with me?"
The triumphant gleam in Klaus' expression expanded until it could be
termed insufferably smug. "It might not be a bad idea to cooperate with
Interpol, for a change."
"Wouldn't be a good idea from where I'm standing," Dorian
protested. "Are you sure you won't change your mind?"
It was Major Eberbach. Of course he wouldn't
change his mind. So Dorian did as he'd planned all along.
He stranded Klaus before Klaus could strand him. Yelling for James, he
dove past the startled NATO agents and threw himself into the helicopter.
Palming the controls, he headed off in a combat take-off, or the closest he
could get in a rotary as opposed to fixed-wing aircraft.
"Sorry, darling!" he called down to the abandoned Major,
laughing lightly. "I simply couldn't let you hand me over to them!"
In very little time, he wasn't laughing. He was cursing. The helicopter
ran out of fuel within twenty miles of where they'd taken off. He was
frustrated. Irritated. He felt cheated.
It wasn't nice to cheat a thief.
Chewing over the thought, not enjoying the taste, he left James outside
to wave down any errant tourists who might be on their way to
"Attention, KGB," he sang sweetly. "NATO's Iron Klaus is
sitting on his bum in the desert north of
He knew his Klaus. The man lived and breathed conflict. He'd escape. Somehow.
He wasn't so certain of himself, an hour later, when a jeep bearing the
unpleasant minions of Interpol showed up at the side of the helicopter.
Fortunately, they were tailed quite closely by members of Mr. Bakhzial's personal guard. During the ensuing gun battle,
two very large Iranian bodyguards towed him bodily into yet another jeep,
hauling James behind them like a loudly crying afterthought. It was a fast,
wild ride back to
Perhaps not surprisingly, his thoughts were occupied with thoughts of
Klaus all the way home to
Happily, there was a lock on the door to the loo.
Escaping
The fact that that had also been enjoyable was one he only dwelt
on in extremely private moments. He took pains to ensure that he was constantly
busy in the months that followed to keep those very private moments at a
minimum. Settling in for an autumn of protecting NATO's security, Eberbach didn't realize he had a hole in his own.
His town home was immaculately kept, extremely private and nearly empty
of servants. He preferred it that way. He relied on the finest surveillance
equipment NATO could provide to ensure that his territory was not encroached
upon and to protect him from all of his enemies, ranging from the KGB to his
own chief.
Unfortunately, it wasn't an obstacle to a determined thief. Whether Eroica could be classified, technically, as an enemy, given
the number of illicit and erotic dreams Eberbach'd
had about him, was another matter altogether.
He was already in bed and asleep when disaster struck. He awoke to a
cool breeze and soft lips touching the skin of his chest. This made no sense,
since he'd gone to bed wearing his normal pajamas, undershirt and shorts.
Without anyone else in the room who had lips. He
certainly wasn't kissing his own chest. Other than the anatomical impossibility
of such a caress, there was the undeniable fact that his own mouth was busy
gaping open like a half-wit and issuing moans like a calf in heat.
Those two facts woke him up faster than the realization that there was
an intruder in the room.
Instincts honed over a lifetime of duty and an adulthood as a modern-day
warrior leapt into action. Tripped over arousal. Subsided in the face of overwhelming odds. Surrendered without a whimper as Eroica
stripped him with an ease that would have been humiliating if he'd been able to
appreciate anything other than graceful hands on his skin and a beautiful face
nuzzling his groin.
Never, ever, in his entire life, had he ever felt anything like it. He was defenseless, at the mercy of a master. Seduced
before he was entirely awake, his body, starved for the entirety of its
existence for such a touch, ignored his mind and his will completely to go
enthusiastically over to the enemy camp. Once his mind realized it was over-run
and over-taken, it did as any decently trained military instrument would, and
retreated in disarray, to regroup and fight another day.
At which point his own hands joined the action.
No longer constrained by conflicting desires to beat the hell out of
Dorian and finally, finally touch him, Klaus lifted the slighter man bodily
from him. Ignoring the startled yelp, a decidedly English "Oi!" he flipped their bodies over and covered that
incredibly warm body with his own. Dorian moved like quicksilver under his
hands, so he brought his legs and arms and mouth to bear on the problem of
capturing Light in his bed.
Wrapping his thighs around Dorian's, capturing those truant hands with
his own, he gave in to the ravenous need to touch, licking and kissing every
part of Dorian's body he could reach. The sounds of protest issuing from
Dorian's mouth quickly transformed to sounds of enjoyment, then positive
encouragement. Unfortunately, by the time Klaus realized that he had Dorian
completely immobilized, he also realized that he didn't have the faintest idea
what to do with him next.
Lifting his head far enough to look down into Dorian's face, he was gratified by the dazed look on the expressive features.
Hazy blue eyes gradually sharpened into focus as the Earl realized that Klaus
had stopped moving.
"What?" he slurred. His mouth was swollen, his lips red. He
looked debauched. It was a natural look for him. Klaus was compelled to kiss
him again.
When he lifted his head the second time, Dorian was hazier than before
he'd begun. That was encouraging, too. But it wasn't enough. He didn't know
what perverts did together. He just knew he had to do it. Now.
With Dorian.
"Schatz," he rasped, unable to come up with anything more
definite. He'd never be artistic in the way Dorian was, never wanted to be, but
he knew treasure when it was in his hands.
