So silent.

There had been times in the past that Eroica had spied on Klaus; but this time, lurking on the shadows, and behind curtains of the darkened room he couldn't see his beloved major. Not without risk of being caught and who knew what would happen were he caught spying on Klaus from inside of Schloss Eberbach. He was certain that, if found and he could escape alive it would be with at least a broken arm.

Dorian couldn't help but wonder what the Major was doing, though. That painful stopping and starting, notes coming slowly only to be played and replayed in difference sequences... He could smell smoke, the drifting tendrils of Klaus's cigarettes reaching towards him; it struck him with the idea that he'd have to break into the man's office to leave a carton of them on his desk. Better than roses, and perhaps more likely to not meet with the bottom of a waste-bin?

Klaus started over from the beginning of it again, and that gave Dorian a chance to peek out from behind the curtain that he was enswathed within. It wasn't what he'd expected, and yet it was. The tortured feel the music had to it didn't suit Klaus's posture -- Dorian expected the man to be hunched over the keys. Yet, it being the Major, Klaus was seated perfectly at the grand piano in the music room, position perfect, the way his fingers struck each key, just perfect...

A tightly trained bit of talent hidden within callused fingers -- not exceptional, no, but it was certainly a side of Klaus that Dorian decided he could do to see more often. Perhaps music served as a catharsis for the Major's tightly checked emotions...?

The man looked so beautiful, and didn't know it. He'd never know it, despite Dorian telling him so on mission after mission. There was beauty in the steel of his spine, and Dorian wanted to move from behind the curtains and touch that beauty with his warmth.

Another stop in the music, while Klaus snubbed out his cigarette into the little pile of them that was building in the ashtray atop the piano. It was a longer pause than the previous ones, as Klaus used a match to light his cigarette, and dropped the stick's remains in the ashtray with the rest of the refuse.

It was then that Dorian realized that there was no power in the room. The dim lighting in the room came from two of the four oil lamps in the room, that Klaus must have lit when he came in. There was almost a lingering sense of... sanctity to the room, showing little use but a reverence of care -- not a speck of dust atop any of the various antiques that crowded the mantel atop the bricked in fireplace.

Dorian had been there to sneak and look at things again, but hadn't expected to end up trapped in the room while Klaus played piano. He hadn't expected to see any sign of Klaus, truthfully. From outside the house was dark and still, as if sleeping the serene, shallow sleep of the very old. What minimal staff Klaus kept had likely been given the day off. Eroica's extended family had, and were even now carousing half a continent away. Dorian should have been with them, bedecked in ribbons and bright bows, drinking eggnog and breaking crackers. And avoiding James with his sprig of Mistletoe.

Klaus should have been asleep. Though he hated to admit both the knowledge and its less than honorable source, Dorian knew the Major's schedule quite well. He'd thought it safe, this far past the German's regular bedtime. But this night, quite unknowingly, Klaus was setting a precedent of surprising his sometime accomplice.

The Major sat there for a little while longer, smoking intently, before he started to play again. From the beginning once more. The chords were becoming deeper, with more notes worked slowly in. Whatever was driving the major to not only be up so late, but to be either remembering or writing a piece of music? He'd never share such a thing, even if it was composition.

"Verdammit."

And then he stopped again, three minutes into the piece, slamming shut the cover.

Such unexpected treatment of the obviously antique and marvelous instrument... Probably a family heirloom, the piano had murmured its mournful music under Klaus's firm but reverent hands -- hands that now delivered abuse, which by sound alone Dorian recognized internalized frustration. Knowing the sound did not protect him from starting a little when it assaulted his ears, echoing hollowly in the room's cavernous grace. He hadn't disturbed the curtains any, had he?

"Gott Verdammit!!" A second, much sharper roar that would have woken up any of the staff had they been inside the castle. But instead, it only prompted the ripping aside of curtains by a man eager to look into something larger and overwhelming -- the dark of a clear night sky...

...to be met instead by, while his left hand was still fisted in curtains, the brightness of golden hair and the dark of a black cat suit.

And eyes, widened in honest terror. Sapphire stroked to dusky brilliance by the flickering light of oil lamps. Dorian knew his eyes were babbling, a wealth of emotion and hopeless explanation he was normally composed enough to hold in check.

