It was maddening to have to wade good-naturedly through all the sympathy he was offered at the office. It was unlike him, and yet, it was true, he couldn't just brush it off angrily like he wanted to. At least the agents assigned to him had sent G as their spokesman and gotten it all over with at once instead of individually. Kind of them to do that. And it always amused him that they thought he got less angry at G.

He wished they could have all just sent flowers and pretended it didn't happen, like some people. That gift had been quite considerate, actually. It was a shame that the thief was the only person that understood his tastes well enough to know he would like that better than anything else. God knew he'd had enough time to figure him out though, the man had been following him around relentlessly for twelve years. If anyone ought to know, it should be him.

And after the stroll down memory lane and self-reflection from the night before, it was unfortunate that his thoughts were moving more and more to how the thief considered his feelings more than anyone else. Try as he might, the thought wouldn't go away. He wanted it to.

Other people wanted it to, as well, since he was taking it out on them without them being any the wiser.

Whatever.

*****

After about two months, miraculously, his path had not crossed with the nitwit. Well then. He needed to know something. Perhaps it was time to break his routine again.

*****

"Er. Earl." Bonham said, knocking on the door of the master bedroom early one morning. He banged a few more times, increasingly louder, until he heard a groan from the other side.

"Earl. Telephone. You, er... you'll want to be taking the call. It’s from Germany."

Bonham heard a thump and a series of footsteps as the Earl ran across to get the extension in the sitting room in the master suite. The man smiled inwardly as his suspicions were confirmed. There really was only one person who could get the Earl out of bed this early.

*****

"You are late." The major snapped as he saw the blond man stride up the sidewalk in front of their agreed-upon meeting place in downtown London. He frowned as he looked the man up and down. "I asked you to look inconspicuous."

"Well, darling, I wore the drabest thing in my wardrobe. Maybe being fashionably late helps it stand out more." The Earl of Gloria flashed the Major a glamorous smile as he straightened the jacket on his well-tailored, but lavender, suit. A look of puzzlement showed briefly on his face, which the Major allowed him since he had only really been about five minutes late.

"Waiting has made me hungry. I chose this spot for being in between my hotel room and the airport. This restaurant.”  The Major pointed across the street.  “Can you get us a seat? Or at least get me a bite to eat before I brief you?" The restaurant looked to be a very exclusive and very upscale establishment.

The Earl blinked, once again looking puzzled.

"You must really be starved, those are words I never thought would leave your mouth." A threatening glare from The Major cut off any more snide remarks that the Earl would have given.

"Well. I am a Peer of the Realm. I can get us a seat at any establishment in the city. Except we might have trouble tonight, darling. My attire is not in question, but you aren't looking your best, I'm afraid." The Earl took his turn looking the Major up and down. He had said he was flying into town for the day explicitly to speak to the Earl, fresh from a mission. He looked it. While his overcoat was spotless and impeccably cut, as always, the suit below it was travel-worn and clearly needed to be cleaned. The Major himself was sporting about three days' worth of beard and his hair was a horrible tangle that needed to be washed and brushed.

"I am aware of your rank, Eroica. I did not ask about that. I asked if you would be able to feed me at that restaurant. Your title does no good in this situation if we cannot sit down and eat."

"Poor dear, that must have been some mission! Well, let me have a talk with them for a minute, I'll see what I can do. Come with me, but stand at the curb while I have a little chat with the garcon." The Earl gestured for the Major to follow him across the street. True to his word, after a few minutes and a few distasteful stares from the garcon, returned by the Major with glowers, the Earl gestured for the man to follow him into the restaurant, bypassing the long line of people waiting outside for their reservations to come up. Though the Major usually didn't allow himself to care about such things, he had to admit he was impressed by the thief's high degree of social graces.

He wanted the thief dine with him, and he was quite relieved when he did.  The thief could be irritatingly picky about his food sometimes, he suspected it came from not exercising and a bad diet.  But who wouldn’t eat poorly if… well, that thing was the one who planned his meals?

