"Tell me," Klaus began, and Dorian lifted his head from the Major's chest to regard him, "why didn't you give up? On me, I mean."
Dorian smiled, slung his leg over the Major's torso and raised himself to sit there, straddling the other man's hips, mindless of the sheets that fell away from them.
"Well that's an interesting question, Major. However one that, considering your recent conquest, I wouldn't think you'd have to ask." He smiled lasciviously.
Klaus frowned. "I'm quite serious, Eroica."
Bedclothes rustled as Dorian shifted. "Call me Dorian and I shall consider telling you."
"Dorian."
"Oh, Major! Don't say it like you're taking a census. Say it like... well like we've just done what we've just done." He pouted. "Am I not your Adonis? Your Achilles? Your David? Have I not slain your mighty Goliath?" He struck a pose even Adonis might have envied.
"You're ridiculous is what you are."
"And you happy to ridicule... But you cannot ruin my mood, I am far too happy." He smiled brilliantly, as if to prove the statement.
Klaus sat up, kissed him, and in a manner which very much acknowledged that they had just done what they had just done and with an evident hope of doing it again said, "Dorian..."
"Klaus..." was Dorian's breathless reply.
"Major," the Major said, and laid back against his pillows where Dorian would have followed had he not been rebuked, but instead fell gracelessly beside him.
"What do you mean by 'Major', Major? Am I not allowed to call you Klaus? You can call me anything you like, you know."
Klaus reached for his cigarettes on the bedside table and lit one. "I thought I was supposed to call you Dorian. Make up your mind."
"Well Dorian, for sure, when we're alone and we've just done what we've just done--"
"Would you stop saying it like that?"
"-but you could call me anything and I would come." Dorian fingered the linens thoughtfully. "You've certainly called me worse than 'Eroica' or 'Thief'... though I would hope that the nastier phrases would be fewer and farther between now that hypocrisy would be in it."
"And you think hypocrisy wasn't always in it? You think this is because of you? That I might have remained a chaste heterosexual were it not for your deviant wiles?"
Dorian grinned. "Oh no!... Well... and yes! But I figure you've always been just as queer as me--" Klaus tried to interrupt and protest but Dorian hurried past, "--but now even you know it!"
"Hmph." The Major said, and puffed away. Dorian snuggled against him.
"But you fulfilled my request so I will tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"Why I didn't give up."
"I'm not interested anymore," Klaus mumbled around his cigarette but Dorian wasn't listening.
"You're a very proud man, Major. Courageous and strong. Tenacious, even. And I could tell that you admired those qualities in other people. So it occurred to me that what you needed was strength in love, a courageous and tenacious partner who wasn't afraid to stand up to you..." He took the cigarette from between Klaus's lips, took a half-hearted drag, made a face, and snuffed it out in an ashtray beside the bed. "...and that you wouldn't respect me or consider me worth knowing until I'd proven I was all of those things." He grinned at Klaus's confused frown.
"You mean you followed me around, ceaselessly declaring your love for me so that I might respect you?"
"Yes."
"And you interfered with my missions and stole my possessions and made yourself a general nuisance thinking to impress me?"
"Didn't I?"
Klaus seemed to be thinking very hard, then raised one brow and gave a non-committal shrug. There was a shuffle and by the time Dorian spoke again Klaus hovered above him, mouth at his throat.
"Major... it is my turn to ask... why did you give in?"
The answer was muffled by Dorian's jaw, "I thought we just established that I was impressed by your tenacity and monumental ability to annoy me."
Dorian smiled and let himself be kissed, "But surely, Major, that cannot be all of it."
Klaus pushed himself up on his hands, just far enough to meet Dorian's gaze. "Has it occurred to you that maybe the reason I prefer you call me Major is that it is all you have ever called me, that I've grown used to hearing you say it, and maybe I like the way it sounds?"
"It had not... do you really merely only like the way it sounds? Would you say perhaps that you love the way it sounds?"
The Major thought. "I might. But that's not really the kind of thing I would say, is it?"
"Not really, no.... Not nearly enough expletives."
Klaus's features softened. It was almost as unsettling as his smile. "I fucking love the way it sounds you goddamned pervert.... How's that?"
Dorian beamed. "Very romantic, Major."
The Major tried very hard not to smile. "Damned fop."