"Tell me what the fuck you're doing here, before I push you out this window," Klaus snapped off, fitting his cigarette between his lips. Dangling there from the edge of his firm mouth with an air of seductiveness of which Klaus would never be aware. The motion freed his right hand to fist it in the front of Dorian's shirt, waiting.

Though he knew it was far from adequate this time, Dorian gathered his flimsy shield of glibness, saying, "Why should I tell you? You're going to push me regardless." A mental review of the grounds surrounding the house told Dorian that the ground beneath this particular window held bushes, hopefully soft and thornless. Klaus *would* push him if he thought the thief would escape the fall without serious harm.

"Perhaps I won't."

Then Dorian found himself spun, and tossed regardless, up against a wall on the side of the room. "I will cuff you, call the police, and put an end to this once and for all."

Freed from the distracting strangle-hold on his shirt, and the threat of defenestration, Dorian could finally school his expression back to its normal cheer. But even Klaus recognized this time that his smile was forced, such a pitiful thing that his brilliant eyes were above noting its existence. "Not the police, Major. If we're foolish enough to be alone on this night, that is one matter. I do not wish others to be roused from their festivities and families on my account." Not egotistical for once, Dorian was quietly serious.

Klaus didn't bother to draw the curtains again as he remained where he was, looking at Dorian from the safeness that was the distance between them. "Why are you here? You should be out with your thieves."

"And where do you belong tonight, Major? Haunting the halls of your castle like an unsettled spirit?"

"It's none of your business!!" the Major snapped and now he was surely The Major -- no more Klaus who'd been playing the piano. An antique, still beautiful instrument whose wood gleamed in the oil lamp from signs of a recent polishing.

"Perhaps it is as little yours why I am not with my 'thieves'," came the blond's infuriating reply. Unintended, and he winced even as it left his lips. A quick, stumbled through, yet genuine apology was offered as Dorian's eyes fell again with obvious intent on the piano. "You play very nicely. As nicely as you sing. I am surprised, Major."

He wasn't going to get an immediate answer to it, though he pressed, and managed to sooth Klaus...

"Why are you *here*? And don't give me your faggish bullshit."

"I wouldn't, Major. Not here, not this night... You always think the worst of me." Dorian's eyes flicked from the piano to Klaus to the floor at his own feet, the admiration that had been in them shuttered in response to the man's anger. "I..."

"Answer. Now." Always, always orders... even on this night. It was as if Klaus didn't even know what night it was.

The hand-off was not what he'd expected. If the gift had been left in some discrete spot to be discovered later, at least Dorian would have his imagined version of the scene. Klaus, in private able to let go his stiff pride and be genuinely touched by the gesture, reverently fingering the gold-shot Florentine paper with the same grace his fingers had caressed the piano's ivory keys.

Instead, Klaus glared at the wrapping, and then Dorian, before walking back to the piano to set down the gift. He flicked a knife out of one deep pocket with frightening speed, and pressed a button to release the blade -- which he used to carefully cut the tape on the bottom side. "I don't know what you're trying to accomplish." Always assigning him an ulterior motive!

The blond held his spot against the wall. "Nothing, save satisfying a whim. I... discovered that some while ago, and had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to give it to you."

"Is it stolen?" Klaus asked bluntly, peeling back the wrapping paper not with reverent hands, but the hands of someone handling evidence -- as little contact as possible, as he turned the still mostly wrapped object over and then removed the wrapping paper entirely.

It was a book.

A very, very old book, held together more by a leather string tied around its girth than by crumbling binding, its leather-covered boards cracked and brittle, and darkened by frequent handling when new.

Dorian watched the surgical unwrapping with cold eyes, barely holding inside the desire to yell at Klaus for ruining this... moment. Effort. Whatever it was that had made Dorian embark on such a futile and disheartening task as delivering a Christmas present to the least appreciative man in the world. "It's not-" He tried again, his voice behaving better after a few calming breaths. "It's not stolen."

Silence again.

The silence, Klaus's strange quiet, was almost like the calm before a storm. And what could Dorian do but batten himself against the coming fury?

A fury that, equally surprising as the quiet, didn't come.

"I don't celebrate Christmas. There is no need for gifts."

/Need?/ "You certainly know how to kick a man when down, Major," Dorian murmured, a low slither of sound that eluded Klaus's ears. "I would not have done this out of obligation." But Klaus had no use for explanations, and a counter for them all, and a wave of despair crested around the blond. "I should not have done it at all. I wish to leave now."

