Bright bright lights in his eyes, no, eye, piercing down through until he turned his head to look into the pillow. Woven cloth shielded the light away, though to twist so made a pained tug in his arm -- what was that? Why did it hurt so much?! "[Help... Dorian? Ah, fuck, help...]" A strained whimper of noise as he tried to tug away from the pain again, not yet caring to open his eye again.

There was no answer; nothing, nothing but white silence accompanied by the consistent thrumming beep of iv, of monitors singing their steady hospital song.

"Major?" A voice asked almost timidly, a body moving close to the bed from the sound of it. "[Major, it's all right. You're in hospital again.]"

Klaus flinched, trying to jerk away again, but only managed to make it harder for him to breath, pressing too close against the pillow. Why did it hurt so much everywhere, why? His head jerked up with a ragged gasp, eye not yet daring to open. Not yet. "[Dorian?]" The voice that talked to him *wasn't* Dorian, couldn't have been Dorian, though he couldn't remember why it couldn't have been Dorian.

"[You're both in intensive care, Major. He's in the room next to yours. Please, just rest...]"

Not with him...? Klaus opened his eye at last, peering around the room through the vertical blinds his lashes formed. "[Need to see him...]"

Quiet conversation, just beneath his hearing, spilled into the room, fading at the edges. "Sir... [Sir, you can't. They say he's not well enough, and neither are you. You cannot get out of your bed, and he isn't awake..]"

"[Need to see him,]" Klaus stressed, trying to shift upright with a tense groan that reverberated through his chest. The pain seemed to be everywhere... "[Have to.]"

"[You can't, sir. Just lay back...]"

"[I need to see him!!]" Klaus demanded, straining against all sanity to sit up, eye opening as best it could to take in the antiseptic room and the voice talking to him. From the vague blurred image of blond hair, blue eyes, it HAD to be Z.

"Sir..." He sighed, defeated. "[Let me talk to the nurse on duty again. I'll make arrangements, if I can. Please, until then... Lay down?]"

"[I need to, have to see him.]" Klaus did lie down just a bit, his back propped against the pillows to finish trying to look at everything in the room.

"[You're safe,]" Z murmured, moving closer to him. "[We've made sure that you're both very safe, Major...]" It was reassurance, and desperately needed.

Safe, safe.... was there something they had to be safe from? "[What happened?]"

Eyes widening, Z shifted forward. "Sir... if you could tell me what you remember..."

He swallowed once, then shook his head slowly. "[Water.]" A stall so that he could see what he *could* remember -- he knew the blond man with the blue eyes was Z and not Dorian -- that Dorian was pretty, and his, with long hair, and shiny streaks, and thick lashes.

A hand that trembled ever so slightly poured water from a styrofoam pitcher into an equally stiff white cup, holding it to his lips carefully. "[There, Major...]"

Halfheartedly, Klaus tried to move a hand to help, but he felt too tired and stiff to have it be much use, so he let it drop back to his lap, and simply drank what was given to him. "[Thank you. I remember... opening a door. Then I can't remember anything else.]"

"[I... see,]" Z murmured, frowning. "[I'll talk to the nurse, sir. You keep resting, all right?]"

"[Tell me what happened, first -- why... am I here?]" Why was he hurting, where was Dorian, why did a nurse have to be asked before he could see him?!

"[You were both badly hurt, Major. Your... You were burned and..]" How to say these things? He sighed. "[And Eroica lost a great deal of blood...]"

"[Eroica?]"

"Dorian?" Z said softly, looking almost fearful.

"[I remember... that he was screaming. And then he wasn't. That's why I need to see him,]" Klaus murmured, looking at Z's fearful face. "[Let me see him.]"

"[But you don't remember that he is Eroica...?]"

"[He's Dorian. That's it. I don't... know what you're talking about.]" Klaus frowned, and then winced at the pain his jaw gave him for the gesture.

Ohh, that was a very bad sign! "Let me speak with the nurse, sir..." he murmured in English, wondering if Klaus would understand him.

"[Tell her I need to see him,]" Klaus said, shifting just a little before just sagging against the headboard in exhaustion.

"[I'll tell her, Major. You don't need to be moved, either of you, but... I will do what I can,]" Z informed him quietly, leaving him to hopefully drift away into sleep once more. It would be better for all concerned if he did, but Z knew the Major too well to think that anything might be that simple!

Sleeping wasn't an option -- not when his body *hurt* so badly, and not when he couldn't really tell where he was -- a hospital...? A hospital meant that there were buttons. He'd been in one before, but hadn't Dorian been there with him? Hospitals meant call-buttons -- and buttons to stop the pain. He could see both of them, but his tired arms wouldn't reach for them.

Where was Dorian, since they weren't together?

Z had said in the room next to him, but the sudden panicked worry that he really *wasn't*, that Dorian was gone somewhere and not coming back, filled him up and overflowed, frightening him, sending him spiraling into misery. Everyone knew Dorian was supposed to be right beside him! So if Dorian wasn't right beside him... where could he be??

Dorian wouldn't leave him, though -- God, not after... after what felt like an eternity, no matter what, they'd always said they'd be there for each other... Unless Dorian was hurt, too. Maybe Dorian was hurt worse than he hurt, maybe...

Maybe Dorian was dead and Z just didn't want to tell him.

"Major Eberbach..." It was a nurse, and she was smiling at him, Z behind him. Why they kept calling him that when he wasn't Major Eberbach anymore, he never could understand. "This nice Mister Z was just saying that you wanted to see Lord Gloria. I'm afraid that we can't move either of you..."

It took him a moment to reply, though the water Z had given him helped when he did reply. "I need to see him -- I can... I can move myself to see him, but I have to see him."

"Sir..." the nurse began again.

"Dammit, I have to see him to be sure he's okay!" Klaus snapped.

Z spoke up then, tentatively. "I can help him, Nurse Schreiber..."

"I need to see him," Klaus repeated, looking to Z. "Make sure you're not bullshitting me... need to see that he's alive. Safe."

"He's alive," Z promised. "He's in the next room.. but Major..." Oh, there was so obviously something that he didn't think Klaus should know!!

"What? But what?" Klaus demanded -- what was it that they were hiding from him?

"But you have to be very quiet," the nurse said sternly. "He's *quite* ill, and so are you!"

The frown on Klaus's face deepened, but he nodded -- as if he didn't know how to act around his companion!! "Let me see him," he repeated.

"I'll get a wheelchair," the nurse grumbled, leaving the room. Z sighed slightly and shook his head, stepping up to the bed to lay a hand on Klaus's arm gently.

"Do you think you can stand from where you are, sir?" he asked quietly.

Why couldn't he stand? "Ja." Absent, carelessly answered. "Dorian should be in the same room as I am. We were last time. We shouldn't be separated..." He shifted to the edge of the bed, and then moved his legs over the edge. *That* was when he realized the source of his pain.

"You were both hurt very differently this time," Z murmured, helping him to sit up as the nurse came back. "You're in intensive care, and you each have a special nurse assigned to you..."

"Don't care," Klaus murmured, resting his weight on his hands to keep himself balanced as he sat there. "Don't... don't care. I have to see him."

Z's expression softened as the nurse came back, one of the extra-wide wheelchairs pushed before her so that the sides would not touch his burned flesh. "I'll see what I can do, Major. You're right. It would just be difficult to get another bed in one of these rooms and..." He bit his lip. "Neither of you can be moved out yet. All right?"

"Why not?" He hadn't realized yet *why* he hurt so much, why it hurt to get to his feet on shaking legs, hurt *badly* even with Z supporting him. "Shit..."

"Your legs are burned," the nurse sighed at him almost gently, shifting to help Z settle him into the chair, hands going afterwards to replace the dressings on his calves. "Badly. And Lord Gloria is..." "He's lost a lot of blood," Z interrupted, shaking his head at the woman. /Don't tell him that, yet.../

"How?" Klaus asked quietly. "How? What happened? I can't... remember." Last time... hmn, there had *been* a last time, but he couldn't remember it well. There was crying, shaking to remember, holding Dorian's hand.

"You were captured, Major," Z murmured. "Both of you. You were hurt, but we're doing our best to take care of you. Lord Gloria's men and the Alphabet have all taken turns staying with both of you...."

"I need to..." Klaus rested his arm on the arm-rest, leaning on it less than subtly. "I need Dorian." More than visitors who weren't the entirety of his being.

The nurse slipped behind him, pushing the brakes away from the wheels to move the chair forward. Z got out of the way, then, as they moved through a wide doorway and out into the ward itself. A baker's dozen of nurses, male and female, moved proficiently among the open room, in and out of doors much like Klaus's. They seemed almost like ants or other colonized insects with the way that they hurried and rushed, and he was fascinated by it even as they wheeled him to the right, stopping at the open door of the room next to his own.

Klaus leaned a little, looking in -- he could see golden hair pillowed amongst white, tubes and machines too numerous. But his eyes were locked tightly on the hair of the turned-away man. "Closer."

With some care, he was wheeled further into the room, A glancing up with bloodshot eyes from a chair in the corner, giving a little gasp. "Major...!"

He was awake, even if he wasn't... didn't seem very there, except for being painfully intent on Dorian. Grey-green gaze focused on A for a moment, half recognizing, before it slipped away to Dorian again. "Let me touch him."

"He's very ill..." the nurse began, but Z shifted to push the wheelchair forward despite her words, and A joined him quietly as they moved beside the bed.

Swathed in white, the blond man lay, tubes leading into his arms and out of his mouth and into his nose, horrible, horrible array of plastic lines that seemed an impossible network to follow. Worse, blood stained the pallor of his face, leaking from the corners of his mouth in little trails that dried out in streaks.

All that Klaus had was an IV and a catheter that he could barely feel -- nothing in comparison to his beloved... He lifted one tired, heavy palm to grasp Dorian's gently, his maimed right hand clutching weakly. "Why is he still bleeding?"

Silence filled the room, no one wanting to answer him, but A finally spoke softly. "Major, they've... they've... There's something wrong with his mouth and the mouth is a very sensitive place. It's healing, but it's going to take a while because there wasn't anything they could do for him, really..." Not with the wound partially cauterized, the tongue God only knows where in that rubble.

"Tell me." It wasn't a demand, but for all the ferocity and sad anger in those two simple words, it might as well have been. He wasn't looking at them, though -- he was looking at Dorian, gently holding his hand and oh-so-careful to not displace any of the wires.

"They cut out his tongue, Major," Z whispered softly. "We couldn't find it, and they way they did it, no one really could have put it back..."

The black-haired man stilled tensely, swallowed and then closed his eyes. "Gott..." His grasp of Dorian's hand didn't stop, though. The noise, when it had stopped... that was what it had been. He hadn't been able to see, hadn't really been very conscious... /My Dorian -- I should have protected you. I *promised* to protect you.../

The flutter of lashes came, golden and trembling against pale face. Blue eyes opened, hazed, unfocused, and then drifted shut again, but Dorian's fingers wrapped oh-so-slowly around his own, then, knowing somehow that it was him.

Not lost to Klaus at all, that clutch of fingers, even if he hadn't seen those sweet eyes look at him. "Ich liebe dich," Klaus whispered tensely, swallowing. "I should... should have protected you better. I'm sorry." Those fingers squeezed again, as if to say that it was all right.

"I'll..." The nurse swallowed. "Are they...?"

"They're never apart," A whispered. "Not since five years ago. They were here, then, too..."

"The sooner... we can get them in a room together," Z whispered, too, just to A and the nurse, "I think the sooner they'll heal. Last time... last time they could stay like that for hours and hours."

Nodding, the nurse moved to leave. It was *definitely* time to call in psychiatry, now that they were awake! She knew that they couldn't be moved in together yet -- in fact, Major Eberbach would undoubtedly be moved to a regular ward a week or more before Lord Gloria would be. She had a feeling that they would be needing all of the help anyone could give!

"I'll stay with them," A murmured to Z, brows slightly tensed as he heard Klaus murmur more to Dorian, apologies and soft soothing words, clasping gently to the thief's hand. "They'll be fine until we have to take the Major back to his room."

"Then, who knows what kind of hell will break loose," Z agreed on the breath of a sigh, shaking his head. "I'll go out to the waiting room and tell the others, then..." Anyone who wasn't on duty would be there, he knew; they had been for the past few days and would undoubtedly remain for quite a few more.

At least now, that Klaus was awake, and Dorian almost was, the touch and go feeling would fade. They'd heal. Both of them were strong... well, *had* been strong enough five years ago to heal so well. Who knew, now?

"I'll see you then, Z," A murmured ruefully.

"See you," Z agreed, and was gone.

Days.

It had been days, or it seemed like it, a million years, in fact, since he'd last seen that beloved face. He'd lain awake, washed with fever, and prayed for him to come as he'd swallowed blood and dozed in wrinkled sheets. The smell of his own flesh offended him and he wanted a bath and he desperately wanted color and not the plain white of walls and sheet and bed. When the little dark-haired man with the curls had snuck him in a rainbow catcher for the window, he'd forced his lips to curl with delight, and the little thing had cried and had to be taken away, afterwards. That was okay, though. Now he had color, light that made it dance in the sunshine.

If only he would come...

He did come, but it was with others again. His beloved was still in a chair, looking less ill and more comfortable than that fleeting glance so long ago. Clean clothes, and a comfortable blanket wrapped around his shoulders and over his lap. It wasn't white -- it was dark green, and caught Dorian's eyes in the best ways possible. He had glints of memory -- trees, walking, running, laughing and chasing, being chased and swept up into arms...

"You're awake today," Klaus uttered in a soft sort of desperation as A wheeled him right up beside Dorian's bed. The separation had been hard for him in particular, and he *felt* worse off for it than he had when he'd just awakened. Every time he closed his eyes, he could hear screaming, feel... feel disgusting hands on him. Klaus needed and wanted Dorian again, needed badly to see him.

THAT made Dorian smile, just those words, just those lovely thoughts. Terribly fleeting things, they were, and the empty smile curved upward, momentary happiness filling him incredibly. He knew that his Klaus in the chair was most magnificent, that he loved him, loved him, loved him, only he couldn't think for very long at a time about anything in particular at all beyond Klaus and his rainbow.

Klaus reached one hand to hold his tightly, three fingers grasping over his five. "You look better. They told me... told me that you can be moved into my room in another week. I want that a lot."

That seemed to quite please Dorian a lot, the blond man nodding and making firm noises before pausing and looking at Klaus in confusion when nothing more than grunts came from his throat. A hand moved up, touched his face, his throat, an overwhelming disorientation striking him. Why couldn't he make words like his Klaus could? He had never tried before just now, that he could recall. What if he had never been able to make words before?

"They hurt you." Klaus's voice fell quiet, tense, as the knot of tears gathering in his throat threatened to choke him. "They... they cut out your tongue. They're dead now. I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you better..."

To see those wide blue eyes well so pathetically with tears that spilled over pale cheeks hurt him worse than telling Dorian the truth had at all. The British man ran his fingers over his lips, on the verge of sticking them in his mouth to feel before he was stopped.

"Dorian..." Klaus's hands, both of them, caught Dorian's wrists gently. "It doesn't matter, Dorian. That you can't talk anymore. It doesn't matter to me, do you understand that?"

What he said gained him a slow nod, even though those tears kept slowly falling. The bleeding had stopped, at last, and they had taken away some of the awful plastic tubes from his face and hands, so it didn't hurt him that Klaus had his wrists. No, it felt reassuring, and it made him want to smile again, and he forgot just why he had been so upset anyway after another moment or two.

"You're wonderful, Dorian," Klaus whispered, shifting as forwards as he could, to kiss the backs of Dorian's hands. He barely paid a thought to A moving his chair closer still to Dorian's bed, then stepping away for the moment. "I'm so sorry..."

Sorry for what, Dorian couldn't imagine, so he patted Klaus's hand and smiled and smiled, and showed him his window rainbow. He wanted to tell him about the little man who'd brought it and how he'd cried, but he couldn't think of why he wouldn't be able to do so; instead, he simply waved at it, nodded, and waved again.

"You like that?" Klaus asked quietly, holding tightly to the hand that wasn't waving. "James brought it?"

Oh, *yes*! That was the little man, James! He nodded his head not quite vigorously, and it made him dizzy, forcing him to lean back into his pillows and to smile tiredly at Klaus. /Beautiful, beautiful, my artwork man,/ he thought, even though he wasn't entirely sure what he meant by it.

Klaus dredged up a smile that didn't hurt as badly as it would have before they took the stitches out of his jaw. "You must miss color."

He did, oh, he did, and the yearning was there in his eyes as he reached out and touched the soft green blanket around Klaus, the lovely striped pajamas with maroons and blues. He wanted pajamas and a green blanket, so badly that he wanted to cry again!

"Do you want this...?" Klaus asked softly, letting go of Dorian's hand to start pulling it off from how it was wrapped around him for warmth. Without thought, Dorian took it, snuggling into the softness of it and crooning just under his breath as hands petted over the brilliant color, the almost velveteen material. Klaus was content to tuck it around Dorian, and then catch one hand again in his own. "That looks pretty on you."

The words gained him one of Dorian's best smiles, pale scars lifting slightly with the feel of it, tracing over his skin. Klaus didn't see them, though; he hadn't seen them in a very long time, really. The way that Dorian seemed to snuggle into that delicious verdant cloth made him forget even more than that, really, because all he could see was pale blond and vert and wonder.

He wanted to get out of his chair and sit with Dorian, hold him, touch him again... but he wasn't sure he could stand properly yet without the terrible pain, so he satisfied himself by leaning near, smiling back at Dorian. "My room has more color than yours -- and you'll be able to join me there, soon. And after that, we can go home."

That obviously excited him terribly, those beautiful eyes awash with tears for a moment, pure joy, and he was so very delighted he could barely hold still. He was tired, though; he'd been awake a long time waiting, and he was so tired, but his Klaus was there, and he had a *green* blanket, and oh, he was so happy...

Words, Dorian's voice, would have been such a comfort in those moments -- but the sheer joy of Dorian's expression suited the same purpose, left Klaus's chest aching again for a different reason. "Dorian... Dorian, can I kiss you?"

That head tilted to the side, eyes closed, lips delicately pursed...

Klaus leaned near, lifting out of the wheel-chair a little to brush his mouth against Dorian's. Slightly chapped lips tasted of blood... but Klaus didn't care. "When you're in the same room with me, we can sleep together again," Klaus murmured as he slipped back down to sitting. "I've missed you."

That sounded nice; rather promising, in fact, and Dorian sighed softly with the pleasure of the thought. To be held safe and warm and wrapped up in color seemed a miracle. It did!

"Then we'll be able to go home. Do you..." Klaus looked intently at Dorian's face. "Do you remember how the fish you bought me died a couple of years ago...? I have another in my hospital room. I think... I think James brought it for me. You'd like it."

Fish... fish, fish... There was a fish? That thought was almost evident on his face, but the little flash of red-blue fish that he thought of made him smile. It made him terribly happy, all of that *color*...

The smile was enough for Klaus, though he couldn't push down the sinking worry for his lover. It didn't reach his eyes, though, as he let his fingers stroke over the back of Dorian's hand. "Yes. Yes... And we'll be going home, soon. We won't have to be here much longer, Dorian, I promise that."

There was obvious relief in the way that Dorian's hands moved to pat his, sleepy eyes smiling at him as he closed them. That patting didn't stop, though, any more than the steady snuggling into the green velour blanket did.

"I won't leave until you're asleep, Dorian," Klaus told him, quietly enjoying the patting of his hands, of having Dorian so wonderfully close to him.

Dorian didn't want him to leave, but he sighed, aching all over, the sharp pains in his mouth dulled by the drugs they fed him, his eyes drooping ever so slowly. Klaus was with him. Klaus was with him, and that made everything right, made everything *better*...

"Sleep well," Klaus wished softly, watching Dorian with a frightening ferocity as the blond's body relaxed away into slumber.

"Sir?" A questioned softly from the doorway. "Are you ready to go back to your room?"

A moment more of watching, and Klaus nodded. "Ja, since he's sleeping. It's cold in here."

"Shall I get your blanket?" A asked, not really wanting to take it away from the sleeping Lord Gloria. That splash of brilliant color seemed *right* clutched around him so tightly. "I don't know if they'll let him keep it..."

"They'd better," Klaus said firmly. "He needs it more." Because Klaus could get another, and it was no trouble for him to be cold. If he couldn't keep Dorian warm, at least his blanket could!

"I'll tell Z. He'll be staying with Lord Gloria later this evening, and he'll make sure that he still has it," A murmured, hitting the large metal plate on the wall to open the doors to the intensive care unit as he wheeled Klaus out of them.

"'s good -- they shouldn't take his things away from him. It helps him get better sooner," Klaus said wisely as he leaned back in his chair, tiredly. "When will they move him to my room?"

"In another week or so, the nurse said. They don't want him moved until they're sure he's not going to get worse, and he's got an infection right at the moment." The shears hadn't been very clean, even if they *had* been partially heated.

"An infection...?" Klaus turned his head, looking worriedly back at A. "How serious?"

"They're giving him antibiotics via IV, sir. That's never particularly good," A admitted as they found the elevators, pressing a button and waiting for one to arrive.

"I should be kept up to date on these things," Klaus said disapprovingly.

"The nurse told me while you were sitting with Er... Lord Gloria, sir," he was informed.

"I'm glad you told me, then," Klaus frowned. "I do have power of attorney for him."

"They say..." A paused, biting his lip. "They brought psychiatrists down. It's awfully hard because he can't talk..."

The retired major frowned sharply at that. "He's never liked psychiatrists -- why did they bring them down?"

A ding sent them into the elevator, A pressing the button for the fourth floor. "Well... I guess, special circumstances. He didn't seem to mind them. He doesn't seem to mind *anything*. Major... I don't know."

"I know," Klaus said tensely. "But it doesn't change anything. This.... this is my *fault*. And as long as he's happy..." As long as he was happy, so what? And he'd been dazzlingly happy to get that richly colored blanket.

"I know, Major," A murmured. "You love him..."

"It was worse last time. Crying and he was so scared all the time... this is better." And would be better still when Dorian was with him, where he belonged. "We'll manage. We always do."

"But what if he's not..." The oldest member of the Alphabet paused as the elevator came to a stop and he pushed Klaus out into the hall. "Well."

"I don't care." A was told that pointedly, almost angrily. As if he expected Klaus to turn his back on Dorian!

"I don't mean that," A murmured, shaking his head as they moved along, his understanding of Klaus entirely too good after so many years of working together. "What I mean is, what will you do?"

"Do...? We'll... do what we did before we went back to contract work, what we did between jobs given to us." Relax, enjoy life and each other.

A pursued the question no further, though his worry was deep. Instead, he simply continued to the end of the hall, depositing Klaus carefully in his room. "Would you like some help, Major?"

"From the chair to the bed...? Ja," Klaus requested politely, shifting to sit up very straight. "It still hurts to put weight on my legs... the nurse says that muscle was damaged. I... can't remember it." There were a lot of things he couldn't remember, in fact, and he bullshitted his way through a lot of others.

Carefully, A moved forward, shifting an arm behind Klaus's back and another carefully beneath a thigh. "All right. We're going to move now... slowly..."

Klaus still had the upper-body strength to grasp onto the edge of the bed and pull, lightening what A had to help lift, and between them both, his lean form was comfortable on the hospital bed once more. "Thank you, A."

THAT made A flush with pleasure, his lips curving upward in a smile. "You're very welcome, sir. I'll be back to see you, soon. G will be coming in an hour or so."

"All right." That was said idly, as Klaus let his eyes drift over to the little beta that was swimming around in the bowl on a stand not three feet away.

"Oh... And... Sir, your father... wants to come see you," A mumbled. "Both of you."

"Father...?" He got a curious blink, but Klaus nodded once. "I... he can. Where is he?"

A shifted nervously. "In the cafeteria downstairs, sir."

"Send him up, then," Klaus uttered, shifting to lay more comfortably, sheets pulled up around him for warmth. "While 'm still awake."

"Yes, sir," A replied, and headed for the door.

Klaus didn't thank A this time, and that was almost a comfort for the younger agent -- to not receive that thanks. Instead, the retired major and probably ex-contract employee snuggled himself into the bedding, and kept his eye open so he wouldn't nod off yet.

For a while, it seemed that his father wasn't coming; but then a firm knock sounded upon the half-shut door and it came open beneath the older man's fingertips. Klaus couldn't remember ever seeing his father look so *old* -- his face seemed almost as gray as his hair as he moved into the room, shifting the plastic hospital chair to sit beside Klaus's bed. "Klaus," he murmured, reaching to awkwardly pat his son's hand.

Klaus managed a faint smile, a flicker of expression. "Did you bring the blanket to me?"

He'd never thought to see his father flush that way, looking almost -- ALMOST -- embarrassed as he coughed slightly, fidgeting. "Yes."

"It was nice. I gave it to Dorian -- he needed it more. It's too dull down there for him and giving it to him made him happy. So, thank you," Klaus told his father easily.

At that, faded green eyes widened slightly. "I'll get you another," he promised with solemn intent. "How...? How is he?" It was not quite the same as asking Klaus how *he* was, but... it was quite close. After all, his son cared more about that blond thief than he did about himself!

"Happy, sometimes. He doesn't talk -- can't, because.... because. He knows he can't talk, though, and he..." Klaus closed his eyes for just a moment. "He should be up here with me, but he has an infection and they want to keep a closer eye on him."

"Because?" his father questioned softly. "Klaus... both of you...?"

"Both of us what?"

"Will both of you be all right?" It was a subjective question, really, uncertain, almost in need of reassurance. Over the years, he'd grown closer to his son; mostly because Dorian had forced them into learning to know one another.

"We'll manage. We won't be a burden on you, Father. I know... that you're old and we..." Klaus sighed, lips thinning again as words slipped away from him for just the moment. His father was old, old as dirt as he'd said once, and he knew that his father didn't have many years left in him. Better to try to make them enjoyable -- that's what old men were supposed to do, wasn't it? Enjoy their last years? "We'll just stay home."

"Klaus, I want both of you to do what you want," he told the younger Eberbach firmly, expression grim. "Not to simply do what *I* want you to do.."

"We... we can't work anymore." Klaus turned his head for the moment, to look around the room and out the window he felt lucky to have, the slits of light that crept in. Then he let his gaze drift back to his father, and he shifted to curl up on his side, head on the pillow. "Dorian seems to just want to be happy."

"What.." The older man cleared his throat. "What, precisely... is wrong? With both of you, Klaus? I ask not to pry, but..."

