[fic] Dream-weddings [From Eroica With Love][for kneazles]

written for a (filled multi-fandom) request made by: kneazles
Fandom: From Eroica With Love
Pairing/characters: Dorian, Klaus
Warnings/notes: ... A silly plot, and a severe lack of angst. Klaus is too Iron to get scared by nightmares, I bet.


Disclaimer: I don't own From Eroica With Love.
**********

Sometimes, Klaus gets married. He doesn't do it very often, and the women who become his wife hardly ever have anything in common; some are brunettes, others are blondes, some are tall and lanky, others are short and chubby.

Klaus usually goes about the whole thing like it's just another mission, which, in a way, it is. His family's expecting him to wed someone, after all, to produce an heir to the proud Eberbach-name, blah, blah, blah. If his other missions were anything like his weddings, Klaus is sure he'd have found another line of work, maybe some nice, exciting job behind a desk.

His bride's all in white, and veiled thickly enough for Klaus to get paranoid about the young woman he's been introduced to a few months earlier having been kidnapped by the KGB, and replaced with some assassin. If she seems to walk especially gracefully, Klaus will also find the idea that his bride-to-be's actually Dorian -Eroica- lurking about in the darker parts of his mind.

The wedding takes place in a cathedral, a church or, on one occasion Klaus keeps hoping not to remember, a prison. Among the guests are, of course, the Alphabet - B, H and Z will all have declared themselves to be in love with his future wife, although only Z will actually have exchanged more than a single word with her - and the relatives he couldn't not invite, if he'd have liked to, because he feels that his agreeing to this marriage in the first place should be more than enough to make them happy already. Sometimes, James will be there, chattering about how *expensive* weddings are.

Dorian is never there. Klaus hasn't invited him, of course - Klaus isn't an idiot. If James has come, it's uninvited, Klaus is sure, although he never bothers to unkindly request James to leave, since it's just too nice to see the expression on his least favorite aunt's face when James tells her the value of her jewelry, her dress or, in the get-married-or-turned-into-a-blonde-and-sold-as-a-slave scenario, her body.

From a safe distance, James isn't such a bad guy, Klaus supposes. He's certainly excellent to use as a decoy, or even a Trojan horse, to allow the enemy to capture and be driven insane by. Klaus knows several persons whom he thinks deserve to spend some quality alone-time with James, and Dorian's name being on the top of the list just goes to prove that there exists such a thing as divine justice.

The organ plays some solemn piece that sounds far too ominous to Klaus - or maybe it's just that he really, really wants it to be a secret sign for a bunch of terrorists to come and disrupt the ceremony. Things tend to proceed smoothly from there, in a bit of a blur, until the priest gets to the part where those who object to the wedding are asked to speak up now, or remain silent forevermore. (If Klaus were a priest, he'd have dropped that part ages ago, because, really, it's just *begging* for trouble.)

This is, of course, when Dorian makes his entrance. He might come swinging down from the rafter, or throwing the doors open with a bang that sounds (to Klaus) like a gunshot, or discarding a clever disguise that fooled even Klaus, but Dorian *always* shows up, declaring, yelling, or weeping that he can't possibly stand aside and allow the love of his life to be taken away from him.

For some reason, nobody ever assumes it's the bride Dorian's referring to. (This galls Klaus sufficiently to reduce his gratitude at being offered a way out of this marriage to a point well below 'non-existent'.)

Klaus would like to shoot Dorian at this point, but he's aware that he can't, not on sacred ground, and not when there are ladies (worse: aunts) present. Thus, he ends up with no choice but to let Dorian drag him out of there, away from the altar, the priest and his bride, and off to some place where he *will* be able to kill Dorian, which, Klaus assures himself, is his sole reason for not putting up more of a fight.

Usually, this is when Klaus wakes up, panics, and finds out he's hugging a pillow, instead of a thief.

x

"Very well then, I'll expect to see you on the twenty-fourth in Dresden." Klaus scowled as he spotted the magazine G hadn't quite managed to hide under a stack of files. "Be punctual."

"Aren't I always?" Dorian sounded extremely cheerful. Klaus almost suspected him of somehow (impossibly) having spotted the magazine as well. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me, darling, or can I go and tell James the good news now?"

"That's all," Klaus snapped, then, remembering that actually wasn't 'all', he added, in a casual a tone as he could force himself to use under the circumstances: "Oh, and I'm getting married next week."

He'd planned to put it at the end of the briefing, like some sort of after-thought, a fact he didn't feel Dorian particularly needed to know, but felt would be polite to mention. The idea of Dorian getting it into his head to send him a wedding-present had nearly made him change his mind at the last second, only ... Klaus had convinced himself that it was beneath him to base a decision solely on a -possibly, if not likely- irrational worry about something that Dorian *might* do.

The silence stretched for a full thirty-four seconds, before Dorian responded. "Congratulations, major. That's wonderful news." Well. That was certainly a far cry from the melodramatic explosion Klaus had half-feared and half-hoped for. Perhaps he'd underestimated Dorian, or perhaps the other man was simply in a reasonable mood today, and able to accept that when Iron Klaus said 'no' he meant it.

Klaus would reserve his final judgment until Dresden, but maybe it wasn't too optimistic to hope that in the future, Dorian would start to pay more attention to what NATO paid him for, and less to pestering Klaus with his ridiculous attempts at seduction.

"Thanks." The magazine, Klaus saw, contained a ten-page special on bridal fashion. Definitely a reason for concern, especially since G had made several notes on those pages.

"However, might I inquire why you didn't tell me a bit sooner? I mean, a week? That's hardly any time to prepare at all! I must say that you're being most inconsiderate, Klaus." Dorian was pouting; Klaus could hear it. Not, of course, that he cared.

"What would you need to make preparations for?" Klaus demanded, not altogether sure if he actually wanted to hear Dorian's answer.

"And, well, it's customary to *ask* first, you know. You may be doing things differently over there in Germany, but over here, in civilized England, we'd never arrange for a wedding like that!" Dorian chattered on. "Not, of course, that I was going to say 'no', but ... it's Tradition."

"I have no idea what you're going on about," Klaus stated, with an absolute certainty that he'd be much, much happier not knowing.

"Why, darling, I was referring to the fact that you haven't even properly proposed to me yet, of course," Dorian replied, with a soft laugh that made Klaus want to end this conversation right now, even if it might mean he'd receive an unwelcome surprise next week.

The line going dead right after Dorian's answer made it impossible for Klaus to do anything besides tossing the horn back on the cradle, and stalking off in search of G, though.

(From this dream, Klaus woke up in a hotel-room in Dresden, on the twenty-third of April, finding a bouquet of red roses on his nightstand, with a small card saying 'From Eroica, with love,' in the place where the keys to his car had been.)

~OWARI~