"Then do so, before I call the police." Klaus moved back to the piano and sat down on the bench, lifting the key cover again. "Merry Christmas."

He hadn't even so much as opened the book, and as soon as Dorian left it would likely end up in the waste can, an afterthought of emptying the ashtray. Well, Dorian was not going to let that happen! Instead of moving softly to the door, he walked to the piano, closing the lid on Klaus's fingers. That ought to get the man's attention... "First, I want my gift back."

"You fucking--!!!!" Klaus drew both hands back in only after the heavy cover had fallen and he'd hit all the keys under his fingers. "God damn you, can't you leave a man alone one night out of the year?!" Roared words as Klaus shot to his feet again, hands clenched into fists that were more to protect his stinging knuckles than to hit with.

That knowledge didn't bolster Dorian any, who had already drained his own courage to the dregs just to stand within striking distance of Klaus. "On this night especially, no one should be left alone. But I'll do as you ask, if you return the book."

"What is it?"

"If you'd cared enough to open it, you might know."

"I don't want to destroy it by opening it." Yet, with Dorian's goading, Klaus bothered to open it -- unwrapped the string carefully, and then the blank cover-board, oh so very slowly and carefully.

A lie, likely, that excuse. Klaus wasn't above them if he thought it possible they might ease along the time he had to spend in Eroica's presence. "You aren't worried about ruining it. The fact that I gave it to you enough that you want to toss it away, and probably will as soon as I've gone. At most I suspect it will languish unread on your library shelves."

Klaus quietly read over the promptless first page, the brittle paper therein baring neat, if poorly spelled even for the period, script. English. The top corner was dated, and there was a name inside the cover-board. Luminous Red Benedict. "I... can't read Middle English."

The thief ventured a step closer still, lightly touching the edge of the book in Klaus's hands. "It... belonged to an ancestor of mine, from the same time as your 'Man in Purple'. They were apparently acquainted; your own Tyrian is mentioned several times. With all your concern over family honor and cultural artifacts, I thought... you might like to have it." Dorian left out the tremendous decision it had been to part with the slim tome in the first place, one fragile but tangible tie between himself and Klaus, gone.

Klaus closed the book carefully, hands suddenly having all the reverence with which he'd caressed the piano's keys minutes before. "Thi.... thank you, Lord Gloria. This is appreciated." He'd have to sit down with a dictionary and translate it into German himself..

But all the reverence was for the book's historical worth, something even ownership by Dorian could not have tarnished. He supposed it should have been enough that his gift was appreciated after all... "I... can read it -- if you'd like me to, sometime..."

"Sometime, yes.... I think I might appreciate that," Klaus mused, setting it down on top of the piano. In the oil lamps' light, he could clearly see to red scores the slam of that key-cover had left on Klaus's hands.

"Do you play?"

He was sorry for that, and would have done something to remedy the hurt if it wouldn't have meant a scowl and a yell at the very least from Klaus for the offer. "I don't. Odd, isn't it? Such a romantic skill, and it's yours, not mine. Mother plays, though. Always happy pieces, the sound used to fill the house."

"Used to?" Why, was Klaus actually taking an interest in something Dorian had said?

"Used to." Before Klaus could protest, Dorian took the edge of the piano bench, well away from actually touching the Major. "I might tell you about her sometime, just like I'll read you the book sometime." There was a pregnant pause, and he added warily, "Sometime could be now, if you want..."

"Ja." Still quiet about his movements, Klaus lifted the key-cover again, brushing his fingers over the keys as if to make sure they were still all right. "Ja, I would like that. You may as well."

"I'm being invited to stay?" He wanted to make sure, to avoid any misunderstanding that could lead to more anger.

"For a little while," Klaus said grudgingly.

"Play for me." From beside him in the rippling lamplight, Klaus caught one of Dorian's precious true smiles, his first of the evening. "I know you don't celebrate Christmas, that you have no gift to give in return. Play for me, Klaus. If only I can keep myself from falling too far into sentimentality, I would enjoy it very much."

"This isn't finished," Klaus warned. Strange -- he'd sung, too, when he'd been told by Dorian to sing. Perhaps it was only because there was no excuse to use to escape it... Or perhaps because Klaus wanted someone, anyone, to know that there was at least a little more behind who he was than sharp steel and hard iron.

And then he let his hands position themselves and he started to play.