"Why are we still here...?" Klaus asked, perhaps missing his father's exact intent, but at least finding some intent to go from. "My legs are still burnt; It's hard to stand or walk for long, yet. Yet. They... they shot Dorian, cut out his tongue. And they... hurt both of us."

"Hurt you..." That seemed pensive, as if his father was contemplating the extent of that. "Yes. Yes, I would say so..." Almost as if he was afraid to do so, a hand reached out and awkwardly patted Klaus's hand. "Perhaps I should bring things... more things than a blanket...?"

"Yes," Klaus approved, moving the hand that got the pat to grasp, lightly, his father's hand. "Yes. The one from the end of the bed?" It was a bit plain, but he'd gotten Dorian to like it, and occasionally they put the old warm thing to good uses... or, had. He could remember that clearly, though, moments of happiness and pleasure... sometimes it seemed there were so many of them! "I... need something to... have, to remember, until he's here where he should be. I'll sleep better if it reminds me of him. They... they hurt us like they did last time, but we didn't talk this time either, Father. You would have been proud."

At that, the old man felt a sharp tingle in his sinuses, his jaw firming to pure steel to keep himself from shouting out in protest. It was *wrong*, purely *wrong*, his son... "I'll bring it," he promised solemnly, determining that he would do whatever needed to be done until Klaus could do it for himself.

Klaus gave his hand a squeeze, and murmured a 'thanks' in English. "You'll visit again? My men spend a lot of time here, but I can see that they don't like to be here. Even Dorian's men visit -- Bonham, I think, brought me a fish. It might have been James." His brow furrowed for a moment, "Or Z. I can't remember."

"You were sleeping when they brought it in, perhaps?" Oohhh, if he hadn't been, that was so terribly worrisome!

"No, I was awake -- I just wasn't paying attention." He was looking at the fish, and remembering other times, both in and out of the hospital, seeing a similar fish. "But it's pretty. Dorian bought me one the last time they hurt us."

It was strange, that conversation, the fact that his son who could remember every minute detail of any given moment could not recall who had brought him the fish, regardless of whether he was paying attention. "Yes," he murmured. "He'll like it, when he's brought into this room. Perhaps I should get him one for his. Do they allow them in intensive care, I wonder...?"

"No. A thought they'd take the blanket from him, and James's window rainbow, but he's going to tell them to leave Dorian that. It's too dull down there for Dorian, and he looked so sad before it..." And that wasn't going to be withstood by Klaus! Dorian would not be sad if he had anything to do with it.

"I see... perhaps I will bring something for both of you, then." His hand was squeezed gently, his father standing. It seemed awkward, the way he moved, bones creaking. "I will return, Klaus."

Klaus let go of his father's hand, nodded. "Take care of yourself, father. Thank you."

"I..." The old man cleared his throat. "Well. Yes. You, as well, Klaus..."

"I'll try," was the slightly smiled, yet genuine answer from his son.

With gleaming worry in his eyes, the elder Eberbach turned to go, pausing only once at the door. "Klaus," he said softly, pausing. "I won't bring up the subject of children again..."

After all, how could he, when his own was so obviously not doing well at all?

It hadn't even crossed Klaus' mind, as was evident by the pained frown on his lips. "Children... ahh, I could never... not now, not with Dorian... Dorian..." Klaus shook his head. "The way he is now, no..."

"He's..." But no, he wouldn't ask. He'd simply go and see. "I'll be back, Klaus, and I'll visit him when I return... you, as well."

"I'd like that," his son repeated, before closing his eyes lightly; then he burrowed down comfortably in the bedding, as comfortable as he could get in a hospital bed, and tried to go to sleep.

The green blanket was still with him when they wheeled the extra bed into Klaus's room, wrapped tightly around him. A small spot was rubbed almost bald despite its newness from the way that Dorian had nuzzled happily at it for almost a week, and his rainbow catcher was cradled carefully in his hand, the little plaid-clad bear that Klaus's father had brought him clutched in his opposite arm. Dorian seemed so *happy* to be out of intensive care and back to a world of color that he was entirely distracted, eyes taking in so much all at once that he seemed bedazzled.

To see Dorian so happy was stunning for Klaus, and he couldn't help that he tried to get out of his own bed to be closer to Dorian. In the end, though, at least until the room was empty, he satisfied himself by curling close to the edge and talking to Dorian, near to touching. And when the nurses and doctors left, he'd touch, he'd hold Dorian, be near him again...

"Good afternoon, Dorian," he greeted warmly.

The blond man beamed at him, showing him the soft little bear clutched in his arms, once again showing him the rainbow maker as he nuzzled beside the bare spot on his blanket steadily. It felt so good...

"Father gave you that bear?" Klaus asked with a smile for his companion and lover, shifting nearer still to the edge of the bed, his own blanket bundled up around him from the end of the bed, tucked in with him beneath the regulation hospital sheets. "He brought this for me, too. You remember it, don't you, Dorian?"

Blankly, that gaze peered back at him, mouth pursed thoughtfully for a moment. Did he remember it? Quilted patches, pretty in the sunlight, and something... something about grass and *the bad thing*...

Klaus wouldn't do the bad thing to him, would he?

"We used to lounge on it outside in the garden sometimes," Klaus supplied. "By the roses you love."

Roses...that brought to mind deep fragrance, dark color, and wiped away the thoughts of any bad thing happening at all! He nodded, then, only slightly confused, and smiled for his beautiful artwork man.

"We'll do it again," Klaus promised, snugging himself deeper in the blanket. "We will -- when we get home again, Dorian, we will. And you'll have as much color as you want..."

That was a delicious promise, one that prompted a soft sigh and a smile, the almost delicate wave of fingertips as if to say yes, yes, and yes. Dorian felt awash with color, with brightness, for the room was quite filled with flowers of all types, every color, and more roses than he could conceivably count, yellow, white, red, even tangerine. He loved every one of them, wanted to touch them and crush him with his fingers and paint himself with them...

It was probably better for Klaus that he was unaware of Dorian's deeply resounding wish at that moment. It would have scared him more than he already was, on edge with wondering how Dorian would be and where they would go next. "Hmn, I'm glad you'll like that. Very glad -- I want to go home now, with you, so I keep thinking of what we'll do."

Fingers reached out to touch the flowers on the table between them, Dorian unable to resist the urge. The petals were velvety, so soft, and he cooed, having another good something to touch.

Klaus liked to see the smile on Dorian's face, and the soft cooing noise was one that didn't take Dorian's tongue to make -- it was rolling, a hum of pleasure. "Be careful of the thorns."

The thorns were not important, though; he was, after all, only touching the flowers themselves, caressing over the open petals tenderly, wishing to pull one loose and clasp it to him. Instead, he laid back, the nurses shifting nervously as they plugged in the iv pump and hurried from the room, abandoning them to one another.

That was just what Klaus had wanted; with a smile, he shifted nearer, and finally just slipped to the edge of the bed, eyes warm and only really half open. "We'll have to come up with signs to talk with, Dorian." THAT seemed an interesting thought, Dorian turning immense blue eyes on him and tilting his head thoughtfully as if to say, Signs? "Signs like..." Klaus moved his maimed hand slightly. "Hand gestures to mean things -- like, 'yes', 'no', 'maybe', 'you want'..."

Oh, well, those, he didn't need. After all, Klaus always took care of whatever he wanted, didn't he? Or he thought that Klaus did, anyway... And the other words, well, he'd have to think on those.

"I'll think, too," Klaus murmured. "There's always sign language, if you want to learn." He wouldn't be able to manage it with his maimed hand, though, so he was glad that he could talk even if Dorian couldn't.

THAT sounded awfully complicated, and more than he wanted to think about at the moment. He yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth, for he truly didn't think anything of it. It revealed the mangled mess of his mouth, enough to make anyone cringe, but particularly Klaus.

It was *very* red, and darker than it should have been... "Are you glad to be up here with me...?"

The blond man nodded, snuggling tightly into his covers. He rather wished that Klaus was beside him, but being in the room was almost as good, and there were so many *colors* in Klaus's room! It was better than almost anything so far as Dorian was concerned.

A shift, and Klaus got himself down into the wheelchair, pulling his blanket with him. He had to put weight on one leg for a moment, and it hurt in a blaze from tightly dressed calf clean up to his hip, but the pain faded to the now familiar ache once he was seated. Then he settled his blanket around himself, and wheeled the fraction to be close beside Dorian's bed. "This is... is better than the last time, some ways."

The tilt of Dorian's head was clear, curiosity on a face that seemed almost too innocent for his own good. Last time... what was last time? He decided it wasn't something he needed to think about -- ever.

"Just sleep, Dorian," Klaus murmured to him soothingly. So, Dorian didn't seem to be able to remember a lot, and his expression was sometimes a bit off -- so what? Klaus had coped before, would cope again. Dorian first, then himself, because without his lover, he wasn't anything at all. "I'll be right here when you wake up, and we'll be home not too long from now."

Home.. That was such a delicious promise! It rang of beautiful things, of color and light and softness and *baths*, how very much he would like to have a bath! He sighed, yawned again, and reached for Klaus, eyes closing sleepily.

The reach for Klaus gained him a hand on the other man's back, and blanket, and Klaus leaned near to lay the side of his head on Dorian's bed. "Just sleep, Dorian. Like that."

He did, and they were together, close and tight. Everything was perfect again.

Perfect...

He was glad, once they pulled up into the drive, that his father had sent a driver to pick them both from the hospital. Klaus was still in no shape to be driving, though he was able to walk on his own again.

Rather against the advice of the doctor, Klaus hadn't gone home right away -- he'd stayed resolutely at Dorian's side until the blond was ready to be released. A had carefully pulled strings, and so had Z, to make Klaus's presence an unquestioned one.

/Father's waiting, I hope,/ Klaus thought absently as he opened his car-door and tugged Dorian out of it after him. "We're home now."

Standing beside him, the lovely man tilted his head to the side, curls tumbling over his shoulders in wild profusion. They'd been allowed to grow after he'd cut them so many years ago and now ran wild to his waist, lovely things that Klaus liked best to stroke and touch, brush and caress. 'Home' was not what he'd thought it would be -- for some reason, it didn't look at all as he thought it should. Still, it *was* familiar, and Klaus was there, so that was all right, too.

"Maybe after a few weeks here we'll go to the North Downs? You have a castle there, if... if you remember," Klaus said a bit hesitantly.

He *did* remember, remembered a house other than this, he *did*! Something of Dorian had been utterly lost when they had been tortured the second time; something that Klaus was afraid would never come back. It wasn't just that he couldn't talk; it was also that he couldn't seem to *think*, couldn't *remember*, that there were things that simply drew blanks with him no matter how often Klaus or James or Bonham or *anyone* repeated them. That he could remember a house besides the Schloss was immense relief for Klaus -- no matter what, he wouldn't just give up on his companion, yet it would have been unfair to not expect him to grasp for the strings of hope, thin threads, that he sometimes spotted. He had trouble, sometimes, but it was incomparable to how his lover acted, or, didn't act. Knife-sharp wit and playfulness were gone...

"Good," Klaus smiled, moving to the back of the car to pop the trunk. "I'm glad you remember."

That gained him one of those bright, sunny, thoughtless smiles, arms wrapping tightly about his waist, halting him from drawing out the box of their things. All of the flowers had been disbursed amongst the ill and elderly on that floor before they'd come home, leaving only pajamas, blankets, fish, and Dorian's teddy bear and rainbow catcher to come home with them.

It wasn't too much for Klaus to lift, though he was unable to hoist a thing as tightly hugged as he was. Ohh, but so what if he didn't get their things out of the trunk quickly! He brought his hands up, resting them on Dorian's shoulder-blades, keeping him close. "You'll be happy here."

That seemed a certainty; after all, wherever Klaus was guaranteed happiness, did it not? Klaus had made sure that he got bright Jell-o whenever he wanted it and all sorts of marvelous flowers. He couldn't ask for any better! Klaus watched out for him, and kept the doctors from moving them at night, he kept Dorian in flowers and bright things...

"You'll be happy," Klaus murmured, softer now, as if to assure himself of it, too. It hurt, hurt to have his lover so harmed... "Come on, Dorian -- let's go inside."

With that now-permanent silence, Dorian tugged at him, ignoring the box and pulling Klaus to make him come with him rather than fetching it. He tugged, and Klaus followed, going to the front door, and when it did not open automatically, it caused him some consternation. In the hospital, all doors had been open or they had opened automatically...

"Hold on," Klaus murmured, fumbling a key from his pocket. "I have to unlock the doors."

Doors with locks on them quite defied Dorian's understanding, brows knitting tightly. Why on earth would anyone lock something? How odd that seemed, how impossible!

"It keeps us safe, and--"

"Sir?" the door swung open before Klaus could fit the key in the lock, revealing the old butler to them both. "Sir, welcome home."

AHH!! It was the bald man! Dorian knew him! He'd followed them around in the garden and something funny had happened! He couldn't say just what, but that was all right. It still made him give an airy sound of not-quite-laughter, almost grotesque in its strangeness, pleased to see that gleaming head and to think of something distinctly *amusing*.

That almost laughter got Klaus to crack a smile, at last. "Yes, Dominic, we're home. Is father home?" He started past the man anyway, into the comfort of the house.

"Yes, sir!" was the tearful answer, Dominic snatching hold of Dorian and sobbing all over him, bringing blond eyebrows to rise upward, mouth turning into a little 'o' of surprise. "He's upstairs!" Dominic wailed. "Fixing things for yo~u!"

"Fixing things?" Klaus asked almost absently as he pulled Dorian way from the butler. "Don't cry on him -- why are you crying? Use a tissue!!"

Sniffling, a handkerchief appeared from Dominic's pocket, his nose blown loudly in it. "He wanted for things to be nice for you when you got home!" the man sniffled, making Dorian give that haunting huffed laughter again.

"Nice for us...?" Hadn't their shared room always been nice, the places they stayed together comfortable...? "Should we go up now, then...?"

Dominic shook his head wildly. "Oh, no, no! Wouldn't want you to interrupt before it was done, you know!"

"What's being done?" Klaus asked with a furrowed brow. "We want to go up there and settle in..."

"It's a *secret*," Dominic sniffed, becoming (for once) the epitome of butlerhood. "You mustn't interfere until he's done!"

"Then what are we going to do?" Klaus asked him rather pointedly.

Hopefully, the man peered at him, then most particularly at Dorian. "We have chocolate cake..." Oh, he knew Klaus wouldn't eat it, but Dorian *adored* it!

It was distressing for the butler to see the face, unhappy, that Klaus made, though that distasteful expression faded as he turned to Dorian. "Do you want to eat cake while we wait?"

That gained him a quick nod, one indicating that he very *much* wanted to eat cake while they waited! Cake was better than Jell-O, because it was deliciously sweet and clung neatly to the roof of his mouth. He rather liked cake, and chocolate sounded like a wonderful sort of cake, indeed!

"Then we'll go into the kitchen and we'll eat cake there." Slipping his arm around Dorian's waist once more, Klaus didn't let frustration touch him as they started down the hallway.

Once they were settled down at the rather large table, Dominic rushed off to the kitchen, returning with incredibly large slices of chocolate cake -- cake that even had chocolate *icing*, incredibly rich stuff that was quite enough to make one ill if one ate it all, Klaus was sure!

Klaus shifted his chair closer to Dorian, and tried to scoot the piece of cake away from himself, slowly, subtly. "Enjoy it."

Reaching down, Dorian lifted the fork that had come with it and cut off a hefty piece, but he didn't eat it himself; no, no, he shifted it up towards Klaus, offering it to him with wide eyes.

Oh, it was horrible to be faced with such torture at Dorian's hands... Klaus opened his mouth a little, and moved down towards Dorian's cake-laden fork. As he took the cake off of the fork, the blond thief seemed to nearly melt with the pleasure of being allowed to feed him. Klaus gave him wonderful things, and he knew that chocolate was a wonderful thing! He so wanted to share, and it made him smile and sigh, shivering with enjoyment.

It wasn't... so bad, Klaus decided as he chewed. He'd had much sweeter, and though the frosting threatened to choke him, the cake itself was spongy and warm, a little bit of cinnamon somewhere in the mix to make it even more palatable for him. "Mmm." An encouraging noise of enjoyment, in the hopes of getting Dorian to eat, too. "I like the cake."

What a smile that gained him, brilliant, and those soft lips pressed most happily to his, no longer tasting of copper or dryness. Encouragement given for Klaus to eat his own cake, Dorian took a bite of his own and gave the little coo that represented pleasure for him.

/Just eat the cake, Klaus... if won't kill you and it's almost... almost good,/ he thought, as he sectioned a piece without frosting and lifted it past his lips. "I'm glad you're better now."

Better was subjective, though, and Dorian never would be completely better, would he? It seemed impossible, particularly considering the way that he had seemed in the hospital, the way he seemed even now, and it almost physically hurt Klaus, a distinct pain even as his words caused another of those sweet smiles.

He still loved Dorian; Dorian still loved Klaus, and... and no matter how much it hurt him to see his once brilliant lover that way, he wouldn't give up. Klaus loved the ex-thief too much to even consider it... "After this, do you want to look around the house, or sleep?"

Open palms indicated that Dorian wanted to see the house, and the curiosity as he peered around the dining room said much. He had been here before, he knew, but it was something like a dream -- hazy, barely remembered, and not even remotely *real* to him.

Now it was real, so he had to learn it all over again. Klaus understood that, that... lack of memories. The psychiatrists said that Dorian had repressed everything when he tried to forget what had happened. Klaus had told them it sounded like shit to him, but... but it was possible. "The garden first...?"

A vigorous nod came, those eyes glistening upon him even as Dorian ate the last bite of the cinnamon spiced chocolate cake. The garden sounded *perfect* somehow, sparking all sorts of half-remembered dream things.

"We'll sit out there and look at the flowers...?" Klaus offered. Sit Dorian beside him, and maybe... maybe he could pretend that everything was how it was just a short time before. He watched as Dorian took his last bite and rose, moving towards him in that waft of floral scent that had made his knees weak for almost fifteen years, the remnant of smell left by the soap James had brought to him. The little skinflint had made numerous small, expensive purchases over the past weeks and had always been led away sobbing like a child. There were days, still, when Klaus almost wanted to do the same.

His feet made him stand without his direct permission, though the movement of his arms to enfold Dorian for just a moment before they did go into the garden was entirely approved. He spent a great deal of his time trying valiantly to not face what was going on, to not deal with Dorian's real actions.

How could he avoid it, though, when that face was filled with so much childish contentment, those lips pursed with such sweetness? There wasn't any way to avoid it wholly, no way he'd yet found, and all he wanted was for Dorian to be well again, or for something, anything, to take the last sense from his mind so that he, too, was blessed with Dorian's empty-minded contentment. Because until one of the two happened, he knew he was unwell and unsteady, probably little better than Dorian, and he was Dorian's watcher, his lover trying to protect him.

Delightedly wrapped arm in arm, Dorian walked beside him, eyes everywhere at once. There were so many wonders in Schloss Eberbach, things which Klaus had often taken for granted, but something about the blond man's excitement had often brought his own interest to the things that had seemed so commonplace before. This walk was no different than others in that way, for Dorian took great delight in some of the things they passed -- a Renoir here, a Degas there, some exquisitely sculpted statue yon -- but the difference, now, was that he had no astute comment to make about them, and Klaus could still here comments of years past ringing in his ears.

'Women -- I almost wish that they painted more half-naked men, and then I'd probably love that painting even more!'

'I wonder, darling... do you think Pumpkin pants had a cock as nice as yours?'

'Ohhh, the color on this could put a rose-window to shame...'

/Don't dwell on it, Klaus,/ he chided himself as he stilled, as Dorian did before the colorful painting.

The expression that took over Dorian's face was most particularly worshipful as he looked up at Tyrian, hands rising to carefully touch the frame. He seemed to understand automatically that touching the painting itself should not have been done, but oh, the gleam in those eyes, it seemed almost like the old Dorian, and he opened his mouth... Opened it and gave that odd chortling little laugh, pointing at the man in pumpkin pants and then at Klaus, obviously quite pleased with himself and the entire matter on the whole.

What that matter was, Klaus hadn't the damnedest, and the distress that almost touched his lips showed as much. "That's Tyrian, Dorian. That picture is the whole reason you ever met me."

His obvious disquiet touched Dorian, making the blond man's brows come together, his entire body language changing to tentative, uncertain. A question lay in his eyes, worry that he had done something wrong or that whatever was wrong with Klaus was his fault... and, in a way, it *was*.

"It's all right," Klaus sighed, reaching to take Dorian's hand. "It's okay. I.... I'm still getting used to things."

That didn't seem to be enough, but Dorian let it go, becoming quiet after that as they made their way towards the back of the house.

"Are you all right?" Klaus asked him gently, frowning further as he clutched at Dorian's hand.

A slight gesture passed between them, the obvious confusion on that face saying so much, and yet Dorian was truly unable to express what he did not understand... *WHY*? Why, he wanted to ask, why did Klaus need to accustom himself to 'things', and what had he done to make the his beloved artwork man so unhappy?

"I just..." Klaus swallowed, and leaned near to kiss Dorian. "I'm just sad. Not about you. You make me happy, just... things are different from how they used to be."

The feel of that brushing kiss was sweet and yet somehow more confusing than any kiss Klaus had given him before that he could recall. It seemed almost reluctant, and it made Dorian sad with him to know that he was unhappy. Tears welled up, arms sliding slowly around his neck, and Dorian gently patted his back, hugging close to him.

"I love you," Klaus sighed, closing his eyes as he hugged Dorian tightly close to him. The lean form still felt the same, though thinned a little from too long in hospital. It was easy to imagine... that everything was all right. "It really is better that you can't... remember things. I can't remember some things, either."

The sound of a sigh spilled against his ear, Dorian's hands still caressing his shoulders in slow, soothing gestures. He seemed to understand, then, that something was not right with him, and he trembled, holding Klaus all the more tightly, shivering with that sudden cognizance.

"We used to.... I remember that we used to not get along well. We fought all the time. And then we got hurt and I stopped fighting, and we spent a long time together, before... this last... happened," Klaus said haltingly, amazed that he managed to struggle the words past his lips at all. Memory hurt him sometimes, but it came readily most times when called upon. The caress of Dorian's hands was one such thing that drew his mind back up, almost familiar in their lingering knowledge. "I still love you. And you.... you were hurt because of me, this time. It's my fault they took your tongue..."

A frantic shake of that golden head was felt next to him, denial swift and true, and the soft sounds of hyperventilation accompanied it. What terrible, terrible things for Klaus to say! He couldn't bear them, couldn't bear to think them, couldn't imagine the horror that was his mouth or that *bad* thing, he couldn't, he *couldn't*!!

"I wasn't... I *didn't* protect you well enough. I should have... but I'll protect you now. Give you anything you want -- sweet things, color, anything at all, Dorian, just to make you happy." So that *he* would never feel as sad and heart-sick as Klaus was feeling.

Oh, but that didn't make it better at all, it didn't. He wanted for Klaus to be *happy*, not to simply make *him* happy, and it made him sob softly, shivering as he clung tightly to the tall German man.

"I'm sorry," Klaus shivered, holding him tighter. "I just want to make it up to you, but I don't know where to begin..." It felt almost like when they'd first started to work things through -- smiles and laughter one minute, the next fits and tears. Fingers tangled in black strands of hair, stroking awkwardly through them as Dorian continued to cry in his grasp. It seemed even worse than ever before, particularly because of the way Dorian's voice hitched, soft and dry, no clear sounds given.

No idea of how to stop those tears, or even for Dorian to really convey what he was feeling. Klaus could only keep his eyes closed -- after all, only one of them was sighted, he remembered -- and stroke along the line of the blond man's spine. "Tell me how to make it better."

Dorian's hold tightened upon him, tear-stained face lifting. Strain was obvious on it thanks to his pallor, his bitten lips, those glistening eyes that looked at him so seriously. When Dorian laid his head sweetly upon Klaus's shoulder, it was not an answer so much as a suggestion. He was so tired, he had cried and they'd eaten and they'd driven from the hospital, and now he was tired, and Klaus was still sad and tired, so what harm could sleeping do? It hadn't been the *plan*, but Klaus guessed he could take Dorian back through the house to his... Their room, if his father would let them go there yet. "Upstairs?" That head nodded, curls tumbling wildly around them. That obviously seemed to suit Dorian, his arms going around Klaus slowly, a sigh filtering slowly loose from him.

Klaus felt reluctant to see his father, when he knew that the older man worried so much over them, but there wasn't anything he could do, he reminded himself, as he started down the hall slowly, arms around Dorian, too. By the time they had reached the stairs, Dorian's snuffling had stopped, and by the time they reached the first landing, his face was finally drying again. That was good -- after all, it would only bother Klaus's father more if he knew they had been crying. Klaus had been careful to not cry -- because it would only exacerbate Dorian. But his at least half-smile was tight at best, and didn't improve much as they finally reached his bedroom door. He freed one hand with some effort to knock lightly.

"Just a moment!" That was his father, yelling, and after a few seconds, the door was flung open to them. For a moment, he could almost see himself standing there, his father looked so pleased with himself, so momentarily *young*, and then his eyes adjusted to the light coming in from the room, the glow of it, and he saw his father as he truly was. He looked old, and tired... so much more tired than he had years before, and centuries older, if that was possible. "We came in to... go to sleep," Klaus murmured, trying to not look at his father with his tired hurt gaze. "How are you doing?"

"Brilliantly," the older man sighed, stepping back from the door so that the room was revealed.

It quite took Dorian's mind away from his sadness, eyes opening wide as his hands came up to cover his mouth, little gasp going almost unheard. In the windows lay brilliant, old stained glass, the sunlight shining in through them, and against the wall between the two of them was a poster bed -- not Klaus's bed at all, but a soft, magnificent thing draped in colorful blue velvet with which the slim blond seemed to fall in love at first sight.

It was pretty, and colorful... and it looked dangerously comfortable. Klaus turned Dorian loose gently, and smiled questioningly at his father. "You... did this for us, Father?"

The expression on the commander's face seemed almost tender as he nodded, the worry gleaming in his eyes impossible to miss. "I thought, perhaps... that you would like it," he answered, watching as Dorian moved to the windows, holding out his hands in front of them to watch the colors spill over his skin.

"I do -- Dorian does, it's... we always.... did mean to do something up here, but just..." Never had the time to, the concentration to devote to it. There wasn't any need for Klaus to go on, as he swallowed, blinked something back -- perhaps tears. Reminiscence did him no good, and Dorian and his father didn't need to know how badly he missed what he remembered. "Thank you, Father."