Then he said just enough to needle the man to drink with him. It was a bit easier to talk if both of them had looser tongues. The Major had schooled himself otherwise over the years, but he allowed that he probably needed to be as drunk as possible if he was going to sit through a real meal with the thief. The Earl, for his part, seemed pretty loose after just two drinks. The Major wasn't particularly good at dinner conversation, especially with someone as infuriating as Eroica, so he let the thief do the talking, and thankfully he was on his best behavior. He hoped that he would be since, for as many times as they had wound up working together, he had not often consented to dining with the man.

He had to admit that the thief's conversation skills were top-notch. He only pursued subjects that he thought the Major might have an interest in, and the Major gave a few gruff replies to spur him in the right direction. The man had gone to Oxford, after all, so he wasn't completely brainless. Before he knew it, he found that they had finished the meal engrossed in a heated debate about military strategy during the Napoleonic Wars.

Leaving the restaurant, the Major led the slightly tipsy and loose-tongued, but still well-behaved, Earl to his hotel room. There, some paintings were waiting, and he needed the Earl to look at them. They were being shipped to a man suspected to be in touch with a group of terrorists, and NATO suspected that the paintings may have been retouched or partially covered over to hide some secret weapons plans or locations, so they had intercepted the paintings enroute. Eroica was the only expert they could ask at short notice that they could explain the situation to and trust to keep his mouth closed.

Well, that's what the Major had told him that morning, anyway.

*****

The Major retrieved the packages containing the paintings at the front desk and brought the thief up to his hotel room. He did a thorough room check before opening a bottle of brandy and pouring himself and the Earl a glass. The Earl took it and downed the glass silently while watching the Major unwrap the five paintings and set them up for him to inspect.

"Oh! What marvelous Reubens!" The Earl exclaimed. "I know you don’t care for them, but they really are beautiful."

"I am surprised they are to your taste. They look like fat naked women to me."

The Earl cut a glare in the Major's direction. "It is easy to predict what you think of them, but they are still marvelous paintings. His technique really is first-rate. The Caravaggio, however, is more to my liking. As you may have guessed."

"Yes, yes." The Major rolled his eyes as the Earl's attention fixed on a painting of a young man in a pose of supplication, a bare shoulder creeping out from his collar. He had been expecting that.

"And let's see... these last two are... Titan and van Eyck? Am I correct? I am not much of an appraiser, you know, it's strange that you asked me to do this. I don't recognize any of these paintings, either, they are rather marvelous."

The Major turned his attention back to refilling their brandy glasses. He had gone to a great deal of trouble to find an art collector who had uncatalogued paintings so that the thief wouldn't recognize any of the works and be able to catch him in the lie.

"As I said, you were the best we could do on short notice. The names you mentioned match the list that NATO gave me. Will you be able to tell if they've been tampered with recently?" asked the Major, handing the thief a full glass of brandy.

"I am no rank amateur. I will be able to tell if they've had modern technique layered on top, yes, just give me a little bit to study each one. It would be a true tragedy if any of these had been spoiled in that way."

There was silence for several minutes as the Earl studied the first painting. The Major wanted him to keep talking, but he didn't really want to listen to the diatribe about art.

Well, he would give it a try.

"So, what are you looking for, then?" he asked gruffly.

The Earl laughed lightly, clearly two sheets to the wind. "Well, darling, how unlike you to take an interest!"

The Major rolled his eyes again. "You do not have to explain if it will require you to gloat as well."

"No, no, forgive me. Well, let's look at Titan. He was quite good with his color, as you can tell, and certain pigments were natural back then and the fading is difficult to duplicate in modern times..."

The Major did find it difficult to listen, but was also impressed with the amount of detail and the professionalism the Earl took with the job, especially since he found himself consuming the larger portion of the bottle of brandy. He got through all five paintings before collapsing in a chair.

"Major! If I didn't know better, I'd say that you were trying to get me drunk! If you wanted to lower my inhibitions, all you had to do was ask and we..."

"No!" The Major cut him off. "If you cannot accept common courtesy like a human being, I will remember not to give it in the future!" The flirting really was infuriating. And the thief had done so well tonight, too. Well, maybe he really wasn't to blame since he had plied him with so much alcohol.

"Sorry, sorry, darling, I was trying to be on my best behavior tonight. It looks like you haven't slept or eaten in days, I didn't want to wind you up any more than usual." The Earl put his face in his hands. "I do say, I am going to have to call my men soon and have them come back down from Castle Gloria to fetch me.  I'm really in no shape to get home otherwise tonight. I didn't realize I'd been having so much."