The same chords twined around brittle notes, improvised in spots from the memorized melody Dorian held in his mind -- a work of Klaus's own composition, then. It was different enough from the fare his mother used to play that Dorian wasn't distracted by thoughts of her from Klaus's quiet work at the keys.

The music itself was as fickle as the thief, refusing to be mastered. The German held a scrap of it, neat and dutiful, until the sounds suddenly unraveled in his hands.

Dorian had touched him, a tiny shift seeking comfort, that had brushed unintentionally against Klaus's side.

It froze Klaus almost automatically; just having Dorian watch him play had lessened the quality of the piece a little, internal nervousness over an unfinished and unready work over-running him with too much ease. But to be reminded of it by a touch? Yet, Dorian took no liberties in that moment... Fingers stilled, but Klaus didn't remove them and close the key-cover as Dorian had expected -- he sat there, as he had moments before, and tapped the ash off his cigarette, before starting over again.

Same piece as before, with more notes woven in with a strange care. The emotional quality, somehow mournful with a constant barrage of notes, was starting to show on Klaus's face, like a statue with a cracking face.

Those surreptitious side-long glances Dorian kept chancing were bound to be noticed eventually, so he gave them up in favor of shifting again, very careful not to touch the other man. From his new vantage point, the effect was even more startling. In the odd occasion that Klaus was caught with any emotion on his face save forthright fury, it was quickly and shamefully beaten back into hiding.

Not so this time. Dorian was entranced, watching the notes slowly erode the Major's perpetual mask. The beat was steady, but barely identifiable as Klaus shifted it again, finally adding more to the piece than Dorian had heard before. Fingers faltered a little, and it was clear that Klaus hadn't yet worked through that part of the piece. Finally, after what could have been endless minutes, Klaus stopped, the notes having trailed off into a silence.

A silence in which breaths sounded as great, harsh echoes. In the memory of the music Dorian imagined that his heartbeat, which he feel throbbing in his temples, had matched beat for beat the undecipherable tempo.

Klaus dropped his cigarette into the ashtray, and pulled another from the pack that was still atop the piano, lighting it mechanically. It was as if he wasn't aware that Dorian could, in the dim light that filled the room, read every expression flitting through his mind. It was mostly sadness on that internalized expression, softening the sharp edges of expression.

Dorian, with something rare and precious in his grasp, was not about to alert Klaus to the fact. Thieving instinct held his body still and quiet, the guilt over his intrusive watching that should have made itself felt kept away by raw wonder. It was surely a mistake, a slip in control. Prudish enough with his body, Klaus would never willingly allow Dorian to see his naked soul.

The man beside him on the bench nursed that cigarette for a few moments more, and then left it to dangle as usual, casually smoked when he remembered it was there. "Your men probably miss you."

"Perhaps," was murmured slowly, Dorian relieved that he'd not been the one to breach the silence. "They will continue to do so. Even if I set out now, by plane I would not make it home for several hours. By then..." A subtle movement of shoulders that may have been an aborted shrug.

"Why would you leave them to come here?" Not the demanding question of before -- just a question, with no accusation behind it. He wasn't looking at Dorian, either -- just giving glancing brushes of fingers over the keys, as if to remind himself of notes without having to play them.

/Because I see them every day, though rarely have I a chance to visit with you. And never the you that is simply Klaus, not Iron, not Major.../ That was truth, though to say it would have earned him more anger, more yelling. Dorian wanted to make it through the evening without being hit. "Why do you care how I spend my time?"

Either his tone, or the flippant way he asked a question in turn, brought Klaus's mask of expression back up -- he rose again, scowling at Dorian. "I don't. But you broke into my house!"

/Damn it!/ "I wanted to see you." There -- truthful, and hopefully not mistaken for his usual innuendo and intense flirtation.

"You can see me again after the holiday; there's a mission coming up soon," Klaus growled out, snubbing the cigarette out at last.

"I said I wanted to see you, not your damned work persona."

Silence.

Klaus moved to empty the ashtray into a small metal bin on the other side of the room, and then paused at the opposite end of the piano. "Go home, Lord Gloria. This isn't how someone like you should spend Christmas."

"If you're going to try to order me around on the pretence that you give a damn about my welfare outside my ability to complete your precious missions, you could at least call me by my name." Dorian hadn't moved from his position on the bench, posture not his usual comfortable sprawl, but something subdued and reflective.

"Then fuck the pretence. Go home. I want to be alone."