"You're welcome," his father replied solemnly. "I suspect you'd like to have a short rest, now," he suggested gently, glancing to see Dorian kneeling down in front of the windows to look closely at them.

"We're tired," Klaus sighed, moving near to hug his father gently, briefly. "We'll try to be awake for supper."

"I'll send Dominic up to wake you," was the murmured reply, hesitant arms coming around him momentarily. "And I'll make sure it's something you'll both like."

It was odd for Klaus to hug him -- he'd barely given his son a hug when he was a young boy, and certainly not when he was a grown man! But there was something... comforting to know that he was appreciated by the son he'd been at odds with most all of Klaus's life. "That'd be nice."

"I'll... I'll see to it," he repeated, nodding, hugging Klaus tightly once before parting from him to slip out into the hallway, leaving his son alone with the blond thief who was his lover.

Or at least, who had once been his lover.

"It's very nice," Klaus said, moving near Dorian and kneeling down to be on level with him before the multi-colored windows. "Beautiful."

Carefully, a finger traced over the beaded lead holding one fragile pane in, and then Dorian sighed, placing his head upon Klaus's shoulder. Oh, it made him so *happy*...

"Let's sleep," Klaus said softly. "Go to bed seeing this and wake up to just as pretty a sight." That seemed perfectly acceptable to Dorian, his eyes drooping visibly as he yawned, nuzzling Klaus steadily. So tired...

A backwards motion and rising again brought them both to their feet, but only long enough for Klaus to pull down the soft dark sheets, and start to take off his shirt. "Hold on..."

Vague curiosity filled those brilliant jewel-colored eyes as he watched Klaus undress, head tilted to the side. He wondered, perhaps, if he should as well, but if he needed to do so, surely Klaus would tell him to do it. That meant that he could simply continue watching Klaus, a pleasurable thing to do indeed.

"You should... probably do that, too, Dorian," Klaus told him, after a few moments of standing nude in front of Dorian. It had only struck him as an afterthought that Dorian might need to be told to do so.

Shirt came off, then, untidily dropped to the floor, socks, shoes and pants as well, leaving only white underwear. For a moment, that truly seemed to stymie Dorian -- after all, Klaus had on no underwear -- but he wasn't sure if he was supposed to take them off or not. There was something about his underwear...? What was it?

"Do you want to take that off?" Klaus asked softly, even as he moved to get under the sheets. He wouldn't press the issue, though -- wouldn't think of it.

A shake of his head and he was after Klaus, crawling up into the bed stiffly and pressing himself up against the marginally taller German man, arms wrapping tightly around him. It didn't matter, no, it didn't. He'd remember what was important about the underwear later...

And if he didn't, Klaus wouldn't press him. For the moment, he gave in to Dorian, uncaring that he was unclothed and Dorian wasn't; only caring that the sheets were warm and that his body was comfortable with Dorian against it. They hadn't had a good chance to do that in too long. It was happiness for both of them, Dorian nuzzling contentedly against him, and Klaus pleased to hold and be held. The bed was much softer than the one that had occupied space in Klaus's room before, comfortable, and the covers were warm and inviting in so many ways.

Perhaps, Klaus could take his small pleasures there, just by *being* there, and keep himself afloat that way to keep caring for Dorian. Within moments, he slipped off to sleep.

For a while, Dorian lay awake beside him. His eyes were fascinated by the brilliant, gleaming colors coming in their windows, the feel of the velvet, and very much so by the warmth of Klaus beside him. Klaus was warmth and safety, and his own eyes began to droop not so long after Klaus's did. Everything would be all right... Everything...

"Do you really think that they'll... manage, sir?" the butler asked politely, though his fretting tone was hard to mask.

Sighing deeply, the elder Eberbach leaned back in his library chair, hands cradling the glass of cognac so recently poured and not even yet touched. "I don't know," he answered slowly, grimly, his many years apparent upon his face. Klaus had been born when he was creeping into later middle age, and now, almost thirty-five years later, he was feeling every single day of those years. His son, his heir... There would be no more Eberbach children. He supposed he had known it even before Klaus had brought Dorian home, but...

Well.

A father could be forgiven his hopes for grandchildren, he supposed.

"Dorian is so..." He sighed. "I don't know. He seems to live in the moment, and Klaus, for all that he *appears* to do well, is not himself. Perhaps he won't be again. I should have put a stop to all of their contract work years ago, somehow. This is my fault, isn't it?"

"Not at all, Heinz," Dominic murmured, pouring a glass for himself, and sitting down across from the man he'd served for what seemed forever. A few years difference in age was nothing, not now. "They would have kept on. Klaus was stubborn... is stubborn," he amended quickly.

"Just the way we raised him to be, you and me," Heinz sighed quietly, shaking his head. "I wonder, sometimes, if we did things the way they should have been done. Perhaps not. Do all parents feel so much guilt when it comes to their children?"

"I'm not sure." Not comforting, but truthful -- after all, Dominic's entire life had been one of serving and working for Heinz. "What else could we have done?"

"Perhaps if we had not sent him away to school..." Heinz mourned pointlessly.

"Then perhaps he would be dead now. Or a businessman. Or some lush. It's impossible to tell, Heinz, what could have happened." Sage words from the butler as he took a sip of his drink.

With a sigh, Heinz did the same, shaking his head mournfully. "We're the end of the Eberbach family," he said softly. "I had hoped that at least there might be *some* way for Klaus to... Well." He'd known better than to think that his son would sleep with a woman. Dorian wouldn't have stood for it, and Klaus likely would have failed in it (and oh, he didn't want to even consider the matter! It was an unseemly thought for a father to have!). Still...

"Not utterly, Heinz. Your sister has a son who'd be... more than happy to take on the title."

A snort answered that, Heinz emptying his glass at the mere suggestion. "*That* idiot faggot," he sighed. "He *acts* like some sort of degenerate. Not at all an upstanding man like my Klaus!"

Dominic couldn't help but muster up a chuckle and a nod. Yes, *that* Eberbach was a lush, and thank god he didn't actually carry the Eberbach name. "And he's married."

"There is that," Heinz sighed, standing to pour himself more spirits, frowning. "I should have pressed the issue when we were younger. Even now, we could have raised another child if need be, and perhaps they would not have placed themselves in such danger if I had insisted that they consider children earlier..." After all, there were surrogates, artificial means of creating children...

Perhaps it was the wine, or the stress of the last few days -- preparing for Klaus and Dorian to come back to the Schloss, and then just *seeing* them -- but the butler couldn't help another soft laugh. "Heinz... we sound as homosexual as they are."

THAT made Heinz chuckle audibly, faded green eyes gleaming. "Old queers, even. It would be funny if it were not so..." Utterly *absurd*. On the other hand, when was the last time he had been with a woman...? First and last, actually, had been Klaus's mother. He had loved her rather as fiercely as Klaus did love his British companion, and losing her had hurt for a time, before he'd locked it away as Klaus had eventually learned to do with things.

"Funny," Dominic finished for him. "Sometimes I feel like Klaus is my own son, too... You were always off in Switzerland when he came back from a mission in a complete rage at the thief."

"Was he *really* so angry with him?" Unable to help himself, Heinz gave another of those reluctant laughs. Ahh, his son. Such a magnificent son he had been, and now, things were such a wreck and would probably never be the same, considering that they were reminiscing as if Klaus were dead!

"Always. He'd hit walls, practice what he'd do the next time he saw Lord Gloria -- punches and kicks -- rail about decadence and perverts..." Dominic looked down into the empty cognac glass, having barely realized he'd finished it off.

With a sigh, Heinz simply brought the bottle back with him, filling up Dominic's glass again before settling down close by in his own chair, placing the decanter between them. "You know, it was the same with Klaus's mother. She drove me mad. If she had not been a woman, I probably *would* have hit her a time or two, just for how crazy she made me. Is that not odd?"

Dominic nodded. "I remember. Almost the same kinds of fits Klaus threw. The stain from the wine-bottle you smashed is still on the wall in the parlour. Perhaps it was just meant to be that kind of person for you, and for Klaus."

"More like a curse," Heinz sighed, shaking his head. "Without them, what could we be, either of us? Just cold, hard men, and to see Klaus clinging so and to know why, and how unbearable it would be if he did not..." Ah, it hurt him!

"He... I can't tell if he's happy now, or miserable," Dominic murmured, "But he ate *cake* for the first time in years today."

THAT visibly startled the elder Eberbach, the man's blue eyes widening slightly. "He ate *CAKE*?" he asked, startled. "What on earth possessed him to do such a thing?"

"I.... shouldn't have been looking, but I did," Dominic went on, not quite answering yet. He poured himself another glass from the decanter between them. "It was for Dorian, since he always liked sweet things, and I cut two pieces just because. Klaus never usually ate it, but... this time he did. Chocolate cake."

"Klaus doesn't like chocolate very much," Heinz murmured. "But he *would* eat it for Dorian, wouldn't he..."

"I added cinnamon when I baked the cake, and he didn't eat any of the frosting." Did that, somehow, make the bare facts any easier to cope with?

Klaus's father nodded slowly. "I see." That was all he said before going back to drinking his cognac steadily.

"But you're right -- Dorian was the one who got him to eat it. Lord Gloria... seems a lot like a child," the butler sighed heavily, before taking another sip.

"Think he'll get any better?" Heinz grunted, sighing. "Can't talk. Can't keep his mind on anything. Klaus would've been better off if..." If he'd died? No, because then he feared his son would have gone immediately after. If he'd not had Klaus when Lucinda had died, then he wouldn't have really had a reason to carry on the way he had. The pain of loss was duller after so many years, but it still hurt him to think of his smiling wife.

"If he'd died? No, no, I think he would have gotten out of the hospital and killed himself. At least with Dorian alive, we know he'll be alive, too."

That gained him a sharply slanted look from Heinz and then a reluctant nod. "I suppose..."

"I like Lord Gloria, Heinz, and you know it," the butler pointed out without accusation in his voice.

Reluctantly, Klaus's father smiled. "Yes, yes. I do not mind him, either, only... this will not be easy. It will be less than easy, Dominic, and I don't know how we will deal with this..."

"I plan on dealing with it a day at a time... but we're old, Heinz. After..." Well, that was something no man liked to contemplate. "What about when we move on?"

That brought on an even deeper sigh, Heinz finishing off his third glass and starting another. "I suppose that, too, will have to be considered a day at a time."

"I'd rather have some idea of what would happen to them when that happens," the butler shrugged. "Then I won't worry so much."

"Perhaps they'll get better," Heinz offered tentatively.

"Why do you think that?" Was it even possible? The butler obviously didn't think so.

A shrug came from the elder Eberbach. "I don't," he confessed quietly. "A man has to have *some* hope, however, does he not? If Dorian doesn't get well, Klaus..." Klaus... his poor son.

"It's almost like raising a child all over again," Dominic sighed, setting down his empty glass with a heavy clink. "How could he get well?"

"Perhaps," Heinz murmured, "we should consult better psychiatrists than the ones who saw them... him. *The* best..."

"Would they agree to see them?" At least Dominic was willing to admit that *both* of their charges needed help.

"If they will not, we will have to find a way to *make* them," was the grim answer, the old man nodding firmly at him. "We will come up with something, Dominic. I have yet to be beaten!" Only once, when his wife had died, and he had survived that. He *would* find a way to make sure that Dorian and Klaus were seen by someone who might be able to help them!

The decanter was offered to his empty glass, Dominic giving a lop-sided smile. "I'd give anything to hear your son call me 'barcode' again."

A snort of laughter sounded. "No, no. You're right. Pointed it out. Might 's well be your son, too. We've raised him, best we could..." The liquor was obviously beginning to loosen Heinz up quite a bit.

"He did accomplish a lot," Dominic chuckled. "Got lucky, never got killed on one of his missions -- lived through the war, which is more than a lot of people we knew."

"Wha's that thief call it? Bang-up job, yes. Tha's it," Heinz noted solemnly (if not soberly). "Quite all right."

"Did it for a... well, a good cause." Dominic chuckled softly, pouring his glass up to the brim again. It was hard to keep track of what drink you were on when you just kept topping off your drink. Heinz, at least, fully finished his glass before the next one. "Hmn, 't least he doesn't go around calling everything... 'fag' anymore."

That caused his employer to snort with snickered laughter. "'s better than some of the other things, 'sn't it? Motherfucker's generally a worse insult to most, isn't it?"

The butler paled briefly, looking terribly shocked before another sip of liquor did away with that emotion. "True. I think Lord... Gloria made a lot of changes... on Klaus, not any of them bad."

"'s true," Heinz agreed, polishing off the last of his glass. "Dominic? 'm too old to drink like this. You ought to've stopped us both."

"I know." He didn't seem repentant, though, as he put the stopper back on the almost empty decanter. "But you needed a drink...!"

A snort sounded. "Huh. 'f Klaus sees 'is, we'll never live 't down!"

"Why wouldn't we?" Dominic blinked at him.

"'Cause children shouldn't see such things." That seemed to make great sense to Heinz, who nodded most solemnly.

"Hmn..." Dominic was trying to dredge together a reply when he heard a knock on the door, and then Klaus peeked into the room.

"Oh, shit," Heinz said quite clearly, blinking.

That, if possible, got him a more confused look on his son's tired face than had been there to start with. "We... came down to get supper..."

"'s supper time?" his father said, looking at Dominic. "You di'n't announce supper, Dominic! Is it even cooked!?"

"Uhhm... one of the lesser staff must have finished it," the butler said with a sheepish expression, as Klaus came further into the library, bringing Dorian in tow. The blond man seemed quite fascinated with the paintings on the wall and tugged at Klaus to pull just a little away and look at a lovely pastoral scene full of Eberbach ancestors with interest.

"Urm..." Heinz said, trying to think. /Oh, dear../

"You've been drinking," Klaus said with all the disapproval in his voice that he'd once used on Heinz when he was five or six.

THAT quite seemed to startle his father, worrying him even worse than he had been before!! "Just a nip," he qualified, fingers coming together sheepishly.

"It's not good for you," Klaus said, shaking his head a little, before turning to look with his seeing eye at Dorian, making sure that he was still all right looking at the pictures. "I wanted to thank you... again for what you did in the bedroom. It's nice up there now."

At that, Heinz visibly softened, looking incredibly old in that moment. "'m glad. You... seem t'enjoy comf'table things and I wanted both of you t'be..."

"We are. Dorian loves the... the windows you have put in, they're so bright, and the bed is comfortable..." And that, very obvious now, was Klaus's new liking -- comfort. Perhaps it was an over-reaction to the pain and hurt inflicted in such a cold, dingy place as the Alphabet had told him about. "Are you all right, Father? You don't look well..."

A tug and a soft coo from Dorian distracted his attention, a face for which Heinz was incredibly grateful as he looked to Dominic for help.

"I'll..." Dominic lurched to his feet carefully. "Sir, shall supper be served here or in the dining room?"

"It's warmer in here," Klaus murmured as he moved over to Dorian. "Mm?"

"Here 's... Fine," Heinz replied, watching as Dorian pointed carefully to a painting of Tyrian, fingers caressing over the frame. He was nearly purring, obviously comparing the look of the degenerate to Klaus, and so pleased with himself. He had been earlier in the evening, as well, though Heinz couldn't know it. Still, that excitement was very nice to see, and he wondered how much Dorian remembered, and if more might be coaxed from him.

"Yes, that was your favorite picture," Klaus told him, again, though after a good nap it was less frustrating. "You tried to take it a lot."

Arms were flung joyfully about Klaus's throat, accompanied by soft grunts of happiness even as Heinz muttered, "And you tried to sell it, Klaus!"

Klaus had no way to even guess why Dorian was so overjoyed. He just hugged his companion close, while he told his father, "I was trying to do what I should."

"Sell our cultural heritage!?" Heinz asked him stridently, confused.

"Save myself trouble," was the cryptic answer, as he kissed Dorian's forehead lightly. "What's got you excited?"

The painting was pointed at again, and then Klaus as Dorian nuzzled against him happily, wriggling his fingers at him as if to say -- you, you, you!

"It's Tyrian," Klaus sighed softly, trying to drag himself up to smiling and returning Dorian's tender gestures of touch. "Let's sit down?"

No, no, Dorian wanted to say. It's you, it's you, and I want to color you, I want to do that with you, oh, say that I can! The words didn't come, though, wouldn't come, and it seemed as if he wilted slightly even as he smiled at Klaus and kissed him so sweetly.

"Can you... write it down?" Klaus pressed gently as they both perched together on the sofa.

For a moment, that seemed to consternate Heinz and Dorian alike, but then the old man tottered upward, alcohol rushing to his head, and went to search for pen and paper. "'s worth a try, son," he muttered, wobbling back with it. "'s worth an attempt..." Had he just said that already?

"Thank you," Klaus murmured, taking pad of paper and pen, and pressing the pen into Dorian's grasp, paper offered to him. "Write."

It wasn't writing that Dorian was interested in, and once the pen was in his hand, that was obvious. Strokes of it, some obviously not to his liking, but most to it, came into being, until finally, some moments later, there was a rough equivalent of Klaus's face there, only slightly romanticized, and Dorian held it very closely to his chest, hugging it, pleased with himself.

He hadn't ever known the thief to be able to draw so well, but it only went to figure, Klaus guessed. "You want to draw?"

The fingers were back, pointing to him again -- you, you, you.

"You want to draw me?"

Yes, yes! Heinz watched as Dorian threw his head back and gave that eerie chortled laughter, curls spilling wildly all around him. "My God..."

It was a yes, then, and that didn't faze Klaus at all. "All right," he murmured, gently taking the pen from his companion. "You can."

Arms were flung about him again, kisses covering his face, that childish glee written all over Dorian's face. Oh, he was so happy!!

"After supper?" Klaus pressed gently, managing a smile that was genuine, before he started to kiss Dorian back. "Yes, you can draw whatever you like..."

With a sigh, Heinz shook his head, giving the saddest of smiles as he watched Klaus and Dorian. If Lucinda had lived, had been like this after the accident that killed her, could he have...? Of course, he decided morosely, shaking his head again. Of course. Poor things. Poor...

The door opened, and that caught Dorian's attention to it as Dominic wheeled in supper, a bit wobbly. Considering that he'd snagged knives and spoons instead of forks and spoons, it was obvious that the butler was more than a little drunk. "Dinner's served!"

Dorian's glee was something that Klaus calmed down, soothed until his companion was just cooing at him, petting. He wondered, momentarily, if he could eat with Dorian attached to him so, but decided that it would be easier to just feed both of them that way, considering.

"Here, move a little," Klaus whispered softly, shifting Dorian away from him just a little as Dominic swayed nearer.

"Soup -- don't spill anything!"

THAT would be a feat, indeed, for Dominic was near to spilling. God forbid that Klaus or Dorian take it from him! Still, Klaus managed, even when Dorian peeked over the bowl and then smiled at him with beautifully limpid blue eyes, mouth curving lightly.

"Uh..." Klaus handed Dorian the bowl after a moment's thought, taking the spoon Dominic held out, before taking his own bowl. "Got it, Dorian?"

With a nod, Dorian cradled his bowl carefully in his hands, noticing as he did that there was a pattern on the inside, something silvery, he thought. He began to tip it to see what was beneath the soup, but a hand gently stopped him and he looked up in curiosity.

"You must eat all of th' soup t' get to the picture," Heinz explained.

If that wasn't a way to coax Dorian to eat his food properly, Klaus had no idea what *would* work. He gave his father a grateful smile, then nodded in agreement. "'s pretty filigree work."

That seemed to be quite enough to entice Dorian to eat it, for he reached for a spoon and let Dominic put a napkin in his lap, beaming at both of the Eberbach men as he began to eat it. He was obviously pleased with himself, with them, with everything, for that smile did not fade in the least. No, it remained, right until he got to the bottom of the bowl, even as they ate close by, and when he saw that Klaus had been right, he gave that soft, eerie laughter again.

"Pretty?" Klaus asked him softly, still finishing his own. Dorian was happy, so what reason did he have to be so... so sad-feeling? On the other hand, what reason did he have to *not* be so very sorrowful? Dorian wasn't even Dorian anymore, was he? He loved him so, though, always would, and perhaps that hurt worst of all... that even though Dorian was happy, he wasn't himself, and it suddenly seemed awful. But he would give Dorian pretty things, and let him draw and do what he liked... and take it day by day, for as long as he could. He'd done that before, he could vaguely remember, and it had hurt him just as badly then, too... but there was nothing else for him to do. "Yes, it's very pretty," Klaus sighed, answering his own question, and setting down his bowl, with a little soup still in it.

After that, Dominic handed them plates, but the blond man only stared dumbfounded at it. He didn't want any of that stuff -- it all looked *bad*, not at all like Jell-O or any of the things he'd had in the hospital, and not so good or soft as soup and cake...

"It's meat," Klaus told him, picking up his own fork and spearing a little piece of the roast in demonstration. "'s good for you."

At that, Dorian shook his head firmly. No!

"Why not?"

That wasn't a yes-or-no question, though, and all it gained him was a wrinkling of the nose and Dorian's fingers plucking at it as if to say, 'but look at it'!

"Would you eat it if... it was pretty?" Heinz asked, watching them both. That seemed to require some thought on Dorian's part, but finally, he shrugged as if to say he would consider the matter.

"Dominic, will you bring some... bread in? Rye...?" Klaus asked hopefully -- the swirled stuff was best, because it was fresh usually, and soft, and Dorian would like the colors.

"'F course, Kla..er...ah..."

"Yes, Klaus, he will," Heinz finished for the drink-befuddled Dominic. "Hurry along. Bring something to put on the bread, too. To make a pattern, maybe."

Klaus offered the meat again, a little, then demonstrated that it was all right, by eating it off of his fork -- but if Dorian didn't want it, he couldn't and wouldn't force it. It seemed that he didn't, for Dorian smiled at him, patted his arm as if encouraging him to eat it, and then laughed softly. Well... it had been worth a shot.

"All right," Klaus murmured, chewing the slice of meat. "You'll eat the bread Dominic brings?" Dorian gave a smile and a nod, and a little kiss to the cheek. Yes. His companion picked up his plate, then, and, wielding his fork, shrugged, and started to eat. "As long as you do eat, Dorian..."

Chocolate cake hadn't been such a burden. After all, he *liked* sweet things, and he'd liked the soup and the things they had before. He was eating... that was okay, wasn't it?

Contemplatively, Heinz frowned. "D'you think he'd have been able to eat the meat, Klaus..?"

"I..." His son stilled, thoughtful for a long moment. "No, I don't think so."

"Then we'll have to come up with something else." We... yes, we... Heinz would not leave his only child alone to face such a terrible thing. He was a better man than *that*... "Beans and eggs and cheeses."

"Wh..." That Klaus had even *started* to ask why was a bit startling, but Klaus nodded to that after cutting himself short. Yes, for protein to stay healthy. "That, then." And perhaps broths and stock mixed into the soup.

None of that conversation even fazed Dorian. Indeed, his attention was fully and completely riveted upon Tyrian again, his mouth curved upward in pleasure when Dominic came back, a tray with sweet-smelling cinnamon bread upon it. "I thought p'rhaps he'd like this better," he expressed, nodding solemnly.

"'s a good idea," Heinz complimented, while Klaus looked at them both questioningly.

"You should go to bed -- you're both drunk."

"'m not..." His father hiccoughed. "Drunk!"

"*I* am," Dominic admitted, eyes nearly swirling, quite enough to draw strange laughter from Dorian. "I am *VERY* drunk!"

"Then sit down," Klaus said reasonably, as he took the plate and offered the bread to Dorian a bit more intently so he'd actually eat it.

"Oh, thank *hic* goodness," Dominic sighed, setting himself down firmly as Dorian took the cinnamon bread from Klaus and began to eat, humming softly to himself in enjoyment. It tasted very good, and he gave them all a white toothed smile.

Sure that Dorian was eating, Klaus decided to finish his supper -- no matter how unappetizing Dorian thought it was. Then... then he'd find Dorian a pencil, and paper, and let the thief draw all that he wanted.

There was something wrong -- something most distinctly *wrong*.

It had been weeks since they had come home, weeks of snuggling and being held and being prettily kissed. Klaus had bought him colored pencils and crayons and he had a plethora of things in a lovely room at the east end of the Schloss. The morning light came in, and he drew and drew, but...

Something was wrong.

Oh, no one would *tell* him what was wrong; he'd already figured out that. No, they looked at him with sorrow in their eyes, looked at him with those expressions half horrified, and he knew somehow that these looks, these glances, were caused by him. If only he could say why...

He couldn't, though, and then there was Klaus. His Klaus seemed so tired, so miserable, and his smiles were all pretend smiles, as if that would somehow make Dorian feel better. They had lost in their ability to do that, especially once Dorian had figured out that they were false smiles, only meant to cover some unknown edged misery...

And then the little crying thing had come.

Dorian had been glad to see him -- he had brought the rainbow catcher, he recalled -- but he had sobbed and sobbed and begged for him to come back to himself, and Klaus had taken him away and shouted at him and then the little crying thing hadn't come back again.

Obviously, Dorian decided, something must be wrong with *him*.

He couldn't understand what was wrong, though -- only the bare fact that something was. Sometimes, his pictures drew a little smile from Klaus, and sometimes Klaus kissed him and it felt *strong*, and sometimes... Sometimes Klaus locked himself in the bathroom. Sometimes Dorian could swear that Klaus was crying, or who knew what, but Klaus usually made sure that Dorian was somewhere away from where he was going, and eating, or drawing, or playing with flowers, or looking at something.

Sadly, Dorian couldn't deny that his painting man and the little crying thing were being hurt by him. So. There was something wrong with him, and it must be bad, terribly bad, if both Klaus and his little crying thing were so constantly bombarded with it...

How could he fix it, though, if no one would tell him what it was?

Determined, he snuck past Klaus's guard late one afternoon and headed to the kitchens. Today was a bathroom day for Klaus, so it wasn't difficult to sneak by and get down there to talk to the old bald butler. HE would tell him what was wrong with him, surely?

The old butler was alternating between mulling through a stack of recipes, and seeing what needed to be bought for the kitchens to restock the pantry when Dorian tapped him on the shoulder with the top of his pen, trying to get his attention. It made the old man jump with a yell of, "Good God!", a sound that brought the strange, silvery laughter the staff was becoming accustomed to hearing.

"Oh, it's just you Lord Gloria," Dominic uttered, calming once he'd seen locks of blond hair and Dorian's smiling face. "Is there something wrong?"