Reading his mind, or perhaps so closely attuned to his body his actions
merely appeared to be psychic, Dorian began to slither beneath him.
Instinctively, Klaus burrowed further between the slim, muscular thighs now
wrapping around his hips. Long arms slid around his neck, bringing him closer,
and Dorian hissed in the general direction of his ear, "Just like a woman,
or so I've been told, only a hell of a lot more fun."
Eberbach didn't have the nerve to mention that he'd
never been with a woman, so he had no basis for comparison. In the next few
moments, it didn't matter, because Dorian gave a shudder, rolled his body in a
movement any cat would envy, and slipped one hand between their bodies. He felt
strong warm fingers grasp his penis, then he was
engulfed in a cross between an inferno and a vise.
"Always prepared," Dorian gasped at him. "The
creed of a good thief."
Then he wriggled, and what few remnants of his mind Klaus had managed to
salvage scattered to the four winds.
Nothing could have prepared him for this. His body was completely out of
control. His mind had abdicated to his hormones, which were singing marching
tunes and waving flags. His hips were driving into that incredible heat with an
unstoppable rhythm, much like a tank song, and Dorian's skin was bruising under
his mouth, under his fingertips.
Pressure slid along the backs of his calves as Dorian ran his feet up
and down them. It reminded him irresistibly of a horseman spurring on his
mount, and he reacted in much the same manner, driving harder, thrusting
deeper. Skilled hands roved over his arms, his shoulders, played along the side
of his face, fingertips dabbling in his mouth, pressing at his tongue.
Dorian's head arched back against the pillow, wild curls dampening into
tight corkscrews with perspiration as his free hand went down to caress
himself. Klaus watched, unable to help himself, as he'd been unable to stop
himself from participating in any of this decadence.
The joining of their bodies was cream white against rose red, fingers on
stalk, thigh pale against his own darker skin, hair golden brown against the
jet black of his own. Then Dorian's heels came up and locked around his waist,
the hand on his erection beat a nearly brutal rhythm, and the chapped lips
opened in a soundless scream as Klaus felt fingers clench in his hair and the
vise clench around his thrusting cock at the same moment. Fluid spurted over
Dorian's knuckles, trickling down across his wrist, and Klaus froze, buried
deeply, watching with fascination.
One of his hands unlatched from Dorian's hip and traced a ropy line of
liquid. It felt like pearl, lighter than his own, and
he lifted it to his lips. His mind stood to the side of the bed, gawking at
him, as he tasted it. Citrus and salt. Addictive.
"God, Klaus, but I love you," Dorian moaned. Klaus looked up.
Huge ocean blue eyes, dark with passion, surrounded by spiky lashes, stared at
him as if mesmerized. The hold on his cock tightened reactively, and he
withdrew slightly and thrust back in automatic response.
His movement broke the strange paralysis seeing, and feeling, Dorian's
climax had imposed upon him. Once his hips began to move again, they would not
be stopped, and in very little time his back was arching, his hands were
digging once more into Dorian's hips, and he was in the throes of an orgasm
unlike any of the admittedly few he had ever experienced. If it wasn't
absolutely ridiculous to assume so, he'd've thought
he'd actually lost consciousness.
As it was, he was barely able to move, collapsing atop Dorian and
burying his face in a pile of curls that tickled his nose and smelt of sweat
and roses. He didn't pay much attention as strong arms shifted him about,
allowing his heavy body to be arranged, covered, and drawn back up to rest
against that incredible warmth. For the first time in his entire life he went
to sleep without the proper attire. With a bedmate. On sticky sheets.
Content.
It didn't last, of course. Insanity seldom did, outside of Russian
novels and psychiatric wards. Once dawn broke, his senses returned to him. They
lost no time waking him up, demanding he clean up the mess in which he found
himself. Dorian did not react well to being dumped, stark naked, in the middle
of the floor, then having his trousers thrown atop his head.
"The next time," he proclaimed as grandly as possible whilst
hopping about on one foot and attempting to put both trousers and socks on at
the same time, "you will come to me!"
Eberbach ushered him out
the side door, glancing furtively about to ensure that no servants were
watching and hoping like hell the KGB hadn't yet replaced the perimeter cameras
he'd disabled two days before. Then he barked with nothing like his usual
authority, "When hell freezes over! Verpiss dich! Fuck off!" Even repetition didn't help.
Perhaps time and distance would.
By Christmas, his life was on an even keel again. The dreams had finally
stopped, by the simple expedient of working until he fell over from exhaustion
and his flesh was too tired to betray him. Eroica
flitted off to
It helped. Not much.
He spent a lot of time in church. It was very calming and the priest's
voice was a good soporific. He'd nearly convinced himself that the previous
autumn had been nothing more than a particularly vivid nightmare when his chief
called him in to the office and forced him to take a new assignment.
To steal plans from the safe at the
Klaus stared out the window of the Benz as it made its way through the
slushy streets toward the airport. He wondered when Hell had frozen over, and
how it had managed to escape his notice. It's only business, he told himself
sternly. I'm simply doing my duty. The words had no effect on the anticipation
heating his blood, no matter how often he repeated, over and over, 'Duty.'
Watching his target board the train at
Never again.
end / beginning / chaos as usual