Hard words, little more than chipped off pieces of anger, but flung with Klaus's usual force and accuracy. Calculated to hurt, which they did. Being hurt by Klaus was nothing new for Dorian. His shoulders slumped a little, but gave no further signs of movement. "I am glad that we are not alike. I at least had an alternative tonight, somewhere festive to be, with friends. I did not have to convince myself that I like being alone."

And Dorian's words stung just as hard, if not harder. Klaus turned around, as if aware that Dorian might see his reaction to it, under the pretence of moving to turn out a lamp.

And it was true. Dorian had friends, joy, companionship at his beck and call. Like the jolly Saint Nicholas of children's tales. And Klaus had... silence. The ball had been the night before, and now he was alone in the castle, because he had no attachments to anyone. And he could never remember there being a time that he *had* truly had comfortable attachments to anyone in a holiday situation. Parties in his youth had always felt awkward.

Now he had nowhere to go, and no one to be with. Not even the possibility of going somewhere to pretend to have fun.

"Fuck off."

"No." That he hadn't been yelled at was proof enough of how badly his words had effected Klaus. More truth in them than he'd suspected, and now Dorian regretted having spoken. Regret was so unlike him; he hated that Klaus made it habit to constantly reacquaint him with the horribly unromantic emotion. "I already said, no one should be alone tonight."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Klaus turned off the lamp with a twist of the tiny knob, and it doused the room into a deeper darkness.

He was darkening the room in preparation for going to bed. Dorian would be tossed out soon, to drive dejectedly to the airport. Only he wouldn't make it there. Some bar or club or motel would be open, where he would wait out the rest of the night. Save sleeping alone after a good fuck, nothing was more miserable than an airport late on Christmas eve.

As for Klaus's question... Typical. Always demanding, the man never gave any insight in return. "It's just... something I feel. I'm an atheist too, but I still like the spirit of this holiday."

"You would." That was snorted, as Klaus crossed the room to reach the second lamp. Then, as the room fell into total darkness, lit only by the stars in the sky outside, Klaus could be seen moving again -- but not towards the door. "That's why I said you should be celebrating with your men. You would enjoy it more than being here."

Still, Dorian hadn't moved from the bench. Klaus was probably coming over to drag him bodily from his seat and throw him out the window after all. Could a show of sympathy save him? "I couldn't enjoy myself knowing that you're here alone." Which, God help him, was absolute truth.

Klaus wanted to ask him a hundred different questions -- why not drag him up to London? Why join him in his misery? "Then you shouldn't have joined me in my aloneness."

"Why not?" Klaus was close enough now to look up at, though his features were cloaked in height and darkness. "It's solved the problem, hasn't it? We're neither one of us alone now."

"We're not?" Klaus asked quietly. Then, after a moment of silence. "Thank you for... coming here. I can show you to a room, if you want to wait until tomorrow to return to England."

"Thank you." The relief in Dorian's voice was undisguised.

"This way." It was hard to not notice that he picked up the old tome and re-wrapped it before leading Dorian towards the door.

The hall beyond had no lights on.

Dorian had followed Klaus through enough pitch corridors that the lack of lighting wasn't a problem. His eyes, always excellent in the dark, adjusted quickly, allowing him to stay close to Klaus's bulk. Unfortunately though, the little trip had too much the feel of a mission, threatening to spoil the remainder of his generous mood.

There were windows that let light in, of course; and Klaus used their number to guide him halfway down one large hall, stopping to open a large door and flip on a switch to the room inside. "There's a bell. Ring it when you want to be shown out in the morning."

Dorian didn't dare set foot inside that room. Klaus would leave when he did, probably attempting to lock the thief in to prevent late-night wanderings. Toeing the threshold, he turned warily to his host. "I'm not tired, and... I still haven't gotten to tell you about my mother, or to read to you my present. Couldn't we settle somewhere, perhaps with a bottle of wine, and just..." Enjoy a quiet companionship. He couldn't say that. Already the suggestion sounded too like flirtation.

"If you touch me, I toss you bodily out the door," Klaus warned him in a low growl, leading the way down the hall again.

The library would be a safe enough place, and still decorated from the night before. There would be wreaths and greenery strung, strands of golden and red ribbon, bulbs...

Mistletoe. Dorian tore his eyes off the doorway decoration, his unhealthy urge to utter some suggestive remark held in check by more than Klaus's threat. By the way the Major strode through, he hadn't noticed -- probably didn't even know what the little sprig of green was, much less cared what ridiculous custom it prompted.