At those words, the smile faded away, Dorian lightly pointing his pen to the little pad where he'd written earlier. /What's wrong with me?/

"What..." Dominic looked at the pad of paper partly in shock, then at Dorian. "Well, it's.... hard to say."

A pause, paper pad pressed to palm, the scritch of pen sounding loudly in sudden silence. /*SAY*. No one else will tell. Must know. Klaus unhappy.../

"Master Klaus is unhappy, because... because he remembers things that you can't, Lord Gloria. You can't remember how things used to be... different. You used to be... brilliant, and so was Klaus."

Oh, how terrible it was to see the sudden gleam of wetness rise in the glimmering blue of that grown man's eyes, Dorian's lower lip trembling as he wrote once again. /Fix it?/

"We.... can't, really," Dominic murmured quietly. "Klaus's father is thinking about therapy, but... he isn't sure it'd work at all, for the two of you." Oh, he hated to see Lord Gloria cry...

Grimly, words sprawled out over paper again. /*MUST* fix. Must. Klaus unhappy. Wrong with *me*. Must fix. Must!/

"It's just that... he used to be able to talk with you and now..." Dorian trailed off. "You're writing -- you weren't writing before. Does he know that?"

At that, Dorian tilted his head to the side, frowned. /Crying,/ he wrote. /He's crying. Drawing makes him unhappy./

The startlement on the old butler's face grew twofold now. "He's crying...?" That was such an *ODD* thought to have, yet... yet Dorian was telling it to him, and the thief had no reason to lie. "Why would he cry because you were drawing?"

Dorian gave a delicate shrug. He didn't understand why Klaus was crying, only he was, and surely it must be because whatever was wrong with Dorian should be fixed. If only he knew how...

"I'll tell Heinz..." The butler sighed, "and we'll come up with something that might make him feel better, all right?"

/Fix me. Make it better. Make it right. Klaus is unhappy... little crying thing, unhappy./

"Yes, Lord Gloria. Why don't you help Klaus stop crying? Write to him. Write. He can't read minds, and it might help him." Dominic was getting a taste of what was probably driving Klaus to his wits' ends, and he was suppressing the urge to shoo Dorian out of his peaceful domain.

/Will that fix it?/ Dorian's expression was most intense. /Will that make it all right, Klaus and the crying thing?/

"It won't hurt any," he was told gently.

Oh, how stubborn that made Dorian feel! /Don't want to not hurt! Want to *fix*!/

"I don't know how to *fix* you, Dorian -- you're a different person from the one who used to rush into my kitchen, making demands and jokes before rushing off!" Dominic snapped softly.

Oh, how terribly that affected him, tears growing and spilling over as he gripped his notepad to him tightly and *sniffed*, audibly *sniffed*, before making a little hiccough sound and turning to run out of the kitchen with it still clutched tightly against his chest!!

"Lord Gloria!" The butler startled, starting after the younger man. "It wasn't meant that way!"

Even not quite right, even without his tongue, Dorian was fast, and he wasn't stupid. His legs quickly took him away from Dominic, who had to stop to catch his breath. By the time the old man had it back again, he was gone -- gone and safely tucked away in a little hiding place in the library, where he could look at Tyrian and cry silently. /I'm all wrong. I'm all wrong and it can't be fixed!/

Or if it could be fixed, it would be hard to do!

But there was one problem that the butler had half-said -- that he had *used* to be different, and Klaus was missing that. That meant that he was making Klaus unhappy. *That* meant that he wasn't going to be happy himself, a terribly vicious cycle. How could he be happy if Klaus wasn't happy? So he just *had* to be fixed! Why, oh, *why*, why couldn't anyone tell him how!?! But he surely wouldn't get any help there, looking at the painting -- maybe Klaus could help?

That brought him crawling out of hiding and sent him towards the stairs, the sounds of the household's frantic searching lost around him as he headed up towards their room. Klaus would know what was wrong with him! He could tell him how to fix it! He'd only have to ask Klaus, of course!

While he'd been gone, though, Klaus had come out of the bathroom, and was assailed with guilt that Dorian had disappeared while he'd been... been being miserable. He was supposed to watch over Dorian! So when Dorian was opening the bedroom door, Klaus was opening it, too, to step out.

The way that mouth rounded out into an 'o' would have been adorable months before, even more so when Dorian stepped backwards, tripped, and promptly fell upon his bottom. Instead, it intensified Klaus's guilt to see Dorian looking up at him, pen and pad scattered, blue eyes wide.

"I'm sorry, sorry -- where were you? You ran off on me and I was worried," Klaus murmured as he moved forwards, ignoring scattered pen and paper to kneel beside Dorian and make sure he was all right.

How Dorian smiled at him, sweetly, so very pleased to see him, and instead of gathering his pen and paper, he reached his arms up to wrap them around Klaus's neck, hiding tear-stained face against his throat.

/Always, always the same,/ Klaus couldn't help but think, closing his eyes. Yes, now Dorian wanted to be held, and Klaus's worry would have to work itself off on its own, because Dorian would do nothing more than shrug, or nod his head yes or no. No real answer, no real communication, just... yes, no, maybe or don't care. And Dorian demanding that cuddling, light contact that Klaus only sometimes wanted. More often, he was finding, he wanted more, and he wasn't even about to try. "I'm sorry -- you shouldn't wonder off..."

"Lord Gloria!" It was a frantic yell, Dominic clutching at his heart at the end of the hallway. "Oh, THERE you are!! He was lost..."

"I've got him again," Klaus murmured, gathering his companion close, gently so, though he didn't get to his feet yet. "Sorry. Sorry."

"I yelled at him," Dominic admitted breathlessly, guiltily, still clutching at his chest. "We've all been looking for him.."

"Don't yell at him, Dominic. Do you understand? You *don't* yell at Dorian," Klaus muttered, frowning deeper. "Why did you yell at him?"

"He... was writing..." the butler murmured, seating himself in a very convenient chair. His breathing was once again caught, slowly but surely. "He wants to be fixed and I don't know how.."

"Writing?" Klaus seemed less startled than his did *overjoyed*, and he pulled back a little from Dorian, grey-green eyes lit up for the first time in the longest time. "You're writing ?"

THAT brought Dorian's attention back to his pad and pen and he clutched them up from the floor, waving it around wildly before he gave it to Klaus, expression hopeful.

Hopeful for what, though.... Klaus couldn't tell until he looked over Dorian's series of notes. "F-fix you...?"

Dorian nodded quickly, fingers pointing to the page. /Fix me. Fix me, you're unhappy.../

"Fix... you how, Dorian?" his companion asked softly, swallowing. So Dorian knew... well, the Earl would have had to have been stupid to not know. "It's not like you're some.... broken toy. You're human, Dorian, and you've changed. I... I'm the one who can't adjust to this all."

No, no, no, no, no! That nod changed to a negative shake, Dorian frowning at him. /I want to be fixed! I want to know what's wrong! Something is *wrong*!/

"Dorian, why... why don't we talk about this in our room?"

'Fix me,' those lips formed, eyes pleading. 'Fix me, fix me...!'

"Fix what? Fix how? Dorian, I don't know what or exactly *HOW* we've changed, I can't undo it!"

'You know what's wrong!' Oh, that was accusation, pure and simple. 'You know!'

"You're.... you're like a child now, Dorian, and I'm... not much better sometimes, but... you're different..." Klaus was careful, as he said it, to keep Dorian close.

'Fix it,' Dorian pleaded, tears rising sharply. 'Fix it, fix it, fix it.'

"Calm down first," Klaus pleaded softly. "Don't cry... we can.... we can color...." That was quite the distraction, tears drying up reluctantly.

"I... have new books, downstairs," Dominic offered heavily.

"Thank you," Klaus murmured softly, hugging Dorian close and closing his eyes again. "Okay, Dorian? And maybe you'll write?"

With promises of coloring, how could he not agree? With a sigh, Dorian nodded solemnly, stroking Klaus's arms slowly. He would go color, and perhaps write, and even if that didn't make himself feel better, maybe it would make his dark-haired beautiful artwork man happy...

"Dorian.... please, please, write something," Klaus murmured as he stood, pulling Dorian gently to his feet. "Anything."

With a sigh, Dorian stood, pen in hand, and seemed to consider it for a moment. The ball point sprawled slowly across the paper, blue eyes looking at him solemnly as he held up his paper.

Dorian loves his Klaus.

It was enough to melt the German man who stood beside him, and Klaus jerked him near in a fierce -- no, not hug. Kiss. He'd gone too long without being told that, too long without such sentiment. It didn't seem to faze Dorian at all; kisses were not bad things, by any means, though they would have been quite strange if they'd progressed past softly opening mouths pressing to one another carefully.

"Well," Dominic sighed, dragging himself to standing. "I suppose I had ought to go drag out the coloring books, then..." He'd been used to such things *before* it had happened, more than Heinz ever had; so to see Dorian and Klaus kissing for no apparent reason wasn't such a shock. It was best for him to simply move on and get the coloring books while it was still on his mind. "

"Thank you," Klaus whispered when he broke the kiss. "Thank you, Dorian... I love you, too."

THAT seemed to have made up entirely for Klaus's time spent locked in the bathroom, seemed to have made him happy, too, and that helped Dorian's own mood. A little light tugging, a smile, and Dorian was pulling him towards the stairs to follow Dominic.

"You can write instead of talking, Dorian -- not being able to talk hasn't taken that from you," Klaus smiled, glad that Dorian *was* writing! Ohh, a shitty day looked better just from having Dorian write four short words.

Those words gained him nuzzles and a tighter clenching of fingers on pad and pen as they made their way down, Dorian pausing to tilt his head and look at Klaus curiously. 'But what's wrong...' he mouthed slowly. 'What can I do to make it right?'

"You don't act the way you used to. You're.... younger, almost," Klaus sighed.

Determined, Dorian nodded. /I'll act different. I'll find a way. Maybe.../ He bit his lip. No, he wanted to go and color. Would coloring mean he wasn't acting right?

And would Klaus tell him as much if it meant that? Also, Klaus never colored with Dorian. He just watched, claiming no skill at it or drawing. What he did like to do...

Well, the last time Dorian had seen him with a gun, the panic that had ensued had made Klaus lock them all away again, and they hadn't been touched since. There was really nothing left for Klaus but Dorian and reading, and it was hard to read when he couldn't concentrate.

With a little sigh, the blond man gently patted his hand as they continued downward. /Oh, well.../ Perhaps if Dominic and Klaus wouldn't tell him, Father would.

Father was not *his* father -- he understood that. Father was Klaus's father, but he was Father all the same. Perhaps Father could help him figure these things out or something. Dominic and Klaus were so obviously upset by them that he wouldn't ask them again, he thought.

He didn't DARE to ask the little crying thing.

The little crying thing, after all, would just cry harder, and then he and Klaus might get into a fight, and then everyone was in a miserable mood.

"Do you want all of the crayons, or only some?"

That brilliant, gleaming smile was accompanied by a wide sweep of Dorian's arms -- ALL!! He wanted all of them, tons and tons of colors, hundreds of crayons!!

That made Klaus perk up a bit more, the sheer flamboyance of such a gesture, even if it was over just crayons. Years before, it would have been.... been something, something else. He couldn't quite grasp what, though, and that... was something he didn't know how to fix about himself, either. "Okay. Go into the library, and I'll get your crayons."

They parted ways at the foot of the stairs, Dorian moving almost regally towards the library. Dominic was already there when he arrived, waiting with several lovely coloring books -- mostly pictures made of blown-up scenes from girls' comics, for Heinz had searched far and wide for things Dorian would find *pretty*, and when he could not find anything pretty enough, he'd *made* a few. What delight there was in flipping through those pages, sparkles and flowers and lovely smiling boys and girls everywhere!

All pages with simple black lines, a little shading; all pages waiting to be colored with his caring hands. The clothes, in particular, he liked to make as many colors as possible, all sorts of patterns. Sometimes, a particularly outrageous combination would make Klaus laugh, and that was what he wanted to have happen. "Do you like them?"

The way he gathered them close and hugged them to him said as much, cheek pressed to the book on top -- something Heinz had bound up himself, the old man taking some trouble to do it, to perhaps make Dorian happy as he would have done if it had been his own beloved, for he clearly felt for his son. The books had been sent from America. For all that Heinz preferred all things German, he was looking for the *best* psychologists, and the ones that he had spoken to in Europe had all sent him on a search for one man, a fellow from New York that perhaps, just perhaps...

But even perhaps was better than *nothing*, wasn't it?

There was just the matter of getting him to come over, because Dominic truly doubted that Dorian and Klaus could handle a trans-Atlantic trip in an airplane.

"I'm glad you like them -- I'll tell Heinz as much, right now..."

That brought Dorian's eyes brightly to bear, his face lighting up. /Father? I could ask Father!/

"Will you be all right here until Klaus brings you your crayons?" Dominic pressed gently, edging towards the door.

Dorian nodded, but his curiosity was still piqued. 'Father?' he mouthed. 'Now?'

"Uh, yes -- I was just going to go talk to him.... on the phone, since he's in New York right now?"

Oh, that sounded quite odd, and so Dorian simply shrugged, shook his head. If that was the case, it wasn't as if *he* could talk to Father, after all. He had forgotten entirely that Father was gone, but now...

Now he was too aware of it. It was just he, Klaus, Dominic.... well, and the rest of the staff, who knew well enough to stay OUT of their way! "I'll say hello to him for you."

"I've got crayons," Klaus purred, opening the door and slipping in, the big box James had bought borne high.

Applause, enraptured, scattered from Dorian's way, and he waved his books prettily to Klaus to show him what he had gotten. Perhaps, just this once, Klaus *would* like to color with him. They were so nice, after all...

"Can I join you today...?" Klaus asked, sitting down on the floor beside Dorian, cross-legged, setting the box on the table in front of Dorian. That was Dominic's cue to leave, it seemed, because he slipped out.

THAT made Dorian even more ecstatic, and he leaned forward, kissing Klaus delightedly at the mere thought. How magnificent! It *was* going to be a very good day, after all!

"I'll take that as a yes," Klaus smiled as he flipped the cardboard lid off of the box, and grabbed a careful handful.

Yes, yes, yes and *yes*, actually, Dorian rapidly turning through pages to find Klaus a *pretty* picture, the best kind, with lots of little sparkles and two adorable young men standing side by side. He pointed to it, then pointed to Klaus hopefully.

"Hmn, you want me to color that...?" /Or tell you that you used to smile *that* way, with thought or teasing behind it, not.... like now./

To see the smile on Klaus's face visibly becoming forced stilled Dorian's own, no pretense possible as he looked at him, brows drawing together sadly. A deep breath was taken and let out as a sigh, and his fingers moved to gently stroke Klaus's face. /I'm sorry I'm so wrong. I'm sorry I make you unhappy. If I can't fix it.../

If he couldn't fix it, perhaps he needed to go away. Maybe Father would help...

"I'm sorry, Dorian," Klaus sighed softly, as he shifted closer, turning his head to kiss those fingers. "I just... I'll color for you, Dorian. With you. I like that sometimes, and today..."

Leaning forward, Dorian pressed his mouth slowly, comfortingly, to Klaus's, hands drifting down to his shoulders. It hurt. It hurt awfully, knowing that Klaus's unhappiness was his fault, all his fault...

"Dorian... Dorian," Klaus sighed, breaking the kiss softly. "Not so... not that way, Dorian. It'll make me want to do something you don't want to."

The question was written all over Dorian's expression -- do what? What could Klaus do that he wouldn't want to do, when it was Klaus? He liked to feel good, he liked color...

"It's... sex."

Just the *word* upset Dorian, a breathless sound stealing from him, a garbled sob as he shook his head and began to tremble. /No, no, no, NO!/ Klaus wouldn't do that terrible bad thing to him! He wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't...!!!

"Dorian, Dorian..." Ohhh, he shouldn't have even said it!! Klaus leaned near, expression tight as he grasp Dorian's shoulder gently. "*Dorian*, it's not as bad as what happened then!"

Oh, Klaus did, Klaus DID mean that terrible thing, and Dorian couldn't bear to think about it, mind scattering, remembering, remembering, so many, so many, so much pain, no, no, no...! His head shook wildly, entire body trembling in Klaus's hold, the wild sounds he made utterly terrified.

"I'm sorry, Dorian, please calm down," Klaus pleaded. "It just wasn't so bad before that -- you used to beg me for that!" And now, now, he'd gone into complete hysterics over the mere mention of it.

Arms went around him despite the fact that he had asked Dorian for such a thing, despite the fact that Dorian couldn't bear it. Oh, it hurt him terribly to think about the awful things, images of them screaming through his head, but Klaus was his only source of comfort. What else could he do?

"I'm so sorry... I won't ever mention it again," Klaus shivered, closing his eyes tight as he started to rock Dorian gently. Once he calmed Dorian down again, they'd color -- it was hard to believe that he was actually looking forward to doing that, but it was *something*!

It seemed that Dorian would *never* calm, his whole body shaking wildly against Klaus for the longest time. Even when the tears stopped, that feral trembling didn't, and one look at Dorian's face said much. Those memories, those awful thoughts, all running unbearably in his mind...

"They did that to.... to me, too, Dorian," Klaus told his companion. "I know it was bad. But you can't let them win."

The tears came again, then, and he pressed himself tiredly to Klaus, sobbing in mindless agony, coloring books all forgotten, even his crayons gone from his thoughts.

That was the hard part for Klaus -- staying strong for Dorian, just and only for Dorian. "Dorian...." What could he say? His heart was caught high in his throat, yet he was able to move -- one hand threading gently through Dorian's hair, stroking slowly against the blond's scalp. "I love you, Dorian. You don't have to be afraid of me."

Finally, oh, finally, exhaustion stilled that weeping, Dorian a heavy weight against him, face pressed to his shoulder. Hiccoughing breaths stilled into evenness, and Dorian was gone from him into sleep -- a relief.

When he woke up, Dorian probably -- hopefully -- wouldn't remember it! /I do love you, still,/ Klaus thought sadly, cradling Dorian a fraction closer, and reaching out with one hand for a coloring book. Something to look at until Dorian woke up...

With a sigh, Heinz abandoned the car and began to stump tiredly up the front steps. It had been a tiring trip -- rewarding, but exhausting. He had gotten the psychiatrist he wanted to agree to coming to Germany, to at least *talk* to Klaus and Dorian, and he was quite pleased with himself.

It surprised him immensely when the front door flung itself open and blond hair flung itself at him, arms going around him even as he stiffened with shock, prepared to fall over with the force of that gathering, but Dorian didn't let him, simply clinging most tightly to him before waving a pad and pen around in front of him.

/Fix it fix it fix me!/ he thought. /Father is *home*!/ Oh, and if Father was home, maybe Klaus would stop crying so...

"What is it, Dorian?" His temper had fallen over the years, and now faced with Dorian, who was almost like having a puppy, he was patient.

The pad was brought up, writing scrawling quickly across it. 'Fix me, fix me, fix me! Klaus unhappy, crying, *wrong* with me... fix me, Father!'

"I'll try to, soon..." Heinz answered before he'd really thought about any of it. "Fix what exactly, Dorian? And, Klaus is crying?" THAT wasn't a good sign at all...

Dorian, shrugged, smiled at him. He didn't know, he just didn't know. 'No one,' he wrote, 'will say what's wrong with me. All Klaus does is cry...' Perhaps not *all*, but it was often enough that Dorian was *aware* of it now, and it hurt him to know that it was all his fault. It made sleeping together uncomfortable, particularly since...

Well.

He wouldn't think about *that*.

"What's wrong with you... Why don't I get a cup of cocoa fixed for you and we'll... talk in my study?" Heinz said in a softly worried tone. It never seemed to stop...

Oh, he'd KNOWN Father would tell him, and his face lit up with the hope that the chocolate would be good, and that Father would *know*...! He scribbled as they walked. 'I can't keep making Klaus cry. If upset Klaus, what use am I? Must fix.'

"When does Klaus start... crying?" Heinz asked, as they walked towards the kitchen for the moment. He'd never thought of his son as someone to cry -- even when he'd been a very small child, he'd *seldom* ever shed a tear!

'When I kiss him. When he hides in the bathroom. When he wants the bad thing.'

"Bad thing? And he's been hiding in the bathroom?" Heinz felt more and more distressed, as he peeked into the kitchen and snapped at a young man for a cup of coffee and a cup of hot chocolate to be brought to his study.

Dorian continued scribbling as Father moved out of the kitchen. 'The bad thing. The bad thing that happened.'

"Klaus would never hurt you, Dorian," Heinz murmured in a low tone as he turned, and walked down the hall towards his study. "Never. It.... it's normal for people your age to be interested in that."

'But it's bad!' Dorian wrote, pointing at it. 'That's one of the wrong-with me-things, isn't it? Fix me!'

"There's a doctor coming in a couple of days, Dorian, who's going to try to... 'fix' both of you. But you've been getting better. You started writing while I was gone!"

At that, Dorian shrugged slightly, smiled a little before his mouth turned under, concentration upon his face. 'Had to. Klaus unhappy. Need to fix. If not fix, if me, no use.'

"Where's Klaus now, Dorian...?" He had to ask it, as he paused to open his study door and step in.

'Bathroom,' Dorian wrote. 'Crying.'

"Will you stay here and drink your cocoa, while I go get him...?" This was his duty to deal with, more than Dominic's, and as long as he was willing to use his control, he was the best man to deal with his two... well, one was his child, and the other may as well have been.

Dorian nodded as the young man who'd been instructed to bring coffee and cocoa entered the room silently. Dominic was old enough to need help, and a nephew had been found to begin learning his duties, not that he would ever truly *retire*. /Yes, Father,/ Dorian decided, reaching for his cup.

No verbal answer, though the gesture was taken as a yes, and Heinz nodded, starting out of the study and up the stairs.

Klaus was, just as Dorian had said, ensconced in the bathroom, because the door was closed and locked. No sounds, but...

"Klaus?" Heinz asked quietly. "Klaus, it's your father. I've come home..."

"F.... Father?" Klaus's voice was a little muffled, but he could be heard moving again, and soon the knob of the door turned, opening inward. Klaus looked.... ragged, with dark circles under his eyes from not sleeping enough, and a listless expression.

"Klaus..." Oh, how shocking to see his son look so old, so tired, and despite everything, he reached out and pulled him close. "Dorian," he whispered quietly so as not to startle or alarm Klaus, "said that you were upset. I came to look for you."

Klaus didn't cling to the old man the way Dorian had -- more, he touched tentatively, barely at all even though Heinz had pulled his son close. "I'm sorry. I just... can't... I can't deal with it anymore. I'm sorry."

"Shhhh," Heinz soothed. "Shhh. There is a man coming. I found someone to try and help, Klaus. I will try to make these things right..." Oh, but what if he couldn't? "Perhaps I should take one of you on a trip for a few days. Perhaps you, so that you might relax..."

"I can't... I can't leave him," Klaus murmured. But it was killing him to *stay* there, doing the same thing day in and day out, rotting there... "I need him, so I can't leave..."

"Just for a few days," Heinz murmured. "Just long enough to relax..." He couldn't bear to see his strong son break down so terribly, unable to carry the sheer burden thrust upon him.

"I can't... I can't sleep without him, and he's been panicking when I get near the bed with him, now, so..." So sitting on the floor at night was restless, sitting up and watching Dorian, waiting until the blond man was in deep sleep so that he, too, could slip under the covers. /Calm, calm down.../ Otherwise he'd just start crying again, and he didn't want to get his father's jacket wet.

The morbid thought that it would have been better if Dorian had died crossed Heinz's mind once again and was immediately struck from it. "I'll talk with him," he murmured, petting through the dark strands of hair now laced with silver, gently soothing Klaus, knowing that he needed it. "I'll talk with him about it..."

"He... he barely listens to me anymore, doesn't.... do anything but color and smile..." And sometimes writes to him, but seldom saw the need for it. "I know... that I've changed, but..."

"Shhhh," his father murmured, sighing. "Lay down. Rest a while. *I* will watch him. I will speak to him..."

"N-no, I can't sleep *without* him," Klaus murmured tensely. "Tried to. The nightmares..."

With a sigh, Heinz gave in. Perhaps drugging them both for sleep would help. "All right, Klaus. Dorian is downstairs, and I need to speak with him, but... I also needed to see you..."

"Now, or...?" Klaus wasn't sure if that was a dismissal or not, so he always found it better to ask, as he pulled slowly back from his father, still miserable-looking.

"You may come with me if you wish," Heinz murmured, lightly petting Klaus's back, tender with him. He thought that perhaps Klaus wouldn't like to hear what might pass between Dorian and himself, but how could he deny him that right?

It would have been hard to do, mentally, though easy in action -- just tell Klaus anything, and he would do it if he thought it would keep stress down. Though he knew that he'd be with Dorian again, and that his companion knew he'd been crying... /I can do this. Like I always do.../ Dorian had been panicky and hysterical around him so often of late, and to be around just *that* was exhausting on his nerves. "I.... I guess I will."

"If you don't wish to, I can have Dominic make you some coffee and a sandwich, Klaus," Heinz told him. "You don't have to do anything you don't *wish* to do, son."

"I.... I'll have lunch in the kitchen, while you.... talk with him?" Then he wouldn't be too far away, but it would be a littler respite.

"That sounds perfectly acceptable," he was assured, Heinz patting his shoulder again reassuringly. "Let's go downstairs, hm? Dominic made a cake, just the kind you like, with cinnamon and no frosting..." He'd spoken with the other man on the way home from the airport, stopping the process of cake-making for a short time.

"All right," Klaus sighed, finally pulling away from all but the hand on his shoulder. "How.... how was your trip?"

"Successful," Heinz informed solemnly. "The man I want to come and see both of you will be arriving within a few days. Perhaps...he can help..."

"How?" Klaus wanted to know how, while Dorian wanted to know the more simple *what*.

"I don't know yet," his father admitted on the breath of a sigh as they headed for the door. "I don't know, but perhaps soon we will."

"He won't want to separate us, will he? Because I won't let that happen," Klaus uttered as they left the bedroom.

His father's head was already shaking. "No," he promised. "He won't separate you. *I* won't allow that..." If only because he truly thought it would destroy both of them, and he couldn't bear it, not his son..

"Good. What are you going to talk with Dorian about?" That was tentatively asked, as if Heinz would tell him he couldn't be told.

"He... wants to know what is wrong with him," Heinz replied gently. "I am going to try to tell him, and try to explain a few other things..." Like sex, which should be quite the fiasco.

"All right. If he needs to be calmed down... I'll be in the kitchen." Part hiding, and part trying to keep himself comfortable and calm.