The corner of the Major's mouth twitched up. "Yes. I forgot you are... not good at drinking?"

"A lightweight, alas. I'm sorry again."

"Yes. Well. Give me time to wrap these paintings and we will hire a cab to take us to the airport and I will retrieve the car I rented there. I doubt very much your men are going to want to rouse themselves to come pick you up in your state at this hour."

The Earl’s eyelids were beginning to drop.  He forced them open as he pushed himself up in the chair.  “Hm?  I’m… sorry, Major, you know my ears always strain to hear anything you say, but… I’m having a little trouble understanding you right now.”  His speech had slowed some time ago, and the slurring was beginning to make him hard to understand.

The Major frowned, most of that last line lost on him.  The two always spoke in their native languages to one another, a habit that had started as soon as their eyes had met.  Seeing the flamboyant Earl in his house for the first time had angered him a great deal, so he hadn’t extended the courtesy of addressing his guest in English as he would have normally done.  Since the Major had been rude, he supposed the thief hadn’t been inclined to speak in German, either.  Both men were fluent, so it didn’t make much difference, and it had become a contest, in a way, to trip each other up over the years.

Normally when one or the other stumbled enough to admit they couldn’t understand, bragging was involved, along with a long-winded and embarrassing juvenile explanation.  The Major didn’t have the heart tonight, so he switched to English and repeated himself.

“English!  Good God, what have I done to deserve that?!  It’s… been so long since I’ve heard you… you know.”  The Earl’s head was dropping, and then he sat up again when the meaning of the words sank in.  "Heavens! Two in the morning! When… did it get to be that late? I had… had not been aware of the time all evening. Well… I… appreciate the lift, darling, though you know… I'm always willing to keep you company all night, if you like."

"Degenerate." The Major spat out half-heartedly as he set himself to re-wrapping the paintings. He took his time about it. The Earl dozed off at some point while sitting in the chair.

The major left him to shower, shave, and change. The part about being hungry and not sleeping for days had been true, and he had hated having to sit down for dinner as... well, ripe as he was. But after this mission was the best time to put his plan to the test.

Klaus grudgingly admitted to himself that the thief had passed the test tonight with flying colors. He had enjoyed himself, and it had been at least a little amusing to break his routine.

The Major emerged from the bathroom to find that the thief had not stirred. Well, this was more problematic. He lit a cigarette and set about his task. He shook the thief to try and rouse him, but there seemed to be no chance of that. He was out for the evening, and the Major really would feel badly about calling Bonham to the hotel at this hour.  It did him little good to anger Bonham, since he enjoyed bossing the man around on missions when the opportunity arose.  He had no idea how Eroica kept such a man in his employ, when NATO had problems finding competent spies among all the best and brightest various government agencies had to offer.

The Major, severely irked both at the thief for getting so drunk and at himself for allowing it, thought about slugging him or dousing him with cold water in order to get him up and out. He did have to catch an early flight tomorrow, and the hour was much later than he planned.

Instead, he sighed and began removing the Earl's shoes. He prayed silently as he removed the suit and the sparse jewelry the man was wearing that the Earl would not wake, because there really was no way out of the situation. He stripped the Earl down to his boxers and undershirt, then set him on one half of the large double bed.

At somewhat of a loss since he had not packed sleeping clothes for this mission, he stripped down to boxers himself and said another prayer that the thief would not wake up tonight.

He examined the situation. He didn't feel embarrassed or shy, just a little annoyed and not much else. Well, he could live with that. Anything else and the thief would have been deposited unceremoniously back in the chair.

Even so. He took a large pillow and set it between them on the bed.

"Stay on your side of the bed! Do not cross this line!" He barked halfheartedly. He looked at the comatose thief, prayed he didn't toss at night like Lawrence, and then turned off the bedside lamp, sang himself a nursery rhyme, and was out like a light.

He woke promptly at 6:30 that morning to find that the thief had not stirred, nor had he crossed the line. The Major smiled to himself and went about his routine. The thief didn't wake during his exercises or his second shower, thank God. He set everything in the room in order, grabbed his case and the paintings, took a last look at the thief, and locked the door behind him, on his way to take the first flight to Bonn from Heathrow.

*****