- Text Size +

 

The hall was locked down, a nurse at the desk and another patrolling past the rooms carefully.

The room the Major and Eroica were in was a large, comfortable one, with a wall of windows that had every other set of blinds drawn to keep the glare of the street lights to a minimum. The beds were several feet apart, perhaps six at most, and there was a chair against the wall near each one. Both chairs had been filled by one person or another all during visiting hours for days, but in the middle of the night they were empty, so there was no one to hear the whimpers that rang out into the half-dark of the room.

In his dreams, Dorian could feel them again -- touching him, hurting him, abusing him, and worst of all, he could feel Klaus's eyes on him. He had known, when the Stasi were hurting him, that Klaus could not look concerned. Intellectually, he had known that.

Emotionally, the wreckage of that look of non-caring was ripping him apart in his sleep.

Nightmares often encompassed the thing which one feared most, and there was only one thing that Dorian Red Gloria feared worse than what had happened to him at the hands of those men. He feared that Klaus, his Iron Major, truly did hate him, and hated him so badly that he didn't care at all what was being done to him. In the dream, Klaus's voice rang with laughter even as the Stasi laughed, even as they slashed his face and ripped him open with their cocks.

When he woke, it was with a violent cry that bled quickly into hysterical weeping, muffled against his arm at first for fear that someone would hear him.

"Wasss?" A heavy slur of speech, and he heard the hospital bed beside him bear a shift and then an aching groan. "Verdammt..."

In a moment that seemed sheerly surreal, Dorian opened his eyes to the realization that they were in a hospital room, seemingly safe. It didn't stop him from continuing to shudder with the weeping that was shaking him, for he couldn't seem to stop at all as he touched his bandaged face and wept all the harder for it.

"[Who...]" Pain was the first thing Klaus registered as he tried to shift again, sitting up only achingly, wondering why his arms were so sluggish to respond. There were many things wrong and odd, but none he could clearly catalogue yet... "[Who cries?]"

"I'm sorry," Dorian managed to whisper, and it became a litany, an endless unbroken string of hysterical words that wouldn't stop. "I'm sorry, I'm sorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry..."

"[What...]" He recognized the voice, though not... not the blurry figure on the bed that seemed to lack depth to it. "L-lord Gloria...?" His voice was thick and throat dry from too little water passing through his veins instead of his lips.

"I'm so SORRY!" Dorian sobbed, curling in on himself. He hurt, and he was more than a little hysterical, and nothing would ever, EVER make it right again, or so it seemed in that moment.

They were in a room, a clean room, and there were sheets keeping both of them warm... but he couldn't remember getting there, or even place where 'there' was. "Er... eroica. Lord Gloria, where... are we?"

The soft sound of that broken weeping went on, though, on and on, and there was no answer to the question Klaus had asked.

He finally struggled himself free of the bedding, standing up precariously on muscles that were cramped from disuse, and made his way to the chair beside Dorian's bed. "Lord Gloria, calm down..." They still had to get out, didn't they? Were they still held by the Stasi, or were they free? And what... was wrong with his vision?

The sound of Dorian rocking himself and crying was more audible than it was visible, and when he reached out his left hand and touched the thief, the man gave a sound that was filled with something desperately akin to loss and continued hysterics before any realization of who was touching him set in. The sound of Klaus's voice, real there in the dark, seemed to get through to him when accompanied by touch. "K..K..K...K..laa...us..."

"Ja." A quiet assurance as Klaus racked his mind for details. He left his hand on Dorian's shoulder, touch light, looking around the room for a moment more. Clean, white walls, sanitized smell. "We... are in Hospital."

"I'm so sorry," Dorian whimpered, touching his face again, feeling the bandages, wondering what he looked like, KNOWING Klaus looked worse. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I ran out of words, I'm so sorry!"

"Sorry?" That was repeated without understanding as Klaus processed the words before it. Dorian ran... ran out of words. Stopped singing and speaking at last, when the slice...

Klaus remembered now -- Dorian whimpering as their eyes met, the thief mouthing his name and then a seer of pain lancing through his face and skull. The injury itself... Klaus moved his left hand, the one more willing, to swipe across his own face, finding heavy bandaging over his right eye.

"I'm so sorry..."

The crying was back, now, soft and agonized and Dorian seemed to curl under his hands, almost fetal. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I know you hate me, I'm so sorry!!!"

It wasn't quite registering yet, and perhaps they were both lucky in that. None of it was registering yet for Klaus and wouldn't until the light of day pierced through the strange haze of pain-killers. "'n't hate. Can't."

"I'd die if you hated me," the thief whispered, the sound of it almost singsong. "I'd die..." /I'd die, I'd die, I'd dieI'ddieI'ddie.../

"We're safe now," Klaus said, not quite noticing the thief's tone. "We... got out." And he couldn't remember how yet, which pointed towards someone else getting them out. "'re you okay?"

The soft sound Dorian gave him wasn't indicative of anything one way or the other, and it seemed almost as if he couldn't answer, rather than wouldn't.

Klaus moved his left hand again to rest on Dorian's shoulder. "We 'n't talk."

After several moments of those soft sounds and the rocking, things seemed to get better. The thief uncoiled slightly, one of his hands reaching desperately for Klaus's even as he fought to keep his eyes from shutting again, from sending him back into the terrible nightmare world only so recently escaped. "Don't go away," he whispered, a desperate plea despite its faint sound.

"I w'n't." Why would he? The chair was comfortable enough, and there was a bar right against his side that he could lean against... And did lean against it, even as Dorian grasped onto his left hand. There was discomfort on putting pressure against the direct side of his body, so a little shift moved the constraint of the rail supporting his back behind his shoulder. "'m going to sleep for... w'ke me up in thirty..."

Come morning, that was precisely how Z and A found them.

You must login (register) to review.