"I hope it will all be better, soon," Heinz murmured just before they parted at the bottom of the stairs. "Perhaps..."

"Perhaps...?"

"Perhaps when I talk to him, things will be better..." his father suggested firmly. "For now, have your coffee and cake. *I* will take care of things."

And Klaus didn't even bother to question that his father could -- because if anyone could do it, it was Heinz, he knew. One last nod, and he made his way down the hall towards the kitchen.

/This is going to be hard,/ the old man thought seriously, before turning back towards the study.

Bright blue eyes attached to him when he came back in, pen pausing over paper. Dorian had begun doodling once again in his boredom, adorable little caricatures of Heinz that would have been quite funny, *beforehand*.

Now it was odd, and a reminder of Dorian's lingering childishness. "Did you like your cocoa?" Heinz asked as he stepped in and closed the door behind him.

A nod answered him firmly, Dorian waved his empty mug around and smiled. /Hello again, Father!/ he thought happily, picking up his paper and flipping to a blank page.

"I got Klaus out of the bathroom.... He's in the kitchen having a little cake and probably a lot of coffee. You haven't been letting him sleep with you...?"

Oh, how guilty Dorian looked then, his face darkening, eyes beginning to water. How could he, when Klaus wanted the *bad thing*? He was so afraid... 'Bad thing,' he wrote. 'Klaus wants bad *thing*.'

Heinz sat down across from Dorian, behind his desk, nodding. "Sex, you mean? Dorian, all human beings do it."

'But it's BAD!!! It *HURTS*!' Those tears spilled over wildly. Oh, Father wouldn't understand, either!

"Dorian, calm down... It did..." He could feel his face flush out of embarrassment and pity for both Dorian and his son, for just a moment -- twice it had happened! "It hurt because it was bad people doing it to you. People who weren't your loved one, people who wanted to hurt you."

Shaking fingers came up, brushing away tears. 'But Father!' he wrote. 'Why does Klaus want to do that? Is that what's wrong with me?'

"Klaus... doesn't want to hurt you, Dorian. It's something that... feels very..." It was hard to think of his son having sex with another man, let alone trying to instruct Dorian in its ways. "Very good between two people who love each other."

'Is that what's wrong with me, Father?'

"That you don't want to...?" Heinz asked for clarification.

'That I make Klaus unhappy,' was the tearful revelation.

"Klaus is unhappy because he doesn't know what to do," Heinz answered after a moment. "It isn't entirely you."

'What should *I* do. Fix me!' Oh, it was a tearful imploration, expression begging, pleading for help! 'If I let Klaus do the *bad thing*, will that fix me?'

"You shouldn't do that, Dorian, if you won't enjoy it," Heinz murmured. "That would only make it worse for both of you."

'Will it make Klaus happy?'

"It... it might," Heinz had to say truthfully. "If he could make you happy that way, it definitely would."

How pale Dorian had become, how cringing and fearful! 'If it will make Klaus happy...' He wrote. 'Anything. Anything, for Klaus happy.'

"You'd have to be happy with it, too," Heinz chided. "I don't think you're ready for that. Why don't you try... don't think of it as a Bad thing. Think of it as something that won't happen again until you *ask* Klaus specifically."

Well, Father *still* hadn't said just what was wrong with him, but... he *had* pointed him in the direction of making Klaus happy, so... 'But Father, *what* is *wrong* with me, that I make Klaus so unhappy?'

"You...." Heinz hesitated, sitting back in his chair. "You spend a lot of time hysterical. If you could calm down, I think he could calm down, and you'd all be happier."

Oh, and that made Dorian feel worse, because it *was* all his fault that Klaus stayed in the bathroom and cried! He had *known* it was, of course, but he had hoped that it was not, and Father's words made him tremble, made the tears fall again even as he nodded, filled with strange guilt and shame.

"Dorian..." A hand tapped lightly beside his pad of paper, as Heinz leaned forwards. "He's trying his best to be strong for you, but it's not enough. If you could try to be strong, too, then it would be easier on both of you."

Face down, the sparkling cascade of tears continued, accompanied soon by hitched breaths and soft sounds of weeping, even though Dorian nodded his agreement. Oh, Father was right, it was all his fault, *all* his fault! 'Klaus,' he wrote finally with shaking hands, 'better off without me'.

"No, he isn't." Heinz was firm in that, saying it to Dorian firmer than he'd been thinking it earlier. "No, he isn't. He told me that he can't be without you, do you know that? He does love you, Dorian..."

Love Klaus, love Klaus... 'Love Klaus. *Hurt* Klaus. If hurt Klaus, no good!'

"You're not hurting him. He just misses things, like the work he used to do with you. But his legs..." Well, that and his mental state prevented him from working anymore. But no need to emphasize what was obvious to Heinz.

'So. Stop crying, stop... stop upset, do bad thing, this make Klaus happy?'

"Stop crying, stop upset, and I think the rest would follow," Heinz murmured, nodding. "It would help. He's been avoiding you because he doesn't want to get you going again. He looks like he hasn't slept all week."

Oh, how guilty he felt! 'Anything, make Klaus happy,' he promised, so miserable he could have just died. Oh, Father had told him, and it was just awful! *EVERYTHING* was wrong with him!

"If you say so," Heinz sighed. "How did you like those coloring books?"

'Pretty,' Dorian wrote listlessly, fingers going still afterwards, gaze captured by the floor.

"Dorian... don't go out to try to make Klaus happy directly. It would never work. He's happy when you are, and when you're sad, he is, too. So make him feel better by being happy again."

Nodding, Dorian rose, face damp, fingers brushing away tears. He nodded, and then he walked away from Father, sighing deeply. All his fault, all of it. Poor Klaus, poor poor Klaus, to put up with him so. Oh, he felt bad and sleepy...

"Do you need something, Dorian...?"

Nap. He needed a nap, that was just what he needed, and if he was going to let Klaus do the bad thing to him, perhaps he should nap *with* Klaus, now... he only had to tell Heinz, and it would be done, turn away from the wall he was near...

Turning, he sniffed, mouthed the word. 'Nap.' Then, maybe his head would stop throbbing, too...

Or maybe something worse would, then!

"Do you want me to get Klaus...?" Heinz murmured, getting to his feet gradually.

The soft, miserable sound Dorian gave seemed to be agreement, his mouth turned down in an unhappy little moue.

"What's wrong, Dorian?" Klaus's father asked quietly as he walked towards Dorian, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. With a sigh, the former thief turned and hugged him, holding onto him for a moment before pulling away to write.

'Was hoping it wasn't me making Klaus so unhappy.'

"It's everything, Dorian," Heinz murmured softly, patting the earl's shoulder lightly. "It's only you, though, that can make him happy."

'Will try,' Dorian decided, biting his lip. 'Will make Klaus happy, one way or other...' Even if it meant going away, a horrific thought that made him want to cry again.

"There's only one way," Heinz murmured softly, guiding them both towards the door. "Staying here and helping." That gained a slow nod from Dorian, almost ashamed due to his thoughts of only a moment prior. "Why don't the two of you nap in the library? Klaus would probably like a fire... Wouldn't that be relaxing?"

Relaxing, and Klaus maybe wouldn't want to do the bad thing just yet, especially if Father or Dominic would likely walk into the room! Dorian nodded, smiled a little tiredly, and waved a hand as if to say that sounded perfectly all right to him.

"I'll have Dominic leave your crayons and coloring books on the table in there, too," Heinz went on, leading him down the hall towards the kitchen. "And that'd be nice, hmn?"

Dorian nodded even as they stepped into the kitchen, his expression turning shy as he saw Klaus seated at the table there. The dark-haired man was eating cake, and he looked so tired... /My fault.../

Klaus heard them come in, though, and looked up. "Dorian...?" Klaus asked quietly, setting down his fork. "Would you, uhm, like some cake...?"

Watching as Dorian moved forward and sat down beside Klaus, Heinz nearly sighed with tension relief. "I'm going to make a fire in the library and get Dominic to lay down a pallet. Dorian wants a nap in there with you, Klaus."

"Oh! I'd...." Klaus swallowed the piece he'd had at the back of his mouth, nodding. "I'd like that! Thank you." And then he looked to Dorian, expression still as grateful as he let one hand slip to rub gently over Dorian's back. "Thanks."

That was soothing, not at all reminiscent of that other thing, and Dorian smiled at him, still more than a little worried, but worried now for Klaus instead of himself.

Klaus offered his fork to Dorian, still smiling gently. "Want some?"

Heinz watched for a moment as Klaus and Dorian shared cake before turning away and setting out for the library and to speak to Dominic. Just as well to go ahead and get that out of the way and, to tell the truth, it hurt to look at his son and the blond man that way.

It was three days later that the doorbell rang, lightly, signaling a guest. Dominic halted in his dusting and headed for the door, feather duster still in hand even as he pulled it open, dark eyes fastening upon the man on the front doorsteps. "Yes?"

"My name is Akio Himemiya," the tall man in the doorway introduced. "I'm the psychiatrist that Graf Eberbach wanted to come see his son. Is the Graf in right now...?"

"Come in!" Dominic insisted, rheumy old eyes tearing up. "Come in, come in, he'll be so glad to see you!" The sound of such enthusiasm seemed to have caught Dorian's attention, for he drifted out of the library to peek into the foyer and see what was so exciting. What he saw was a tall, dark-skinned man with colorfully dyed hair, a crisp suit, and a heavy-looking brief-case following Dominic off down a side-hall.

"What're you looking at, Dorian?" Klaus asked, moving out of the library, up behind Dorian.

'A man!' Dorian mouthed, waving in the direction the two had gone. 'With a big heavy load of something.'

"Maybe he's delivering something," Klaus said, cracking open the library door a little more. "Let's put away the books and go see."

Putting away the books was such a *bother*, but Dorian agreed to it before they snuck off to see what was going on in the household. He was quite curious -- the man had been rather odd-looking, exotic, and that made him wonder who he was and why he was in the Schloss. /Maybe he's that man Father was talking about.../

Maybe he was going to fix them so that everything was right again? Even though things had been better since he and Klaus had started sleeping together again, and had shown no more interest in wanting the Bad Thing.

"They're in Father's study," Klaus whispered, walking softly beside Dorian.

'Maybe,' Dorian wrote on the now ever-present pad, 'we could hear them in the room next to it.'

"If you open the door quietly, yes," Klaus agreed in a whisper after scanning the pad. He moved ahead of his companion to stealthily slip opened that room's door.

"I'm glad you could come." The walls in the Schloss were not thin by any means, but a door that had been placed in the room long years before was only partially closed, allowing sound to seep into the area.

"You told me they were in... bad shape, Graf Eberbach -- would you mind telling me where they are now? And just give me a brief update on their current status, since you've already given me a more detailed description back at my office."

"In the library, coloring," Klaus heard his father say. "When I returned home, things were worse than when I left. Klaus had mentioned... intercourse, and Dorian was rather hysterical over it. It took a while to get them settled back into routine, but they seem to be much happier over the past day or so..."

"Why did mention of that send Dorian into hysteria...?" Akio pressed, while in the other room Klaus gave Dorian an apologetic and half-guilty look, and Dorian returned it.

"I believe that it caused him to remember what had happened to them. I can't be certain, however..." Heinz murmured, shrugging. "It upsets him to discuss it."

"And your son -- does it upset him as much as it upsets his... companion?" Akio asked tactfully.

"It upsets him that Dorian is upset," was the equally carefully worded reply.

"So as long as Dorian doesn't have a problem with it, your son is fine...? Does that apply in all scenarios...?"

Heinz nodded, hands steepling before him. "Thus far it seems to be just so. I haven't noticed anything that truly seemed otherwise, but Klaus has always put Dorian before himself, for as long as they've been companions." Or at least for as long as Heinz had known them as companions, that had been the case.

"So... if Dorian were to make a decision, Klaus would go with it, even if he didn't like it?"

"Almost certainly," Heinz agreed, "but Dorian is just as likely to do the same. They... were likely to do that even before the recent... problem."

"Why before that...?" Akio's voice held deeper curiosity as he let his eyes linger around the interior of the study.

Heinz shrugged. "Because the first time was not so bad that it drove them to this point. The first time only drove them to needing one another desperately."

"You didn't tell me in America that it had happened before," Akio said with a frown. "That changes something. Trauma on trauma... how well did they recover from the first time, and when/what happened?"

"The matter is classified NATO information," Heinz murmured, uncertain. "My son and his companion were in hospital for a while and then went to America. They...only came home afterwards. I don't know what happened there..."

"NATO...? Your son is military...?" THAT added a whole new dimension. "What did he do?"

"He was a Major in... in the espionage division, I believe," Heinz told him reluctantly.

"A spy?" Akio's thin eyebrows rose, and he shook his head. "I see very few of them. It makes this more complex, because of training that could conflict with natural interests. How old are he and his companion...?"

"Klaus is thirty-seven," he was informed. "Dorian is thirty-five, I believe. They aren't very old, and they... were some of the best."

"What did Dorian do for a living...?"

"Contract work for NATO," Klaus's father said. "All of this is confidential, yes?"

"Doctor-Patient confidentiality," Akio nodded. "Just a contract worker? So they met on the job...? Would you say that your son was... married to his job?"

"Very much so, yes. For as long as he held the job, he was devoted to it. After he was released from service due to the trauma of... of the first unfortunate incidence, he devoted himself also to contract work with Dorian. They were the best..." He sighed. "Would still be, if only they were not so..."

"Traumatized," Akio finished for him, nodding. "Having your tongue cut out and being raped would certainly be traumatic enough, stacked on top of a previous event that caused damage. Did they ever receive treatment for the first time?"

"...none of which I am aware," Heinz admitted. "Neither wanted to discuss it. They wanted to... to get on with their lives in their own manner."

"Which was...? Did they live here, or did they have a private residence?"

"Dorian is a British earl; my son, as well, is not common. They had several residences, this one included. I generally reside in Switzerland, and have only been home now to see to them. They tended to split their time between the Schloss and a castle in North Downs."

"So they obviously had no problems with travel, good... Tell me again how they were acting when they were released from the hospital...? And how they acted during?" He took out a note-pad, and began to quickly jot down notes.

"Quiet," was Heinz's reply. "Dorian acted... much like a child, unable to keep his mind on anything for more than a few moments. Klaus has taken refuge in comfortable things, and in making Dorian happy. If the one is happy, the other is. It's very..."

"Strange, Graf Eberbach, or depressing...?" Akio asked sympathetically.

"Yes," Heinz answered. "Yes."

"Both, of course -- Have they had any progression since that point...?"

"Dorian has begun writing and, after some discussion, he agreed that Klaus did not wish to do 'the bad thing' to him -- intercourse," Heinz muttered nervously. "They've gone back to comfortably sleeping with one another, which means both of them are actually *getting* sleep."

"So... they can't sleep without each other?" Akio asked after a moment, drawing conclusions that hadn't been directly stated.

"Both suffer from intense nightmares," Heinz agreed.

"Any idea what sort of nightmares...?"

A negative shake of the head. "Just that they cannot sleep, one without the other, they wake yelling and don't... don't deal well for a while afterwards."

"But when they sleep together they manage fine, mostly...?" Akio nodded to himself, guessing that was the answer as he wrote it down. "Now... have there been any obvious behavior modifications on your son's part because of Dorian since this incident? And vice versa."

Another great sigh from Klaus's father, prompting Dorian to peek up at Klaus in the other room. He was rapidly growing a little bored, but Klaus was rapt, and so he sat down, laying his head upon Klaus's knee.

"Klaus would do anything to accommodate Dorian... and once Dorian understands that Klaus is unhappy, he would do the same for Klaus."

Klaus's fingers wove gently through his companion's hair, stroking soothingly to keep him still while he listened to Akio talk.

"Once he understands? You mean he doesn't understand now, or...?"

"He understands, but he often does not understand the cause," Heinz replied.

"What is often the cause?"

"Klaus remembers when Dorian could speak, make sly remarks, laugh at something besides coloring books. Both men were extraordinarily intelligent and devoted to one another and their work."

"And though your son is slower than he used to be, he misses how his... friend was?" Akio pressed gently. "So that makes him sad?"

"Precisely," Heinz sighed, most relieved. "That's just it, yes."

At that, Dorian buried his face in Klaus's thigh and whimpered softly, clutching at him. "Let's go back to the library, Dorian," Klaus whispered softly, losing track of the conversation for the more pressing issue of going back to being okay with things, life.

THAT seemed to be quite what would please Dorian, for he lifted his face, kneeling up and pressing his lips pleasantly, offeringly, to Klaus's. Every bit of Klaus's will went to just making it a gentle, playful kiss, and then he stood up with Dorian, heading for the door... which was just when he heard, as he started to open it, the Study door opening, too.

"I'll take a look at them alone, if you think they could tolerate that?" Akio was asking.

"Certainly. I believe they're in the library, just down this way," Heinz replied firmly.

Klaus started to close the door, but that was, of course, when the door squeaked, making him freeze in place.

"Or perhaps," Heinz said dryly, "they're naughty boys who've been next door listening to us the entire time. What would you say, Klaus?"

"Sorry, Father," Klaus uttered, pushing the damnably creaky door open to step out, Dorian very close behind him. "We were distracted when we heard the bell ring."

Dorian smiled brightly at the odd-looking thin man, tilting his head to the side. Funny thing, he was, but he seemed not to be bad, and if Heinz and Klaus didn't think so, either, then he must be all right!

"Good-morning, Klaus, and... and you're Dorian?" Akio asked the blonde man gently, smiling brightly at them both.

Oh, yes, he was definitely Dorian, and he nodded his yes to the man full of questions, clutching Klaus's arm tightly after that -- just to let him know, of course, that Klaus was *his* Klaus.

"Nice to meet both of you -- were you heading back to the library...?"

"Yes, we were -- we didn't know you were, too..." Klaus did start forwards, though, Dorian close in tow where he wanted the Earl to be.

"Like a matched set," Akio murmured under his breath to Heinz.

"Yes," Heinz agreed quietly. "Just like that."

They marched along to the library, Akio and Heinz behind them, and once they arrived, Dorian promptly flopped onto his belly on the carpet and reached for his coloring crayons and pencils.

While Klaus stretched out beside him, protective because of the presence of company other than Dominic and Heinz. He picked up a crayon for himself, opened to a page of the book, and then looked at Dorian with an odd, slight smile.

"So, how are you doing today?" Akio asked after a moment or so of observing them.

Dorian beamed and waved a crayon. That seemed to imply that he was doing quite well, particularly when he laughed and smiled at Klaus, as well.

Akio had, apparently, forgotten for a moment that Dorian was as good as utterly mute. Klaus was busy giving a matching smile back to Dorian, which was painfully disturbing. "Good to know," Akio smiled. Then after a moment of thought, he added, "Would either of you like to talk about the bad thing?"

"No," Klaus uttered, turning to glare at Akio.

The words caught at Dorian's attention, his face tightening, lips beginning to tremble slightly before he reached for the pad so shortly laid down and scribbled, 'You know about the bad thing? Does that mean you can fix it? What's wrong?'

"Well, it'll take longer than a few moments to make you better, Dorian -- what happened to both of you was serious trauma that justifies completely your own mind's reactions to what occurred."

'Not our fault, then?' That seemed to bring some relief to Dorian's face, his smile becoming even more brilliant, if at all possible. 'Was afraid my fault.'

"Not your fault, of course it isn't!" Akio smiled again.

Oh, that made everything MUCH better, and Dorian flung himself against Klaus in reaction, hugging him tightly. /Yes, yes! Not my fault! Everything will be better, yes!/

Akio watched with unease as Klaus hugged Dorian back, laughing quietly. "See? See, I told you!"

"Dorian had worried that these things were his fault. He understands that he... isn't quite the same," Heinz murmured, not really disturbed to see them that way. After all -- he'd seen it before.

"Of course," Akio nodded, brows furrowing a little. "What have you two been doing -- coloring? Is there anything else you both like to do?"

Oh! Dorian nodded, pointing to the red flower on his coloring book page to indicate that he liked the gardens, pushing lightly at Klaus. /Tell him. Tell him about the flowers!/

Klaus smiled a litle, nodding, "We like the gardens, when they're blooming. Flowers -- Dorian likes flowers, and I like them, too..."

"And artwork," Heinz added. "Dorian is most fond of artwork, and so they spend some time every day in the galleries, and looking at the paintings here in the library."

"Dorian especially likes the picture of Tyrian," Klaus went on with a warming smile, hugging Dorian a bit closer.

'Pretty,' Dorian mouthed, looking up at Klaus. 'Pretty like you.'

Klaus brushed a light, light kiss against Dorian's lips, before asking Akio. "So, why're you here again?"

"To see what sort of treatment would be best for you and Dorian," Akio mused, looking over to Heinz questioningly.

"We want you to get better, Klaus. We want Dorian to... to get better," his father answered gently as Dorian kissed Klaus again, happy now.

"I'm not... even sure what's really wrong," Klaus murmured, frowning as he kept Dorian close. "Only...."

"That there is something," Akio nodded again, thoughtful once more. "Graf Eberbach, is there anything that Klaus has... oh, I don't know. A tape recording, a videotape.... Anything like that?"

"From before, you mean? I... will ask Dominic, call James. I don't know if there is such a thing, but I will attempt to find it, if so," Heinz murmured.

"I'd just like a better example of what they both were... before. That would make it graspable just what needs to be worked on that wasn't there previously."

"Of course," Heinz agreed, glancing to his son. "Klaus... Do you, perhaps, remember such a thing? A videotape of some sort, made of you and Dorian?"

"There...." Klaus thought for a moment. "James would have it. We made it for Christmas when we were in India on... on mission."

The little crying thing liked to watch it, and Dorian really WISHED he'd stop all of that wailing when he did! He carried it with him everywhere, apparently, even when he came to visit, and all of that crying put Dorian on edge.

"That's good!" Akio uttered. "Where could I contact him to get a copy...?"

'Attached to it,' Dorian wrote. 'Crying thing won't let you have it!'

"Would he make a *copy* for me, you think...?" Akio asked, reading Dorian's handwriting and Klaus's confirming nod.

'If you watch it with him. Maybe help crying thing, too,' Dorian seemed to decide. That might help, at least for the poor man who came with him, anyway.

"Where is he now?" Akio asked, frowning a little.

At that, Dorian looked to Klaus, and Klaus shrugged. "We don't know, exactly. He's probably in England."

"The cr...er... James travels a bit, back and forth. He's Lord Gloria's... Dorian's accountant," Heinz explained.

"Accountant, hmn? So he'll be back here...?" Akio asked quietly. "I'd like to take at least a couple of weeks to work with both of you. This really is an interesting case..."

Interesting. Well, Dorian had a feeling that there were worse things to be than *interesting*... such as *uninteresting*! That decided, he nodded firmly and kissed Klaus again, and Klaus laughed softly, tugging Dorian to go back to coloring.

"Graf Eberbach, if I may have a word alone with you..."

"Of course," Heinz agreed, turning to head back out into the hallway and assuming that the psychiatrist would follow him.

Akio did, making thoughtful noises. "They seem very... happy right now."

"Today is not so bad," Heinz agreed. "Two days before, they were not so good."

"Does it swing often...?"

At that, the older man gave a sigh. "It depends. It depends upon the day, the weather, upon how much Klaus is thinking of Dorian as he once was, on how aware Dorian is that Klaus is considering such a thing..."

"Anything at all, then." Well, that seemed particularly horrible for those around them. "And what are they like at their worst?'

"Miserable, often crying. Klaus locks himself in the bathroom, Dorian hides in the library, and it requires much cajoling to get either of them out again," Heinz admitted.

"Why does Klaus lock himself in the bathroom?" was the psychiatrist's curious question.

"So that Dorian will not see him cry. That seems to exacerbate the situation on any given day."

"And they blame themselves. Well, I can't say that this is going to be easy," Akio sighed. "It would probably be easier to medicate them or lock them away, though I know you don't want that."

"I *will* not do that," Heinz agreed. "Klaus is my son. I *refuse*."

"Understood, and well," Akio murmured softly, contemplating for a moment more. It really was a troublesome thing to work out... "I... I believe that any recovery they make will be on their own terms. The best I'll be able to do is facilitate that."

It was not *exactly* what Heinz wanted to hear, but it was better than nothing, was it not? Better than the current situation, anyway. "I understand."

"I'd like to meet each of them alone for half an hour a day, perhaps more, and half an hour together."

"That...would be more than acceptable, if they will allow it. If one of them becomes upset and the other sees it..."

"Of course it makes the situation only worse," Akio nodded gently. "When Dorian gets upset, what does your son do?"

"It depends," Heinz told him. "He becomes desperately protective or desperately depressed. On occasion, he's become both at once."

"To whom? Can you give me an instance...?"

The elder Eberbach shook his head. "To no one, to anyone. He snapped at Dominic for doing the same to Dorian. It's simply a matter of who or what is upsetting the..." Thief, he started to say, but then shrugged. "His companion."

"They used to be lovers, didn't they?"

"Yes," Heinz admitted quietly. "Very much so."

"For how long...? How long have they *known* each other...? They've got... quite the interesting interdependent relationship going on. Not like anything I've ever seen before," the doctor admitted.

"They've been working together since '78. They've been... together... since 1987, just after their previous experience.." Heinz explained.

"Why nine years of not being lovers, if they're obviously so devoted to each other...? Was one of them with someone else...?"

Taking a deep breath, Heinz muttered, "Klaus did not realize he was... ein Schwule."

"Your son didn't know he was a homosexual...?" Narrowed eyes flared wide, a little startled. "What brought about THAT revelation?"

"Dorian," Heinz answered simply.

"After their first experience with such an event...? That was the catalyst for their relationship...?"

"I believe so, yes," Klaus's father replied.

"All right," Akio sighed, nodding again, thinking hard again. "So the relationship wasn't formed under the best of circumstances, so that probably made it closer than it would have been with natural progression..."

"Perhaps that is so," Heinz admitted. "They have always been very close, very dependent of one another. It was... much better before now." And not so needy as it had been early on in their relationship, either.

"All right. I'm going to leave for the day, because I think I've disrupted them both enough for one day -- I don't want to ruin their natural routines. Speaking of that, what does it usually seem to be?"

Thoughtfully, Heinz frowned. "Up by seven, lunch at noon, nap from one until three, dinner at six, bed by ten."

"Why the nap?"

"Snuggling," Heinz expressed succinctly. "Dorian likes to be held."

"Two hours...?"

Helplessly, the older man shrugged. "He enjoys it."

"And your son...? Does he enjoy it, or just oblige his ex-lover?"

"I think, a bit of both. Klaus wants more, I know..." All of the questions were beginning to wear on Heinz, and he frowned.

"You look tired," Akio uttered, starting off down the hall slowly. "I'll leave you be, Graf Eberbach."

"Thank you... for coming." Gratitude was something Heinz rarely offered, but anything that could be done to help his... yes, his *children*, was worth his thankfulness.

"Have a good day, sir!"

Dorian listlessly played with his flower and looked at the strange man across from him. Klaus was having coffee in the kitchen and that left Dorian alone with the strange visitor who was going to fix him, if he could. It fairly fascinated him, but it bored him a little, too. There were no crayons, and there was no Klaus.

Just a pad of paper, the flower he held, and a man with funny-colored hair. "How are you today, Dorian?"

'Happy,' Dorian decided. 'We went into the garden this morning, and Klaus gave me kisses.'

"Kisses? Did you like the kisses he gave you?" Odd contrast there -- hadn't he been told by Heinz that Dorian didn't want so much of what Klaus wanted to take?

'I always like Klaus's kisses. Sweet,' Dorian declared. 'Taste good. Feel good.'

"Why are they so good for you, Dorian?"

'Come from Klaus,' Dorian scrawled out. 'What could be better?'

"Nothing for you, I suppose," Akio murmured. "So you love Klaus...? And he loves you?"

Happily, Dorian nodded, smiling brilliantly. 'Love Klaus. Love Klaus *much*!'

Conversation, between slowly mouthed words and the written scrawls, was slow going, but Akio felt he could gain ground. "Why?"

'Always.' Dorian shrugged, wrote again. 'First sight. Always, always love Klaus.'

"Always...? But what sparked it at first sight?" Akio smiled. It seemed a topic that Dorian was comfortable with, so best to follow through with that. Then he'd turn the same questions on Klaus.

'Beautiful like Tyrian. Asthe... can't spell it. Beautiful. Strong. Something else. Don't recall.'

"Who's Tyrian?"

'In the library. Beautiful,' Dorian told him. 'Green eyes. Beautiful. Want.'

A painting, then! "You want the picture? But you have it anytime you want, to look at."

'Want to keep.' The words, scrawled out, seemed lovely somehow. 'Want to keep forever and ever. Klaus says I took once. Traded for tank.'

"You liked it so much you stole it?" Akio smiled, brows furrowing a little. "And traded it... for a tank?"

'Yes.' As if stealing something and trading it for heavy artillery was an every day occupation! It didn't seem to faze Dorian a bit to admit to it, however, it made Akio strangely nervous -- and CURIOUS.

"Where's the tank now? Or, can you not remember?"

'Somewhere. Crying thing probably knows.'

"Ah, there's something I've been meaning to ask -- why do you call him 'crying thing'?" Akio asked quietly. "Is it because you always see him sad?"

'Always crying. Cute. But crying.'

"Why do you think he's crying?" There, now he was moving back to his REAL topic, though that made it all no more comfortable for Akio.

'Wants me to be like before bad thing. Wants me to be what he remembers me to be. Don't remember exactly what he wants me to be. Don't think right, I know. Klaus worries. Frets.'

"Because he cares about you, Dorian," Akio soothed. "That's important, isn't it?"

'Yes,' Dorian agreed. 'Important. Love Klaus.'

"Why don't you tell me about what both of you do all day?" Akio murmured, settling back a little in his chair.

'Get up. Breakfast. Color. We color every morning. Then lunch. Then nap. Then sometimes gardens. More color sometimes. Supper. Look at pretty pictures. Like Tyrian. Wish Tyrian had a man to make him happy...' Dorian decided.

"He probably has one," Akio murmured under his breath. "Don't worry -- he's not among the living, so he can't be lonely."

'I would be lonely without Klaus,' Dorian pointed out to him, frowning.

"But you're alive," Akio smiled. "You can feel and miss."

'Miss Z,' Dorian decided. 'Z nice. Would miss crying thing, if hush.'

"Z? Who's Z?"

'Sweet,' Dorian declared. 'And A. Miss all. Klaus misses worse. Klaus always missed...' For a second, he stopped writing, face thoughtful. 'Yes. Always missed.'

"Always missed? Can you clarify that?" Akio murmured, leaning closer to Dorian to read as he scratched out words.

'Always. Before. Before bad thing. Remember now.'

"He always missed A and Z and 'all'? Why? Who are they, that he'd miss them...?"

Out of patience, Dorian scratched out, 'Alphabets!' and then put the pen and pad down, tired of it.

Alphabets...? He'd have to ask *Heinz* about that...

"All right -- thank you. That was all that I wanted to know. You miss them too? Do they come to visit?" Dorian shook his head, no, beginning to search for his crayons. "Why don't they, if they know Klaus misses them? That probably makes him sad..."

Wasn't it enough answers yet? With a sigh, the tall blond Briton flopped onto the couch and picked up the pen and paper again. 'Don't know. They don't come.'

"I bet you like that -- more time to have Klaus to yourself." That was a gamble, really, but the way Dorian 'talked' about things, it seemed he was used to having all of Klaus's time.

'Nice... but Klaus might not be so sad if others.'

"Probably. Hey, how many coloring books do you go through in a week?"

'Lots,' Dorian decided. 'Lots and lots.' In actuality, it was perhaps six, perhaps seven of the special ones that Heinz had made for him.

But Klaus colored, too, and they spent a lot of time doing that. Sometimes, Klaus tried to watch the news, but he could never hold Dorian's attention there for long.

"Klaus like to color, too?"

'Sometimes,' Dorian wrote. 'Mostly watches.'

"Does he have any hobbies you don't like...?" Akio sat back again, eyeing the clock. Time to wrap that session up, slowly.

Ohh, THAT gained him an interesting reaction, a shiver, a wide-eyed look. For a moment, he thought Dorian wouldn't answer, but then he did, slowly.. 'Guns.'

"He was a military man -- why do guns bother you...?"

'Dangerous...' Dorian shivered. 'Don't like them. NEVER liked them!'

"I think, Dorian, that you can trust Klaus would never let you be hurt by a gun," Akio soothed lightly as he stood slowly. "Thank you for your time."

'Can I color now?' he asked, having been unable to find his crayons.

"Of course you can," Akio said gently after reading the pad. "Where are your crayons? I see your book out there..."

'Can't find them!' Dorian declared, frowning, fretful. 'Lost!'

"They're lost...? Are you sure Klaus just doesn't have them...?" Akio asked, taking a slow glance around the room.

/Ohhh!!/ Those words gained Akio a tight hug, a brilliant smile, and then Dorian rushed to find Klaus, determined that he *needed* his crayons!

That left the lean man a little stunned by the sheer *energy*, and childishness, of the blond man. Then he left the library in search of Heinz for a moment, eventually finding him in his study with Dominic and Klaus, Dorian laying upon the floor and going through the obviously-found box of crayons.

So much for finding him alone.

"Ahh, Herr Himemiya," Heinz murmured. "Come in, come in. Dorian just arrived to show that you were done!"

"Yes -- could I speak to you for a moment, Graf Eberbach?" Akio looked to the two, and then to the old, ragged looking butler.

"Of course, of course," Heinz agreed, nodding to Dominic.

The old butler nodded back, moved to sit down as Klaus rose to sit cross legged and quiet beside his crayon digging companion. Akio waited until they were outside to speak, and the door was closed. "Who are the 'Alphabets'?"

"Ahhh." Heinz nodded, strolling down the hallway to be sure they were further out of hearing range. "They were Klaus's subordinates in NATO. He was... is... fond of most of them. Dorian was, as well."

"Alphabets?" Akio's lips curled up in a bit of a questioning smile. "Dorian mentioned A and Z -- they were all named letters of the alphabet? If that was your son's idea, he had an odd sense of humor before."

"I am not certain it was his decision, but... it is true that Klaus had a rather *dark* sense of the amusing, before," Heinz agreed.

"What sort of things did he find funny before...? I'm straining to get, from them, a sense of what used to be," Akio sighed, looking pointedly at Heinz. "Dorian likes paintings, I've learned. 'Tyrian' in particular."

To admit that he had not known his son as well as he might have made Heinz cringe. "He laughed at dark jokes, if you know what I mean. Klaus was... sometimes very innocent, and sometimes very cynical. He was in Catholic school before going into the military, you see, and... and we were not close. As for Dorian..." Oh, to tell the man or not? "Dorian was... an art thief, and one of NATO's prized contractors, particularly once Klaus retired and they began to work together. He fell in love with Tyrian Persimmon, the Man in Purple, that painting, and stole it..."

"Before he met your son, or after?" Akio asked a little wryly. "He looks a lot like Klaus does, through the face."

"For as long as I know. There... there is, er, a family precedence, on both sides..."

"A family precedence...?" More confusion, and Akio folded his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall.

"The Eberbach line has descended directly from Tyrian Persimmon, you see, as the Gloria line has issued directly from Benidict the Red. They... were lovers and enemies, in their time," Heinz answered, turning pale red. "It is not an... unheard of fascination."

"Odd coincidence. Your family lines create talented, handsome men," Akio shrugged. "Such a pity that your son and Lord Gloria were so badly harmed. Dorian, though, seems almost content with how things are."

"Perhaps," Heinz agreed with a sigh. "Klaus, however, is not. And I don't know how to rectify this problem..."

"What're the most obvious things that Klaus wants...?" Akio asked. "Maybe we can work on just getting them both to a point where they're happy."

Heinz sighed, rubbing at his sinuses. "He wants more physical affection and he wants Dorian to be aware of life *beyond* color crayons. If he could have his hobby of cleaning and working with guns back again... that would be good, as well."

"Was he a good shot with only...?" Akio gestured to his own perfectly formed right hand.

"Before they cut them off, yes," Klaus's father said firmly. "And then he became even better with the left."

"A pity to not be able to indulge in a skill because your lover is scared of it," Akio winced, feeling deep pity for the shell that was left of Klaus. "Well, I'll try to work on making Dorian more accepting of things."

"And, perhaps... to... to help him think more in the manner which he should??"

"Herr Graf... let me be frank -- he's either locked himself away in his mind, which is admittedly hard to undo, or he's suffered brain damage. Have there been any tests for that run on *either* of them?"

"I... no, but they... there were no dangers of such a thing, they were not struck upon the head or..."

"How do you know that? How do you know they weren't suffocated, deprived of air, or drugged? Was all of that tested on them?" Akio asked, frowning deeply.

"I... will get you their medical records," came the stiff answer.

"Thank you," Akio told him with a slight smile. "Even if it is so, that doesn't mean there isn't help for them -- but it means that the damage is hard-wired in and would need to be worked around, and that can be *done*."

"Unlike the other?" Heinz asked worriedly, brow knitting.

"The other would actually be harder, because I don't know the exact reason for the mental block put up. If *that*'s the case, you son is suffering from the same sort of self-imposed mental block."

"The reason would be the... the repeat of what happened before, yes?" came the fretful question.

"Yes, probably -- the defense mechanisms that worked the first time probably over-compensated this time," Akio said sadly.

"And this... this will not help you in fixing... in making things right, again?" Heinz asked him.

"What do you mean? I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"*Can* you help them to get better?" the elder Eberbach queried directly, expression turning to a frown.

"I think I can," Akio said with confidence. "It's just... going to take awhile. Start with small things -- I think the monotony is making things worse for Klaus. Find other things Dorian might like. Other colorful things."

Oh, Lord, Heinz knew nothing of *colorful* things; if he had, Klaus's life would not have been so very black and white, would it have? But perhaps, if he contacted some of Dorian's people... "We will try."

"That would be a good idea. Toys or something, you know? Something *other* than coloring for them to do. Puzzles? There are those three dimensional puzzles, and I bet your son would actually enjoy working on one of those."

Oh, THAT brought a spark to those faded green eyes! "I'll go out and fetch some today!" he decided, nodding. Perhaps they would have some of those artsy places that Dorian liked done up in 3D...

"Just... I think that boredom may be aggravating at least your son's displeasure. Rather... like a bored child is more prone to swings of mood and depression than one that has something they like doing. There are also.... hmn, erector sets, Legos, all sorts of things that maybe he could do in the room with Dorian, non-threatening," Akio murmured, smiling at his own idea. "Building, constructive things."

The older man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yes... yes, I believe I'll try that. Thank you. Those are most excellent suggestions. You will be talking to Klaus shortly, then, yes?"

"Yes. I wanted them to have a little time together again to soothe Dorian in preparation for being away from Klaus again," Akio said with an inclination of his head. "I'm glad you're going to take my suggestions to heart."

"You were recommended to me as the best," Heinz replied solemnly. "I wish to help my boys. If I did not listen, that would not be in their best interests, no?"

"No, it wouldn't. Before I talk to Klaus, do you mind if I look around their bedroom? With you supervising, of course," Akio requested.

"Of course," Heinz agreed, looking at him oddly. "It is up the stairs, near the top..." He was a bit slow, and going up those stairs could be quite the daunting task at his age, but he didn't want someone looking through Klaus and Dorian's things, and the man probably would have questions to ask of him. It was damn near time to have an elevator installed....

"I'd like to get more of an idea of what their life is like now."

"Of course," Heinz agreed once more, beginning the slow walk towards the stairs. "There are, perhaps, remnants of before in the room... a few. I removed many of the more overt... er... THINGS... but..."

"What do you mean overt?" Akio was curious, and politely walking abreast of Heinz.

"Of... an intimate nature," the man struggled to say.

"Oh, things like lubricant and sex toys? Or diaries and that sort of thing?"

At that, the old man's face flamed to life. "Ah... well... yes. Yes, just that... that sort of *thing*..." And oh, how it had embarrassed him to do it!!

"Because of the aversion to anything sexual that... Dorian developed? And your son didn't," Akio questioned as they started up the stairs.

"...yes," Heinz admitted. "But... you will see the records. You will see *why*..."

"They were both raped, you've already told me that much back in New York," Akio reminded him gently, softly. "I just wonder why your son wouldn't shut down quite as Dorian did."

"It..." Heinz paused, frowning. "The first time... there... there were many more men. More than one. There were five, in all."

"To just Dorian?" Akio guessed, eyes wide in horror for *just* a moment.

"...yes," the old man said quietly. "Just to Dorian. It... was when Klaus lost his eye, and his fingers."

Akio winced, but finally nodded. "So they recovered from that."

"After some time. They... went to America, together, to spend time, to think about things. By the time they returned... they were together. They were... better."

"I know they weren't together before that. What was their relationship like before the first incident?" Heinz took a slightly unsteady step on one of the stairs, and Akio steadied him at the elbow.

"A lot of yelling, or so Dominic says. I live in Switzerland, and so I missed... most of that. Klaus was very much... what is it they say? Something about a closet? Very much unaware of his... *nature*," Heinz replied. "He did not wish to accept what Dorian offered, and Dorian... always showed up yet again to offer."

"You mean Klaus was a closet Homosexual?" Akio asked for clarification. "So, he was denying he was what he was, and fighting with Dorian? Why do you think he was in denial?"

"Would not you be?" Heinz asked dryly, pausing at the first landing.

"In denial...? Actually, it appears Dorian never was, and quite frankly, Herr Graf, I never was, either. Many men never have that problem of denial."

At *that*, Heinz flushed deeply. "It is not a comfortable subject. It is less than comfortable to discuss about or with one's son such a matter. How was he to know? *I* did not know homosexuals or bring them home. *He* did not know any overt homosexuals. How was he to know?" Heinz asked again. "Did I..." But no, he had done nothing wrong, had he?

"That depends -- what sort of morals did you drill into him? Where did he go to school?" Akio asked. "I really doubt it's your fault."

"To a good Catholic school!" Heinz answered, flustered. Where else would his son have gone? "I taught him the morals and social responsibilities I learned as a child..."

"I bet marry and have many children was one of them," Akio uttered softly.

"Yes," the man replied, "but what father does *not* want grandchildren?"

"All do, of course," Akio allowed gently. "However, how often did you pester him to marry -- though really I think your son has a loyalty flaw."

"Often," Heinz admitted miserably. "It... it was his duty, to the family, as the heir..."

"Were you angry at him when you found out...?" If possible, he'd help work Heinz through some of his compelling feelings and guilt, too.

The older man shrugged as they continued upward. "I had known since his fourteenth year. I did not believe it would be a comfort to *him* to know."

"How did you know then?" Akio wondered.

How utterly *horrifying* it was to confess such a thing to another man, such a thing about his *son*! "Most fourteen year old boys lock themselves into their bathrooms with pictures of women at that age, hmn? Klaus... did not." That hadn't been *all*, of course, but it had been a fair hint.

"That certainly doesn't make someone gay, Herr Graf," Akio said with a bit of a laugh. "Unless he was doing it with pictures of men."

"No," Heinz admitted, "but he did spend a great deal of time in the back gardens watching the gardeners."

"Were they handsome men?" Akio asked a bit wryly. "It could have been that he was simply a boring boy. That happens. There had to be something more than watching the gardens get shaped up to tip you off."

Dryly, the elder Eberbach replied, "The gardeners worked in only their shorts, Herr Himemiya. The reaction was, heaven help me, *OBVIOUS*."

"Oh, well, that does sound more appealing than hiding in the bathroom with pictures of women," Akio murmured, a bit startled, but agreeable to the revelation. "So after that, what made you keep pressing for him to marry?"

"Klaus is the heir. The only heir in a direct line of descent. It is -- was -- his duty to wed and produce a child."

"And when you found out about he and Lord Gloria, was it still his duty...?"

Heinz paused, *looked* at him. "Being *homosexual* does not change one's responsibilities, Herr Himemiya."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Akio murmured. "But, Klaus apparently did get over his repression... and now I'd think he's incapable of dealing with children."

A deep sigh came in answer as they headed upward again -- *one* more flight of stairs. He was having an elevator put in *tomorrow*! "Yes. I believe that is so."

"Do you like Lord Gloria...?"

"It would be quite impossible *not* to like him," Akio was told. "He... has brought much happiness to Klaus. This, I can appreciate."

"So you approved of him even before this last incident...?"

"I approved of him when I saw my son kiss him in the gardens, not half an hour after I met him. I approved of him when I learned of daring exploits, of crazy escapades much like Klaus's. Yes... I approve of him."

"And Klaus knows this...?" Akio asked carefully, as they reached the *final* landing.

"Klaus knows this," Heinz confirmed.

"That's very good to know. Which room is theirs?" Akio asked, looking around the hallway.

"The one at the end," the elderly Eberbach murmured, walking towards it slowly.

"What does your butler think of all this...?"

"Dominic? He believes that we have done the best we can, in all ways. Why should he believe anything else?" Heinz pushed open the door to Klaus and Dorian's bedroom. "This is their room."

Akio held still for a moment, just at the threshold looking in. "The windows -- were they something they added?"

"*I* added them, when I learned that they were coming home," Heinz said quietly.

"Because Dorian likes color?" Akio asked as he walked into the room carefully. It was a *comfortable* temperature within, well moderated. "That's very kind of you."

"Because Dorian likes color. Because Klaus wishes him to be happy. This... is not kindness. This is the love of a father for his children," he was informed almost sternly.

"You now think of both of them as your children, then?" Akio murmured, looking at the bed. "That looks fairly new, too -- why?"

"Because Klaus likes to be comfortable, and because Dorian thinks of me as *Father*," Heinz sighed.

"Well, at least he's connected himself to someone other than just Klaus," Akio murmured to himself, looking around. Yes, it was comfortable, had a few coloring books and the odd crayon around, and a great deal of *books*. Fantasy, history, war, mystery-humor... "Dorian's books, or Klaus's?"

"Klaus's. Many of them, he has had since childhood..."

"Does he still read them now...?" Akio asked, letting his hand linger over the cover of a well-loved copy of _The Magician's Nephew_.

"Sometimes, when he doesn't want to color, or when he and Dorian are temporarily apart for whatever reason."

"Any book in particular...?" Akio asked, looking over the titles -- such a range of interests represented in those books!

That brought a moment's full-fledged thought form Heinz. "He's very fond of _The Dragon and the George_, as well as a few children's novels... the Lloyd Alexander novels, there..."

"Thank you -- these are things I can use in conversation with him if he gets agitated, then," Akio murmured, picking the books up and double-checking that he knew what they were.

"You would not make him so on purpose, would you?" It was a hesitant question, a worried one.

"No, not at all," Akio said gently, setting the book down. The spine was well cracked, further proof of how well-read it had been. "But as a safety net for myself."

"Ahh." That seemed to relieve the older man even as Akio's eyes took in the rest of the room. "Is there anything else you would perhaps wish to know?"

"Can I take a look in the bathroom real quick? Just what does your son *do* when he locks himself in there?"

"I would assume," Heinz said dryly, "that he *weeps*." And possibly also other things, but he simply didn't want to *think* about that!

"It's something you have to take into consideration, Graf Eberbach, just like one must consider that babies need their diapers changed. If Dorian is so highly disapproving of your son's sexual urges, he's probably ashamed of them. Something, some little sign to him that it's okay to want that would probably ease his misery a little."

Heinz colored deeply once again. "These... these are *not* things one discusses with... with one's *children*!"

"Don't discuss it, then -- leave out a tube of lubricant somewhere that he'd find it and Dorian wouldn't," Akio said easily enough as he opened the bathroom door to look into the room.

THAT would be, conveniently enough, in the medicine cabinet -- Dorian only ever looked in there to pull out electric razor, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss... "Ahhh."

"It's horrible to want something you can't have, to begin with, and then to feel horrible and secret about it," Akio uttered, nodding as he looked around and then closed the door. "Thank you, Herr Graf."

"You are most welcome, Herr Himemiya. Now, shall we return downstairs?"

"Of course," Akio said, looking repentant for a moment. "I'm very sorry I dragged you all the way up here."

"It is nothing," Heinz informed him with a slight smile. "It has let me know I need to install an *elevator*, truth be told." After all, Dominic, as well, was too old to be going up and down all of those stairs.

"Well, it couldn't hurt. This house does have an awful lot of stairs," Akio agreed. Though going DOWN them was easier than going up!

"And Dominic and I, we get no younger," Heinz agreed.

"Have you thought about what to do for the eventuality that... well, for when you and Dominic move on to a better place?" Akio asked, just as gently as he could.

"Nein. This is another reason we consult you," the old man admitted.

"Well, your only options is to hire someone, a 'home' or, some relative that you trust. Someone of Lord Gloria's, perhaps, even."

"Perhaps," Heinz murmured reluctantly, shaking his head. Well, he would talk to the merry band of *thieves* and see what they might do...

"I must recommend, though, with all of Klaus and Dorian's best interests in mind, not sending them away someplace, *or* hiring someone new. The things that happen in such places, or with 'caretakers' can be... frightening."

"I will consult Lord Gloria's accountant, his... staff. They have replaced his family, over the years, and I'm sure..." Heinz trailed off into silence.

"That if needs be, they'd be there to help as best they could," Akio filled in for him diplomatically sparing the man of the trouble of forming those words fully.

"Yes," Heinz agreed. "Yes."

Akio stayed silent until they reached the bottom of the stairs again, taking a glance at Heinz. "I think that I'll just interview Klaus today, then the joint session tomorrow."

"Perhaps that would be for the best," Klaus's father murmured. "They are as yet... unaccustomed to the presence of others."

"I've noticed that," Akio nodded in a light drawl. "I don't want to interrupt their routine too much."

"Thank you," Heinz murmured. "We will work on changing their schedules to suit."

"Thank you," Akio replied as they finally reached the bottom of the steps. "I'll just snag Klaus and talk with him briefly. Perhaps it might relieve some of his stress to talk to someone. Has he done so with you?"

"There are... some things, you see, that father and son... well, some things one does not discuss with one's children, you see. We have spoken, some, but..."

"You're uncomfortable with answering, and he's no doubt uncomfortable asking," Akio nodded. "I understand that."

"Excellent," Heinz sighed, heading back into the room where Dominic waited with Klaus and Dorian. "Most excellent, indeed."

Klaus didn't *want* to know why he'd been dragged away from watching Dorian color, or why he had to talk to the purple-haired man -- only that he *should*, and that it was supposed to help him. "So, what're you going to do?" he started, once the door was closed behind Akio.

"I thought we'd talk," Akio offered. "Just a little, just to start with. Does that sound all right with you?"

Klaus sighed, nodding as he roamed over to a chair almost absently, and sat down cross-legged on it. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Why don't you tell me how you feel about your life? About the things that go on in it?" the self-possessed man asked Klaus seriously, smiling at him. "You seemed to be enjoying yourself when I came and fetched you earlier."

"Dorian was happy," Klaus smiled after a moment. "Once he had his crayons again, he was happy."

"And you like things best when Dorian is happy?" he was asked gently. "Does that make *you* happy?"

"Mostly," Klaus murmured after a moment of thought, brows drawing together. "I like to have him happy."

The dark-skinned man brought his hands together, fingers steepling thoughtfully. "Is there something that makes you unhappy, then?"

"When he gets hysterical," Klaus told him. "I hate that."

"And what is it that upsets him so? Is there something that upsets both of you, besides that?"

Why was the man prying? Oh, that's right -- he was supposed to be helping them both, wasn't he? "When he remembers things from the way things used to be."

"Things...? Anything in particular?" Akio asked him. "I know that some very terrible things happened in the past..."

"Lots of things," Klaus decided, shifting minutely and looking around boredly. "Things about what they did to us. When I'm upset, too, he gets upset..."

Gently, Akio murmured, "And he gets upset about being touched in a...a *romantic* manner? Or thinking about those sorts of relations? Yes?"

"Both." A blunt, slightly tired reply, though Klaus was well aware of the hard truth in his own words -- it was *both*, both that caused Dorian such problems.

"And how does that make you feel, Klaus?" He was well aware that it upset the German man, hurt his feelings, hurt him *period*, and made him slip into the bathroom to cry. "Do you still feel those needs?"

"Yes, and I shouldn't." A tightly uttered reply, as Klaus got out of his chair to pace. His legs were still a little unsteady, still a little limping, but pacing was good for his walking, he knew, and it eased tension.

"There's nothing wrong with feeling that way, Klaus," Akio told him calmly. "All grown men feel those needs. It's part of the way things are, the way nature works. You don't have to feel guilty about that."

"Dorian doesn't want it, though, and it's sick," Klaus declared softly as he pivoted mostly smoothly, pacing away again.

"Did you feel that way before such terrible things happened to you?" he was asked, a light prodding sort of question. He was certain that Klaus *hadn't*, and he would certainly do his best to ease the obvious guilt the man was feeling.

"Feel that way when?"

"When Dorian wasn't the way he is now?" Akio prompted. "Before you were harmed."

"Twice," Klaus reminded edgily, giving the two numbers with a gesture of his maimed right hand, thumb tucked in.

"Twice," the therapist agreed, nodding at him. "Did you feel that way about your urges before it happened twice?"

"Yes," Klaus swallowed, turning again tensely. "Yes, I did."

"Even though both of you... enjoyed normal relations, then?" Oh, that surprised Akio somewhat, but perhaps not as much as he would have ordinarily felt, considering the conversation he'd held with Graf Eberbach.

"Before the first time, I didn't.... relate with anyone."

"And after that, you only related with Dorian?" It was a rather delicate way of stepping around words like 'sex' and even the more euphemistic 'lovemaking', but it worked. "How did that make you feel?"

"At first... that it was bad, but Dorian was... sure, then that it wasn't. And now it is again, so..." So he didn't know what to do, after having spent so long learning that it was good and that Dorian liked it.

"Actually," Akio murmured quietly, "it isn't bad at all. What you feel is perfectly normal, and wanting to have pleasure with someone you love is normal, too. We're going to work on a few things, all right? For now, Dorian isn't ready to go back to having pleasure with you. What happened hurt both of you, and upset you terribly. What I'm here to do is to help both of you to get better, if I can, and with any luck, Dorian will eventually know -- remember, even -- that pleasure with you is all right. He doesn't mind it when you touch him, does he?" He knew the answer to that question. "That's a form of pleasure -- he enjoys your touch, and your comfort, and you enjoy his. That's not bad, is it?"

"He likes being hugged. And... kissed certain ways," Klaus murmured tensely. "But after I first... said about it, he wouldn't let me sleep near him..."

"We'll work on that," he was promised warmly. "For now, just keep in mind that there's nothing wrong with wanting the things you do. All right?"

"All right," was the sedate answer that was quite the contrast from Klaus's pacing. "All... right."

There were *definite* issues to be working on there.

"That's all for today, Klaus," Akio told him with calm inflection. "Tomorrow, I'll see you again, okay?"

"Okay. I can go back to the study now...?"

"You may return," Akio agreed. "I'll walk with you if you like."

"All right," Klaus replied after a moment -- still, still oddly agreeable since it hadn't been long and he still was heading towards Dorian again. "Can we be helped?"

"I hope so," the tall, thin man replied. "I truly do."

Klaus nodded, a bit uneasily, but moved forwards anyway to step into the study once more. His eyes fixed instantly on Dorian, as was to be expected, and he moved to kneel down beside his companion. It gained him joyful arms wrapped around him, fists still clutching crayons as Dorian gave him soft, sweet kisses, lingering things that nuzzled against him. He gave them back, uncaring of the doctor, or that Heinz was still there. Hugging Dorian, holding him that way was such a comfort... "I love you," he whispered just for Dorian as he hugged him tightly. Yes, they'd get better, and then everything would be okay again...

"Graf Eberbach," Akio murmured. "I will see you tomorrow, then, for sessions once again."

"Of course," Heinz agreed, tired green eyes closing momentarily. "We will hope to see you, then."

Klaus waited until Akio had nodded again, and then left with Dominic to guide him to the door -- then he looked to his father, still hugging Dorian close. "Don't be sad."

That brought blue eyes to bear upon him, curious, Dorian's head tilting to the side as he smiled at Klaus, almost visibly asking him why he said such a thing.

"All right, Father?" Klaus asked softly, still looking at his father and not Dorian. "We'll be okay."

The old man gave him a faint smile, nodding slowly. "All right, Klaus. All right."

"We'll be better soon," he murmured, half to himself as he turned back around fully, to look at Dorian. "Won't we?"

Dorian nodded for him, kissed him again, held tightly to him, as if he would never let go. /Yes. Yes. We will, and everything will be good again, and you will be *happy*.../

At least now they were both hoping for the same thing.

The wind that evening was nearly chill, quite cool and full of ice-tinged little touches, but that didn't bother Dorian or Klaus. Indeed, wrapped together in Dorian's soft velour blanket and the old favorite from their bed atop Schloss Eberbach as they watched the moon rise, stars sprinkling the sky above, both seemed quite pleased with themselves.

They'd once gone out in the middle of a night, Klaus half-remembered, and played, and laughed, and swam... many times, in fact, they'd looked up at the night sky, one of the few first things they'd agreed on the beauty of. Still, even with things changed as they were, it was lovely to sit there with Dorian tight in his arms. "Wonderful night," Klaus drawled softly to Dorian.

That gained him sound, a hum of agreement, still rich, throaty, but almost faded from lack of use. It seemed that Dorian approved of snuggling with him, for he nearly purred with his delight, turning his face up to Klaus's in a motion of old.

Klaus felt daring just then -- it may have been the chill, or the calm the stars set in, but he leaned his head down, and kissed Dorian, gently at first, but with an obvious heat and want -- hard for him to stop once he started. It nearly startled him when Dorian didn't shriek or cry out, didn't fight -- only became slightly still, and allowed him to do what he was doing, lips parting in a manner almost (but not quite) inviting. For a moment, he used that leeway, to the fullest extent he could -- then he pulled back, realizing what he was doing, and what Dorian *wasn't* doing, more importantly. He'd slipped his tongue lightly against lips that would have once responded with fervor... and now simply didn't pull back. "I'm sorry, Dorian. I shouldn't have done that..."

A pat upon his shoulder seemed to say that it was all right, Dorian's mouth pressing to his entirely gently, sweetly. It hadn't been so bad. Perhaps Father had been right -- perhaps it wouldn't be bad, at all, but he wouldn't think about *that* just now. The kiss had been enough to consider.

One slow step at a time, but with enough progression, slow as it was, to please Klaus -- would that work, possibly?

When Dorian pressed the kiss again, Klaus decided he wasn't going to protest further -- he was going to savor that special long-missed intimacy, his lover's lips against his, moving in more than just a fleeting peck. Again, there was no resistance, only sweet yielding, and finally, the faintest of movements in return before Dorian pulled away and laid his head upon Klaus's shoulder, a breathy little sigh spilling loose from him.

"Thank you," Klaus told Dorian, sincere as the pleasure of it still tingled at his lips. "Thank you, Dorian, thank you..."

A hand lightly stroked up his shoulder. /I want to make you happy. I do. And if this makes you happy.../ Well. It wasn't so bad, after all, was it?

Klaus bundled Dorian closer in the two blankets, one warm and one comfortably familiar. "See? Things are better." Perhaps that man with the funny-looking hair was going to do some good, after all... It was hard to not smile wildly at Dorian after that kiss, and the look, soothing and calm, that Dorian still wore. "Shall we go inside? It's starting to chill..."

With a nod, Dorian rose, clutching his blanket to him momentarily before reaching out to grasp Klaus close to him, instead. Those brilliant aquamarine eyes were sleepy, sweet, and it made a wash of adoration spill through his beloved, a pleasant tingly sort of sensation.

"You're wonderful," Klaus couldn't help but gently sigh, eyes closing lightly as he clutched Dorian almost desperately close against him.

/I love you,/ Dorian thought, lightly stroking his dark hair. /I love my Klaus./

"Let's go in -- back to our bed, Dorian -- where it's warm, and where we can see the stars and all that color you like..."

THAT, Dorian decided, sounded just perfect, so he tugged at Klaus's hand and wrapped his blanket more tightly about him in preparation for finding the stairs. It wasn't hard, though, as Klaus always left the door propped open a little. The staff didn't even complain anymore about it, since they worried about them both so much. A propped open door told them where to look if they were needed. "Do you want a shower first...?"

A nod, a little dreamy, came in answer. Dorian *loved* baths, even now, and so a shower sounded like a most magnificent thing to his way of thinking.

"A long shower," Klaus promised, as he started to back down the stairs most carefully, door held open for the moment with a shoulder.

With a little pat for his back, Dorian indicated that he should turn around to go down, the blankets trailing along behind them. Klaus laughed once, softly, and didn't turn, though he had an arm at Dorian's arm to keep him comfortably close. "All right. No tripping, this way..."

Just the thought of it made Dorian shiver, worry, but he kept walking down with Klaus, anyway, smiling at him a bit bravely until they reached the bottom, a most sincere relief. Then he was swept up tight in their blankets again, Klaus walking beside him as they moved towards their bedroom. "It's been a good day..." Dorian had even gotten new crayons that morning!

If only every day could be as magnificent! Oh, he smiled at Klaus and pressed a kiss to his cheek, only dropping his blanket once they were in their room, draping it over the end of the bed. Clothing was abandoned in a pile, leaving only underwear, and he pointed to the bathroom, beaming at Klaus once more.

"I'll start the water...? You grab the soap," Klaus decided, stripping himself off carefully, down to his underwear, too, and he was careful to hide any signs of *need*.

A brilliant smile was agreement, Dorian moving to fetch the soap Klaus liked before following him into the bathroom, peeking inside. Klaus was half-bent into the stall, nude now, adjusting the water carefully -- not too hot or too cold for Dorian. It made the blond man smile, slipping up quietly, making just enough noise for Klaus to know that he was there before he tenderly wrapped his arms around the man.

Klaus remembered times when such a motion would have been sexual, and now... now it wasn't, and Klaus had to control himself as he slowly stood up, gently straightened. "Ready?"

A nod, and Dorian tugged off his underwear, getting ready to step under the spray. It was rather obvious that *he* had felt nothing resembling what Klaus had, but he was still beautiful all the same, even with the gunshot scar, the knife slashes upon his face. So beautiful... Still his, at least in the heart, if not the need. Klaus *still* had Dorian and Dorian still needed him, so... So the beauty that was Dorian was still his. "You first," Klaus murmured softly.

Wordlessly, Dorian drifted past him, slipping into the shower and stepping beneath the spray. It was a lovely sight, blond head tipping back to dampen wild curls, hands coming up to hasten the wetting, momentarily soapless. Rivulets ran down him in little washes, and it was almost more than Klaus could bear. Almost...

He managed to lean back, away from Dorian's close, too close, body, and not touch Dorian in any way other than the familiar hand he kept as his companion's waist. "Soap now?" he asked in an oddly husky voice. An imperious hand reached out, palm up, waiting for soap. "There you go," Klaus purred after he squeezed out the shower-gel that Dorian liked -- it was a smell that *he* could handle, but pretty, and Dorian liked the bright color of it. Bright, bright purple.

It gained him the most brilliant smile as Dorian began to wash, closing his eyes and sighing softly. He loved the water, loved to bathe, and it felt so good, just to be warm and caressed that way, and with Klaus watching him... It was almost enough to draw reaction from him, and it came, but he didn't notice it, not anymore than he would have known what to *do* with it.

Klaus noticed, though, and that made his own slight reaction a little worse. His eyes closed -- it was so hard to watch Dorian just then, hard to not touch him, to not reach out and do something *bad*... "Are you enjoying this?" Klaus asked softly, eyes still closed.

/Yes,/ Dorian thought, allowing the soapy trails to sluice away from him with the water. /Yes, I'm enjoying this. Are you?/ This... *this* was not the bad thing, and he felt very odd, but...

But perhaps, for now, it would do.

The replete expression on the blond's face seemed to be answer enough, when Klaus opened his eye again. Carefully, he moved a hand to touch Dorian, wipe at some of the soap. "Good. I like when you enjoy things."

Wet fingers lightly reached out, cupping Klaus's face so that Dorian could lean forward, press his lips against those of his beloved's. He was almost done, only needed to wash his hair, but it felt *right* to kiss Klaus, then, and to pat his shoulder gently.

The kiss was a reminder of what had once been -- and the pat of what now was. Dorian was still a wreck, slow to repair, and Klaus...

/Don't think. Enjoy,/ he chided himself strongly as he kissed Dorian back with emotion that was threatening to spill over like the water from the showerhead.

Tenderly, Dorian put him under the water, allowing him to get wet before he reached for the shampoo to wash his own head, humming a soundless, odd little tune happily, smiling at Klaus. Oh, his Klaus was beautiful, like his Tyrian, lovely, lovely painting-men, and he was so exquisitely happy...

Klaus waited for Dorian to finish with the shampoo, and then took the bottle carefully to use it himself. Worse, he was torn between bothering at all and simply watching Dorian. Old cleanliness habits made him finally start, though, and made Dorian's eyes fall on him.

The bright smears of purple gel turning to lavender lather made Dorian chuckle as he finished soaping his curls and put a hand up to help wash Klaus's hair, too. Helpful, it might have been, but it made Klaus want *things*, and made him sigh. The hiss of the water drowned that out well, so he only had to worry about putting down any of the too-obvious effects of Dorian's touch to him, so close, and so sultry, even unknowing.

Or was he?

He leaned close, quiet close, and one soapy hand moved slowly, timidly down Klaus's belly. The expression upon his face was worried, more than a little, but it seemed also quite determined, even when his eyes closed, even when he laid his still-soapy head upon Klaus's shoulder and moved into him for comfort.

Klaus was glad just then that the Schloss's hot water could last for some time. Now, assured that they could be comfortable under the water for some time to come, Klaus only had the worry of what Dorian would do next. All that slim hand had to do was inch down a bit more, and then Dorian would *know*... "You don't have to do that," Klaus murmured tensely, waiting.

It seemed, though, that Dorian *did*, for his fingers moved almost tremblingly down to clasp the hardened flesh, his entire body jumping momentarily as he clasped Klaus in his palm and hid his face tightly against Klaus's neck. /Oh, I want you to be happy. I'm so afraid!/

"Ohh... Dorian... you..." Not a protest among those bare murmurings, as he clutched Dorian closer, eyes closed. It was so wrong, to do that, to want that, to *let* Dorian do it... but just as hard to resist as it was wrong to do.

Almost unfelt, that clasp, gently shifting, lightly touching, and Dorian's lips were on his throat, kissing the soapy flesh as the water washed over them. Blue eyes remained tightly closed, mostly because of what he was *doing*, partially because the shampoo was rinsing out of his hair and trailing down their bodies. /Be happy. Be happy.../

"Dorian..." Klaus was so scared to do anything more than let Dorian do it, afraid that if he so much as moved his hips that Dorian would hate him forever. "C-can... I mean, do you..." The mouth against his throat kissed tenderly again, encouragement, Dorian's hand shifting. "You.... know what you're doing?" Klaus strained softly, shifting a little, at last, to that gentle, barely there hand.

A slow nod came by way of answer, Dorian biting his lower lip, all of the shampoo long-gone by then. Yes, he knew what he was doing, the *bad thing*, the thing he didn't want to do, but ohh, if it made Klaus happy...!!

He felt Klaus's hands, one maimed but both still strong, clutch at his back for support, careful and gentle though still desperate in their need. It had been so long, and Dorian's hand on him was so different from his own hand on himself. To be touched was less dirty and wrong than his own touch. "Don't stop."

It was unbearable, it was so strange, he was so afraid, but he didn't stop. No, he didn't stop, done with selfishness, done with Klaus crying because he wanted the bad thing. He only wanted Klaus to be happy, to be happy, and the more he told himself that, the easier it became, fingers on slick flesh, slow and sweet.

It was Klaus's own motions that finally brought the other man his much-sought pleasure, a thrust of his hips forwards to slender fingers. Then Dorian felt something that wasn't water against his hand, a thick spill of fluid that came with a groan from Klaus, clutching him tight in orgasmic pleasure, quiet.

Done, over, or so it seemed, and Dorian looked up at him, then, eyes opening, the blue of them darkened with worry. /Is it over? Is there nothing else bad?/ he wondered, biting his lower lip tightly.

Grey-green eyes, one as clear and clean as glass, the other unfocused in the haze of enjoyment, met blue and held them for a moment before he kissed Dorian tenderly. /Don't scare him, oh, don't.../ "Thank you."

Carefully, both of Dorian's arms came around him, holding him closely. /Oh, it's over. That wasn't so bad, was it?/

Klaus savored that embrace, before letting his hands stroke over Dorian to see if there was any soap left to be tended to. "That felt so good, Dorian..."

A little sigh spilled over from his beloved -- he was tired, he decided, worn out from fretting over what he'd done, and he lifted his face for one more kiss before letting Klaus know with a motion that he was ready for bed. So the dark-haired man led Dorian from the shower-stall, and they stood on the fuzzy bathmat together, Klaus handing Dorian a thick towel. "Did... it bother you?"

'Afraid,' Dorian mouthed slowly, sleepily. 'Worried. Not so bad.'

"No," Klaus agreed as he started to towel off Dorian's hair, neck and shoulders, "it isn't so bad. Tomorrow can I do that for you?"

That question gained him a worried little look and then acquiescence in the form of kisses, little touches, the trembling in Dorian not hidden. /I don't want the bad thing like you want it, though.../ Or he didn't *think* he did. Perhaps he did, and he just didn't know what wanting the bad thing felt like?

"I won't hurt you," Klaus promised. "I love you Dorian, I'd never.... never hurt you so badly."

Never to be hurt... no, no, Klaus wouldn't hurt him, would he? Not Klaus. He loved Klaus... /Love you. Won't hurt me, no, no.../

Nodding still, Klaus finished toweling off his lover, then himself as a secondary motion, before leading Dorian in to the bedroom. Even with the sun set, it seemed that the light that spilled into the room was gaily colored from the windows. "I love you, Dorian. Always."

/Always,/ Dorian thought, slipping into bed, not caring that his hair was damp. His arms reached out for Klaus, touching him, pulling him close. /Always, always, always.../

Shivering a little at the innocent press of skin to skin, as Dorian had forgone pajamas for speed it seemed, Klaus let himself be cuddled close, and cuddled Dorian close, rocking him just a little. "'s been a good day."

Indeed, it had been, and Dorian sighed, pressed damply against the length of Klaus. The rocking felt good, and his eyes drooped... drooped... and drooped shut, and for once, Klaus was pleased for his lover to be asleep, warm and close in his arms.

There were so many PEOPLE!!!

It left Dorian quite wide-eyed, his mouth slightly parted with wonder as he looked around, hand clutching tightly to Klaus's. He was sure he'd seen this many people before at some point but oh! It seemed as if there were millions and millions of them, and there was just him, clutching to Klaus and to his own coat as they followed Father and Dominic and the funny-haired tall man.

"Stay close, Dorian," Klaus reminded him gently as they boarded off of the plane and went down through the gateway. He remembered that airports were crowded places, usually, and that he'd never liked them too much because of that, but Dorian's jitteriness was starting to rub off on him, too.

Oh, those were words Dorian could appreciate, and he clutched to Klaus tightly, the look in those deep blue eyes just a little wild. He wouldn't let go of Klaus, not at all! He wouldn't! Oh, but he had to *go*, and he wished he could say so...

"Anything wrong?" Klaus asked softly, a whisper as they trailed after their group of guardians. "Other than being here."

Dorian's mouth pressed tightly for a moment and he nodded, pausing and crossing his legs to look at Klaus hopefully.

Klaus laughed once, nodded in reply, and then looked around for a moment before he tugged Dorian off towards the sign that said 'restrooms' with a barely uttered noise to his father and Dr. Himemiya. Dominic had already cut ahead to find the baggage.

By the time they got there, Dorian was so relieved he heaved a sigh, grateful to have gotten the message across. He hadn't wanted to leave Klaus's side in the plane, and so they hadn't gone in what seemed like forever, but now...

Oh, he felt *better*!

Klaus had waited mostly patiently, gone too, and when Dorian was done and had washed his hands, he grasped Dorian's hand in his again. They got a few funny looks, Klaus, noticed without much care, as they stepped out of the men's bathroom. It was then that he realized they were no longer with his father, Akio and Dominic.

Dorian looked at him expectantly, tilting his head to the side as if to say, /Where are they?/

"Maybe they didn't hear us -- they're probably getting bags," Klaus decided as he started towards a sign to read where the baggage area was. Dorian followed him most obediently, hand clasped tightly in Klaus's. Oh, he hoped they weren't lost!

"'ey, wot we got 'ere...?" a voice asked sarcastically, a finger poking Dorian from behind.

Klaus pivoted sharply from the directory he was reading through, pulling Dorian closer. "What?"

"Looks like a couple o' faggots to *me*," a second man purred, poking Klaus next. "Lookit!"

Dorian whined high in his throat and clutched Klaus even more tightly, eyes filling sharply. Oh, he was afraid!

"Go away," Klaus murmured in a very stubborn tone of voice, as he turned resolutely back to the directory, Dorian held tighter still against his side with his maimed hand. /No weapons, can't hurt them. Bad to... *will* hurt if they hurt Dorian, will, I'll protect Dorian, I'll protect him./

"Ohhh, the li'l fag wants us to go away!" They were drawing attention, now, from the crowd around them, but no one did anything, even when one poked Dorian again and he cried out in fear, childish features trembling as he shifted away from that touch.

Klaus's features grew animalistic, a little scared and unsure, but more threatened than anything. "Don't touch him!"

"Don't touch the woofter, 'e says," the second one snickered, poking *Klaus*, then. "He."

"Idiot," Klaus bit out with a dark furrow between his brows as he kicked out sharply at the second one. "Go away! I'm just trying to read the damn sign!" Dorian's soft keening fear was certainly making him even more edgy as he placed the blond man behind him.

"'ey," the first murmured, "security's comin'. 's time t'get out the way, hn?"

"Go away," Klaus reiterated, still holding Dorian close behind him, now, protective like a well-trained dog. Why could no one just leave them alone?

By the time they were gone, the keening had turned to soft cries of fear, Dorian clutching tightly to him. It seemed so horrible! What made anyone want to hurt them? All Dorian wanted to do was hold onto Klaus and color and occasionally look at his other painting man. What was so wrong??

Klaus turned, albeit cautiously, to hold Dorian, rocking him a little as he stood there crying, "We're okay," he assured softly, as he sighted security's arrival.

/No, no!/ Dorian shook his head, trembling in Klaus's arms despite the eyes upon him, despite the men in blue coming close to them. /No, not okay! *Afraid*!/

"They're gone, and we'll be home soon..." Klaus went on softly, rocking a bit more -- really just a gentle swaying -- to calm Dorian more. "All right?"

"Here, now," a security guard said, "what's the trouble, then?"

"Two.... two men were harassing Dorian," Klaus scowled quite unhappily as he went on with trying to comfort Dorian. "And we can't find our guardians."

"I see..." The man seemed thoughtful for a moment. "Tell you what. I'll run you up to the front and send out a call, hm? D'you..." No, perhaps that would be an insulting sort of question. "What's your names, then?"

It was a little late, though, because Klaus already looked offended and very unhappy. "Klaus von dem Eberbach and Dorian Red Gloria." The mere sound of that pique in Klaus's voice drew Dorian's tearful gaze timidly to the man, his hands still clutching tightly at Klaus.

"Er... yes, well, then, come along, we'll run through the metal detectors and go to the office, then," the security guard said. Oh, Klaus was still intimidating!

Even with Dorian clutched so close, and talk of guardians from a man with grey at his temples. He *knew*, though, and wasn't ashamed to admit that his father and Dominic were invaluable to him, and that they weren't self-sufficient, he and Dorian. "And you'll find them?" Klaus pressed as he rubbed Dorian's shoulder gently.

"We'll find 'em," the man promised. "D'you know, perhaps, where you were bound? Surely they'd be looking for you..."

Father wouldn't leave them, Dorian knew, but oh, he couldn't remember where they were going. He was so upset!

"We're heading for a castle in the North Downs," Klaus said as they started to follow. "But, the baggage claim first. I was trying to find it when those two started to harass Dorian..."

"Right, then. Come along," the fellow told them, and turned to walk away, glancing back to see if they were coming.

They did follow, though it was slowly, Klaus careful to not jostle Dorian through the crowd too badly, yet somehow keep him close as they headed towards the metal detectors. There, the guard walked through ahead of them, but it rang the moment they passed beyond the little barrier, and Dorian cried out softly in fear.

"It's okay, Dorian," Klaus soothed softly, as they were backed up out of it. "It... might have been me." At least, he *hoped* it was him!

Oh, oh, how Dorian didn't want it to be either of them! They were walked back through and it went off again, bringing the tears back to those eyes as the security guard said softly, "Um, you'll hafta walk through one at a time, now..."

"You first, Dorian," Klaus granted softly, letting his companion move in front of him towards the frame.

Dorian shook his head, shifting back to Klaus frightenedly. /No, no, no! They'll take you away from me!!/

"Okay -- I'll go first then," was the opposite reply -- given just as easily, just for Dorian. He neared it cautiously, then stepped through.

No sound.

"Now you, sir," the security guard said, and Dorian rushed through, reaching for Klaus...

And it went off again.

"It's probably change," Klaus decided softly. "Can't we go?"

"Just a minute," a second guard said, standing with a small device to run over Dorian. "Let me check." Even if they *seemed* harmless... SEEMING innocuous and actually *being* innocuous were separate things.

"Don't touch him," Klaus warned flatly, starting to frown again. "We're just trying to head home."

"I'm just going to run the wand over and check what's beeping," the second man told him quietly, ignoring the people who were now gathering around to watch.

"Okay," Klaus said, as if he had supreme control over the man with the wand and was deciding if he could go on. "Just do it."

The moment he got near them, Dorian began screaming.

It was awful, a terrible, terrified *keening* sound that was almost earsplitting, and Dorian's hands on Klaus were frantic, his arms wrapping tightly about him to hide himself from the thing. Oh, he wanted to die, he wanted to do anything to get away from it, from being lost and that *THING*!

"Shhh, shhh, Dorian..." Klaus *tried*, desperately, to soothe -- God, it was just a rectangle of plastic and metal, why ever Dorian was panicking, he didn't know. "Dorian, Dorian, calm down..."

It was so *hard* to calm down, though, when the man was so close, so *CLOSE*, and they wanted to take him away from Klaus, he was sure of it! A momentary delve of the man's hand into his coat pocket made him shriek loudly, but it brought up the little can of juice he'd been given on the plane.

"There, there, now, young fellah," the security guard said, "all's right and tight. You can have your juice back.'

All that for *juice*! Klaus wanted to hit something, but settled for glaring. "You've got him upset," Klaus murmured unhappily as he started to back away some, pulling Dorian with him.

"Come along, then," the first guard said uneasily. "We'll just go right on to the office, then..."

Klaus now fell silent as they walked, a brooding unhappy silence as he pulled Dorian gently along, trying to soothe him better. It just wasn't right that they'd been put to such trouble for just being lost!

It helped greatly to be close to Klaus, the fear that they might take the dark-haired German away from him driving him to tears, still, as he clung tightly. He'd forgotten his little canned juice, and his lower lip trembled wildly, but oh, how grateful he was to be in Klaus's arms!

"We're just going to go see Father and Dominic again, Dorian -- you can calm down," Klaus uttered at last, gently pressing words of encouragement.

But what if they *never* saw Father and Dominic again? What if the strange man who was supposed to be helping them had taken Father and Dominic away and didn't ever bring them back!? What if someone took Klaus away, too, and left him all alone!! He'd just die, he'd die without Klaus, it was too awful a thought, and it was all he could do to try and pull himself together, to pretend that he wasn't *afraid* when he really truly was scared, even as Klaus rubbed his shoulder gently, murmuring wordless senseless noises at him to calm him down. "Shhh. Wir... we're almost home again. Just relax."

/I can't!/ Dorian thought miserably as they were led into a small, grey office, tears falling loose as he sniffed and held tightly to Klaus. /I can't. Oh, I wish I could be brave like you.../

Klaus sat down after he pushed two chairs together with his knee, so that he could still keep Dorian close. "Can you get them now?"

Ignoring that second chair, Dorian promptly climbed into his lap, legs dangling over the arm of the thing, body wrapped around Klaus as the guard stared, open-mouthed. "Ahm... yeah, yeah," he said, and quickly lifted the phone to dial, speaking to someone quickly about making an announcement and where to find them.

Klaus didn't seem too bothered by it -- in fact, he looked to the guard almost content, wrapping his arms around the lean-bodied blond that had crawled up into his lap. "Are they coming?"

"I'm sure they will be shortly," the man replied, eyeing them just a bit oddly as Dorian nuzzled his face into Klaus's neck and finally, *finally*, calmed and became quiet.

"Staring is damn rude," Klaus growled at the guard. "Why are you doing it?"

The man was a fairly quick thinker; that had to be said for him. "'s a boring office, innit? Not much to look at, is there?"

"I guess not," Klaus shrugged blandly, glancing around a little boredly himself before his eyes settled at the man's hip. "You don't carry a gun?"

"'fraid not," the guard replied. "You like guns?"

"Ja. I... used to be in the army," Klaus murmured, leaning back a little in the chair to relieve the dig of Dorian's hip-bone against his own. "I like them a lot." /And Dorian doesn't, so it's just as well that you don't have any./

"And your friend?" the man asked, indicating Dorian as he nuzzled close to Klaus, shifting so that they could both be more comfortable.

"No, he doesn't," Klaus murmured, letting his head tilt a little to rest his cheek atop thick curls of golden hair. "He scares easily. Which is all right."

"Sounds complicated," the man said agreeably even as the door to the office opened.

"Klaus!" It was his father, looking ancient and worried. "You shouldn't wander off so!" /And I should have kept a better eye on you!/ Lord, it had been almost enough to give him heart failure!

"I thought I told you we were going," Klaus murmured, not yet getting up from his chair -- Dorian was comfortable to hold now that they'd found positions, and he was mostly reluctant to move. "Sorry."

"It's all right," the older man sighed, momentarily seating himself. Oh, how his heart raced! "It's all right. Thank you for finding them, sir."

"They ran into a bit 'f trouble," the security guard told Heinz, giving him a slightly questioning look -- but the story of *what* was going on was something he just knew he'd never know, so there was no point in asking. "Try to keep them closer."

"Thank you," Heinz sighed again, accent heavy.

"You are both safe?" Dominic asked, lightly stroking Dorian's hair, an action that gained him a brilliant smile from that tear-stained face.

Klaus nodded, then started to carefully stand -- righting Dorian first, but by no means did he let Dorian loose from his arms at all. "We're okay. I knew you wouldn't leave without us..."

Akio, lingering in the door frame, was simply thinking if there were any sorts of tracking devices that could be used on them.

"Why on earth did you leave?" Heinz questioned, gently prodding them to stand a bit more. Dorian obeyed, crawling out of Klaus's lap, but not letting go of him.

"Dorian had to... go," he was told, Klaus patting Dorian's shoulder gently to start them moving towards the door frame. It was *cramped* in that little office, now, and he didn't like it.

"I'll keep better watch next time," Dominic fretted as they headed outside.

"No, no," Heinz sighed. "It was my fault. We.. oh, dear, I do believe we forgot about that *Bonham* person."

Klaus was the one, tired and still a bit unhappy, who started off down the short hallway again, Dorian at his side and the others expected to follow. "Is he picking us up?"

"Ah, yes, yes," his father informed him. "All of us."

"And we'll be home soon?" Klaus pressed -- he knew it wasn't home for *him*, except for a few times, but it was Dorian's real home, where he hadn't been in too long. "Yes?"

"Very shortly," Heinz agreed.

"I've heard that Lord Gloria has some exquisite art pieces in his home," Akio offered conversationally as they made their way back along towards baggage claim.

"He does," Klaus agreed. "Very pretty, all of them." /Stole them all, too, but that's what he was good at./

"I should like to see that," Akio replied. "I'm sure he will, too."

Dorian didn't notice that they were talking about him, though. Instead, his eyes had fastened quite firmly on a little man with bowl cut hair and mustache, and as they got closer, he raised his arm and waved wildly.

"M'lord! Lord Gloria!!!!" Bonham, Klaus recognized surprisingly quickly. "M'lord, there you are!"

Indeed, there he was, and so pleased with himself to find the little man! He flung his arms about him, parted only momentarily from Klaus, and squeezed happily. It was the not-crying man who came with the little crying thing! Oh, how proud he was of himself!

"Oh, m'lord, it's good to see you!" Bohnam said worriedly as he hugged Dorian back, just a little, before the taller man pulled back and Klaus snagged his hand. "I'd almost worried that you'd all gotten lost or just decided to not come!"

"Only a little lost," Dominic told him. "I'm afraid we made a side-trip to the gentlemen's room..."

At that Dorian nodded. They had indeed, but they had been found again! Wasn't life grand?

"Do we have the bags?" Klaus asked after a moment's though, squeezing Dorian's hand gently.

"I'll go fetch them," Dominic promised, and promptly headed off in the direction of baggage claim.

"I'll help him," Akio volunteered. Such an old man didn't need to be lugging about bags for all of them!

"Why don't you get in the car, Father?" Klaus asked, looking to Bonham to make sure that was okay -- after all, his father was looking *very* tired.

"I believe I will," Heinz faltered. His pallor was undeniable; he was becoming too old to travel, truly, no matter how strong he often still appeared.

Klaus was aware of it, and that fact worried him -- soon, in all likelihood, his father would be gone, and then Dominic...

And then what would they do? Fend for themselves, he supposed, but it would really just be him fending for the both of them. Klaus smiled for a moment at Bonham, then opened the door for his father, passenger side in the front where there was more room.

"Thank you, Klaus," Heinz sighed, settling into the car with some obvious relief. Dorian's face was worried as he reached out, patted at Heinz carefully.

/Father looks bad.../ And oh, he did, pale and tired. Dorian hoped he would feel better soon...

Klaus didn't close the door yet -- just stood there, with it open so air could pass past Heinz. "Okay?"

"Just fine," Heinz lied, smiling at him tiredly. "I'll be fine, Klaus."

Klaus nodded, once, though he didn't seem very believing. "Stay here, Dorian? I'm going to go help Akio and Dominic."

That seemed to make Dorian quite unhappy, but he sighed, nodding and seating himself on the edge of the door, back pressed to Heinz's feet. He wasn't going to let Father out of his sight, especially if he had to let Klaus out of it!

"I'll stay 'ere with 'em," Bonham offered, nodding to Klaus.

"Thank you." Politely enough given, and then Klaus set off -- to find Dominic and Akio.

"The two of you shouldn't run off like that -- I was very worried about the both of you," Heinz murmured softly.

Pulling out his pen and paper, Dorian jotted down an answer, expression pitiful. 'I had to go...'

Heinz's cheeks flushed just a little -- ohh, that was a horrible reason, really, but... but he couldn't argue it at all. "Next time, make sure we know."

Dorian smiled, then, and laid his head down upon Heinz's knee, closing his eyes to wait quiescently for Klaus to come back.

It wasn't so long a wait; after all, four grown men had gone to fetch their luggage, and there hadn't been so much of it. Nearly ten minutes later, they were back again, Bonham and Akio pausing to load the trunk as Klaus moved towards the front door and Dominic slid tiredly into the back seat.

"Dorian...?" Klaus asked, unable to not smile as he looked down at his peaceful lover. "Dorian, come on -- we're going to sit in the back."

With a pat to Father's leg, Dorian sat up, rubbing his eyes as he stood and moved to stand next to Klaus, head automatically dropping to the dark-haired man's shoulder. Oh, he was so glad that Klaus was back!! Klaus slid an arm around Dorian's waist, tugging him to sit in the back with he and Dominic...

"Uhm, shall I just crawl into the trunk?" Akio asked, looking at the seating -- for five people at the most.

"'M afraid you'll hafta squeeze in the front, sir," Bonham replied, looking sheepish. The seats were not *quite* bucket seats, but it would be a most uncomfortable ride for him, indeed!

"Dorian can sit on my lap," Klaus offered -- after all, that was where his companion would end up anyway. In a little swarm, Dorian placed himself there happily, laying his head on Klaus's shoulder and smiling sweetly at Akio and Bonham. It gave the little mustached man the shivers, it did, seeing Eroica like that, but... Dominic slid over as the back door opened and Akio slid into the car. "Thank you, Dorian," he said, nodding to Klaus.

Klaus just hugged Dorian close, nodding. "It's not a very long drive, 'n this is comfortable," Akio was informed.

/Love my Klaus,/ Dorian thought happily, nuzzling close. /Love, love, love my Klaus.../

The castle at the North Downs was strangely clear in Klaus's memory, even though this time he saw it over the top of Dorian's head, with the earl and owner of that castle burrowed close against him. It was comfortable, enjoyable, but... but struck him as wrong at times. Not bad wrong, but... as if things should have been different. He should have been driving, and it should have just been he and Dorian, and they wouldn't have gotten lost and scared at the airport before, either.

Too many changes had happened, he supposed. "Dorian, look out the window -- it's your castle."

The blond man shifted, glancing out, and it seemed almost as if lightning had struck him. He stiffened, and his hands went to the glass as he paled slightly, blue eyes becoming enormous as he looked at it -- looked at it as if his sight could not be torn *away* from it, fascinated, needy, and ultimately, *strangely*, *aware* of it. 'Mine...' he mouthed. 'Mine!!'

Klaus watched the transformation overtake the man settled comfortably on his lap, and smiled uncontrollably. "Yes, that's yours Dorian -- isn't it beautiful? We used to... we used to come here often and stay."

/It's mine... It's mine, and Klaus and I would be safe here, too.../ It felt almost as if another part of the world, of *himself*, had opened up then, and it nearly overwhelmed him!

"You bought it once you were... good enough at what you did. You hosted a lot of parties and things here, and... We'll stay here as long as you like." that last was sighed, hopeful, as he kissed Dorian's hair lightly.

Ohh, to *STAY*!!! Dorian was so excited!

"Well," Akio murmured, "it appears that this trip might well be very good for our Earl of Gloria!"

"It's home -- this was our second home, before..." Before it had happened that second time and hurt them both so badly.

At that, Dorian scrambled for pad and paper, and Dominic gave it to him, though not quickly enough to suit. He frantically got the cap off, dropping it in the car, and began to write. 'It's mine! It's mine, and we have been here, and I love it here! The little crying thing, *JAMES*, James is here, isn't he? And I love it here!!'

"Yes," Klaus agreed, scanning quickly over the paper before giving his companion a light hug. Relief sank into his voice as he nuzzled a little against the earl. "Yes -- you've got all your paintings here, and your sculptures, and... and I'm glad you're glad to be here again. I was scared you wouldn't recognize it."

Oh, he *did* recognize it, he did, and he *yearned* for it, wanted to be out of the car *NOW* and near it, in it, *touching* it... And as they drove past a mansion, he gasped again, pointing at it. /I know there! I know there! We were there once, together, and you had a nap! I KNOW THERE!!/ he thought, tugging at Klaus desperately.

"What -- what's there?" Klaus asked, following Dorian's line of sight.

/We were there!! WE were there!!/ Oh, he wanted to scream it, and his frustration was visible!

The pen was handed back again, with the paper, and Klaus murmured quietly, "Write it."

'We were THERE!' Dorian scrawled. 'We were there, we were there, and you *slept*!!'

"Slept... on the hill?" Klaus asked, nodding to himself. "I napped -- you watched me!"

'Yes, yes, YES!' Dorian nodded, wanting to get out and go there!!

"Can you remember things, Dorian?" Akio asked softly.

Oh, yes, yes, he *could*, and he nodded, pointing desperately at the hillside that was gone now, and then to the castle, as well. He remembered, and he remembered...

He remembered Klaus and *the bad thing*, except...

Except it wasn't so bad-seeming. Just like being held in Klaus's arms, sitting on his lap -- comfortable, right. "See?" Klaus asked Akio. "See, this was a good idea..."

Ohh, it was a very good idea, and the psychiatrist was delighted to see Dorian seeming *aware*, a little different than he had before they'd come. "Yes," he agreed solemnly, "yes, I do believe it was!"

"Wait until you see inside the house, Dorian," Klaus murmured. "And our room..."

They had a room! They did, they had a *lovely* room with a great big bed and soft velvets and silks filled with pretty, no, *beautiful*, exquisite things! He was so *excited*!!

Well, to see Dorian so pointedly happy... Klaus would gratefully stay in England forever, if he had to!

The car eventually rolled to a halt at the front of the drive, just before the great double doors. Dorian nearly dived out the door, leaving only a wake of tangled gold hair behind as he stood tall beside the vehicle, looking up and up and up before he *squealed* with glee, a strange sound, indeed, and turned to pull Klaus out as well.

"I believe this was the right thing to do," Heinz sighed tiredly. He'd fallen asleep on the drive and was only just now waking slowly.

"Perhaps you should rest after the flight, sir," Dominic suggested quietly while half-watching Klaus being dragged up to those double doors.

"There's room for everyone," Bonham announced as the front door opened and a veritable *flood* of pretty men came running out gleefully to see Dorian, who promptly shrieked and turned to clutch at Klaus.

Klaus's eyes went *wide*, and he hugged Dorian to him protectively, taking a careful back-step. Who were they, who were... Dorian's thieves!! That was a relieving thought, to realize who and what they were as they all gathered 'round, not touching, but welcoming all the same, even as Dorian hid his face almost shyly against Klaus's shoulder, shivering. For a moment, it seemed that he would draw into himself, but then he turned, cast about one of those gorgeous smiles of his, and they all applauded, crying out to see them there.

"We're home," Klaus murmured quietly, still hugging Dorian so carefully against him. "We're back home."

Home. Oh, it *was* home, indeed!

That night, Klaus was already waiting in the wide rose-carved bed that took up a vast amount of the large room that belonged to them while Dorian finished brushing his teeth. He had wanted to do that alone, because he could, and he had smiled so sweetly, so *confidently*, that Klaus hadn't been able to deny him. Instead, his monocular gaze ran over the room -- walls full of pre-Raphaelites, vases overflowing with red roses on every well-polished mahogany surface -- and he waited.

He didn't have long to wait, for Dorian very shortly padded barefoot from the attached bathroom, looking as beautiful as ever he had. White silk pajamas that had been found in a drawer clung to him, and all of that lovely hair hung about his shoulders and down to his waist, making him an exquisite temptation.

Like being Adam in the garden of Eden. Tempted, but unable to actually touch, and that hurt every time he got so close to breaking his own vow to not hurt Dorian so. It was enough that he could sleep in the same bed with him, wasn't it? Wasn't that all he needed, really, in that way...?

"It's been a good day, hasn't it?" he asked warmly, pulling the sheets back for Dorian. The blond man kicked a stool out from under the bed and stepped up, crawling into the bed and moving beneath the covers as indicated, slipping into Klaus's arms. So warm and so close... he answered for Dorian, just out of the habit of liking to hear an answer. "Mmm, it has. Sleep... sleep well, Dorian."

Sleep wasn't really what Dorian was after, though; no, not really, for he leaned up and pressed his mouth most tentatively to Klaus's.

Kisses? Well, he could do that for *hours*, Klaus knew, and gladly. The tentative press was returned with a firmer one, yet with no threat of tongues tangling or too much pressure. It seemed, though, that *Dorian* wanted more, for he pressed the length of himself slowly, tremblingly against Klaus, wrapping himself tightly about the German man despite everything.

Klaus had to break that gentle, insistent kissing, and question it, though. "Dorian -- are you... you okay with... this?"

Oh, he was, he was, he remembered such *beautiful* things, and this bed, and wanting Klaus to do the bad thing with him... and if he had *wanted* Klaus to do bad things with him, maybe they weren't so bad after all!

No answer; of course there was no answer! Klaus fixed Dorian still for a moment, with a gentle hand on his cheek, to look at his eyes to find that approval and any sureness of action. It was there, it glowed from them, and he knew in that moment that Dorian was, if not himself, at least learning to be something other than that frightened shadow he had been.

And all it had taken was coming *here*, where he knew he was safe, and loved! Where he had been safe and loved long before Klaus entered his life at all, where his boys and his home, and his thefts... Yes, the first refuge for him, just as the schloss had been Klaus's. "Tell me... oh, tell me if you want to stop, stop me if it bothers you, don't be afraid to... to do that, please... I love you, Dorian, you've worried me so much..."

Yes. Yes, he loved Klaus, he loved him, and so he pulled him gently close and kissed him again, kissed him with all of the adoration and tenderness that he felt for him, and allowed Klaus to feel that he wanted to *be* with him, to touch him, to be touched *by* him...

Feeling it through Dorian's motions and his need was almost better than the words Dorian had once whispered to him. Slow, needing kisses, and Klaus let his own need seep through, need from months of shoving everything down, and sickening guilt over it. He had never thought that Dorian would let him touch him again, but he *was*, the slim man's hands, so dexterous, reaching and lightly placing Klaus's palms upon his hips. He seemed to know just what he wanted, to know just how Klaus felt!

He was touching those narrow hips, touching them more than just in an absent cuddle -- letting his fingers splay slowly now, in awe that he *was* touching Dorian with such need again. "Love you," he sighed softly, rubbing his thumbs over the points of Dorian's hips. "Have for years and years now..."

Oh, and Dorian loved him back, loved him or he would never, ever do a thing like this! It felt so nice, the way that Klaus was touching him, kissing him, a vague remembrance, an almost-not-quite place where they belonged together. He sighed, opening to him nearly visibly, shivering... /My Klaus.../

"Sit," Klaus urged, pulling Dorian gently to sit over his hips -- they were both still clothed in their pajamas, so there was no harm in it...

No harm in it, indeed, for Dorian seemed to enjoy straddling him, pressing against him to kiss him, to wrap his arms tightly about him. The blond man almost broke his heart with the loveliness of him, the sweetness, and the vague fear that he would become upset -- worse than upset, hysterical! And if he became hysterical, well, Klaus would go back to having to sleep on the floor, it it would take months to get back to where they were, comfortable... If only he had Dorian's voice to assure him that what they were doing was really all right. If only... "Mmm, can we?"

Could they *what*, Dorian wondered, but he smiled at Klaus and nuzzled him tenderly and shook his head as if to ask him, his lips parting on the words. 'Can we what?'

Carefully, so very carefully, sure to keep one hand on Dorian's hip, Klaus let his other slip to gently rest of Dorian's groin. "This?"

It seemed a decision of monumental importance, and the golden-haired man's face reflected that. He paused, looking at Klaus, and the obvious *nervousness* he felt, even fear, was clearly written upon it. Still, he leaned down again and kissed Klaus, kissed him sweetly, and gave acquiescence with that motion.

Gentle, then -- he'd have to be so slow and gentle to not startle Dorian forever, Klaus knew. Just to have that sort of kiss... "Thank you," Klaus whispered, sliding his hand up gently to start working Dorian out of his pajama top.

Those blue eyes seemed infinitely worried, but Dorian allowed him to do it, watching him quietly and carefully all the while. The occasional pause for kisses made it all right, made it not so bad, and he sighed with each one. He loved Klaus, he did, and perhaps... just perhaps...

Two strong hands, one whole and the other not, stroked slowly over Dorian's bared back, side and carefully over his chest. Two hard nipples were almost touched but avoided for the moment, carefully noting that he missed them each time between kisses.

It was nice to be touched that way; nice to feel Klaus's hands on him, warm and feeling very good, the way that they had in the bath. Was this what Father had meant, then? When he had said that the bad thing was not bad when you loved someone? It must have been, it seemed, for he sighed into those kisses and *shifted*, feeling pleasantly uncomfortable, somehow.

The shift was a little backwards, and he ended moving ever so slightly against a hard protrusion from Klaus's groin. "Ohhh." Barely bit back, that pleased noise, and Klaus's hands faltered for a moment in their luxurious stroking.

"Hmmmmm?" That was almost a purr of curiosity, the most *sound* Klaus had gotten from him in a long time, and it seemed rusty, not at all the well modulated baritone from before. That didn't bother him, though; no, not nearly as much as Dorian shifting again, trying to peek behind him to see what that was! /Like in the shower?/

It had to be, because another shift made Klaus groan like he had *then*, a restrained but happy sound despite the temperance. "Ohh, Dorian, you're... wonderful." /Going to drive me madder than I already am!/

That brought one of those smiles from his lover, accompanied by more kisses. Oh, if Klaus was happy, then this was all right! This was not so bad. He could *do* this... After all, it was like the shower, but in bed! He could feel his lips getting chapped from so many warm, needing kisses, and then hands slowly slipped beneath the waistband of his pants, caressing over his bottom gently.

"Mm?" It was another sound, and he became very, *very* still, looking at Klaus with an expression caught between curiosity and uncertainty. Klaus was fondling his...?

"Is... is that all right?" Klaus murmured, still just stroking, almost massaging lightly with his gentle, patient touch.

It was strange, it made him nervous, and he wasn't really sure how he felt about it, but...

...if it made Klaus *happy*...

Then that was really all there was for it. The hands didn't stray any further than simply rubbing back there -- indeed, they slowly crept forwards, and soon he felt a warm, maimed grasp rest tentatively over his cock. THAT made him sigh, made him give a little strangled hum, and he *squirmed* again, rubbing slightly at that protruding hardness of Klaus's, his eyes closed. Oh, that felt so *nice*, being touched there, even better than touching Klaus there had felt!

"This is okay, too?" Klaus asked, slowly shifting his hand to grasp gently around it, pushing Dorian's pants down a little.

Dorian nodded, wishing that he could do something for Klaus. Oh, it was definitely okay! It felt so *nice*...

"Good. Move... move up," Klaus coaxed gently. "Up over me."

Up over Klaus...how? He shifted, though, moving slowly, and it drew a groan from the other man, his beautiful painting man, and so he did it *again*, rubbing a bit harder with his bottom as he did so.

"Ohh, feels... feels so good Dorian," Klaus praised, half-closing his eyes as he shifted his hips at last against Dorian. Two layers of cloth kept him from doing something that surely would have panicked Dorian... And that was all. Need was screaming at him to do it!

The kisses from those soft lips intensified and Dorian gave an outright *moan*, a strangled bit of sound, as Klaus's fingers tightened slightly. Oh, it felt *so* *WONDERFUL*!!!

"Just.... bit faster," Klaus pleaded softly, picking up the pace of his own stroking over Dorian's slick-feeling, smooth cock. Oh, just a bit more, and he'd be *there*, with Dorian if he did it right!

It felt so good, so good, so good, and he was so close that lovely place where it felt even better, rocking there against Klaus's hand and that hard bit, and he gave a strangled, wordless *sound* as it nearly took him over, almost, *ALMOST*....!

"Do... Dorian!" Tight shudders raced through Klaus, and he could suddenly feel that flowing, lost throb, pressing himself convulsively closer to Dorian as the hand on the earl's hip clutched him desperately closer, while his hand locked tight in place.

Limply, Dorian settled atop Klaus, confusion warring in his veins with something else, something unknown, something... /Nice,/ he decided, closing his eyes as his breath finally slowed. /Nice with Klaus.../

Later, whenever they woke up gain, they'd have to change... but for now Klaus just shifted Dorian tightly against himself, and snagged a handful of sheets to drag up over them both. "Love you -- thank you."

"Mmmm." It was nice, that rusty sound, something Dorian hadn't made or even *tried* to make in forever. It filled Klaus warmly, especially when Dorian smiled at him and snuggled tightly against him.

Yes. Coming to England had been the *right* thing to do.

England's weather wore on Heinz a little, and he was missing Germany. Yet... yet some of the stress that had been there for him had lifted, he had to note as he looked out from his seat on the porch. Akio had gone home, with a list of recommendations and contact points for various people. One of them came in every other day to teach Dorian more sign words. Klaus was learning as best he could with his maimed right hand taken into account, and used simple gestures to supplement words whenever possible. More, his son's concentration was on learning what Dorian was saying in sign, to make communication easier for the two of them.

Crying happened less often, and the 'little crying man' had certainly calmed, despite his single fit over the price of the private sign lessons. That had been the only complaint...

And what was a little creaking of old bones compared to watching Dorian and Klaus putter calmly in the garden? Klaus had *smiled* to him when he'd traipsed past the porch with a bag of potting soil and a trowel.

It was an excellent start, if nothing else, and something of a relief to him, as well. They would function. His son and Dorian, they would be able to survive, even if he died in that moment, watching Dorian laugh in the garden, that strange sound of delight cast his way as the two of them worked on planting a lovely red rosebush -- Taboo, just like the one from Schloss Eberbach's garden.

"They will be all right," Dominic said softly from behind him, laying a hand upon Heinz's shoulder as he, too, watched them, Dorian signing something to Klaus most quickly and Klaus rolling his hands with two fingers out back towards him, then bringing his right hand slowly up his left in a curve -- 'sign slowly'. "Everything will be all right."

"Perhaps we should have come here sooner," Heinz sighed, still unable to shrug off the lingering of guilt that never truly ever left a parent with charges that had been so thoroughly hurt. "Yet... you are right -- they will be all right. They get better and better, and when we are gone, there are Bonham and James."

The old butler sighed quietly, as well, "Yes."

In the garden, Dorian laughed again, flung his arms about Klaus's neck, and the sunshine glinted off of him, turning him gold.

Golden. He had been Klaus's golden idol for so many years now, and once more they were happy -- Dorian, happy, was a drug for Klaus, happy and learning, and eager. Still hurt, but peeking out of the rubble he'd hidden himself in so long, ready to join Klaus in the light and world again to at least the half way point where Klaus himself was.

Golden, yes, and happy.