"I won't touch you. I promise no innuendo, no flirtation, no foppish behavior." /I'm not like that, really. For an intelligence officer, you are a great idiot to not be able to see past that facade./ Unless of course he didn't care enough to look, which was an even more disheartening thought.

Klaus still held the book in his hand, still reverent in touching it, as he set it on one wing-backed chair. "There are glasses and wine in the cupboard."

There was no need to explain what he was doing, as he knelt on the hearth and began to shift wood within the fireplace. The lack of fire explained the crisp chill to the well decorated room.

All of the room's elegant furnishings were a conservative distance from the fireplace, for fear of tossed embers, no doubt. Dorian was chilled enough to take the floor quite close to the hearth, after selecting a wine and pouring two glasses. He sipped from his tentatively, watching Klaus coax a fire to life with patience he'd not known the man possessed.

Klaus tried first to use his lighter to catch little twigs, and then a few sheets of paper to catch the kindling, and then, finally, the logs began to burn. He drew shut the chain grate that enclosed the fireplace which kept in larger chunks but let all the heat pass out. Then Klaus sat back on the hearth, looking at Dorian for a heavy moment.

The wine Dorian sipped was red, nothing much to brag about but not bad.

Functional and frill-less, just like the Major. The wine was as obviously to Klaus's tastes as it was that his hand had not been the one to decorate the lush library. Another sip, under the man's watchful eyes, and Dorian murmured, "Yours is by the chair. And... thank you for the fire."

"It's cold in here," he excused, moving to pick the glass up by the chair and then sit down. "You don't have to sit on the floor."

Dorian blinked in surprise, at the lack of expected remark about his mode of dress -- not sleeveless this time but thin, watery silk -- and it being obvious why he was cold. "I don't mind the floor. It's comfortable, and warm." And he could stretch out without Klaus glaring at him for mistreating the furniture.

Klaus sat for a moment, obviously enjoying the flavor of the wine, before he asked, "Your mother played piano...?"

A twitch of Dorian's lips, memory and melancholy attacking him in unison. Whatever smile had been growing was killed before it could mature. "She did -- for hours a day. I listened to so much music as a child that I can tell the composer of an unfamiliar piece by style."

Klaus nodded, trying to facilitate more of a response from Dorian -- but it felt like silence was going to fall again over the comfortable and slowly warming library. So he spoke up, "Mine did, too."

"Is that where you learned to play?" No slouch in social settings, Dorian recognized the effort to keep conversation flowing, and met it half-way. "Mine tried, but I lacked the necessary... passion. Meaning, I bungled my lessons so badly -- due to a lack of interest and devotion -- that she finally gave up."

"You seem sad about it -- is she still alive?" Klaus asked carefully. Dorian already knew, or had found out that Klaus's mother was dead, long dead.

"She is -- somewhere." Which would explain why Dorian, a very personable man, always kept a group of friends close, and why he occasionally referred to that group as his 'family'.

Quiet from Klaus, but it was comfortable as he drink a little more wine. "She deserted."

"It was mutual. She took my sisters -- I see none of them often, haven't in years."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Klaus murmured quietly, getting up to hand the book carefully to Dorian. "Will you read a little of this...?"

No words as the thief took the slim volume, hands more sure than Klaus's but delicate in spreading brittle pages. "Where shall I begin? There's a lot about his ship -- apparently he was very fond of it. Several naval battles, too. And... some of the things he has to say about your Tyrian aren't exactly kind."

Klaus almost smirked for a brief moment. "I would assume not. Why not that?"

"You won't like it," was his warning, even as Dorian found, with quick familiarity, the page. "To hear Benedict tell it, your ancestor was the product of mating between a whore and a hell-spawn."

"He was illegitimate, so it was very possible," Klaus agreed. "Such writings seems to make you happy." Probably for times that the thief vented about him, surely!

"Not precisely happy. I'm just surprised, Major, for the founder of your illustrious family to have been such a... colorful individual. Were you aware that he was bisexual?" Dorian was extremely careful to keep any hint of triumph from his voice.

"Yes ." To agree to that, though, in a stiff growl, was also to say 'but I am not'. "He was most irreputable in his personal life."

"Irreputable all around." Quite possibly, Dorian hadn't registered that unspoken assertion, his eyes scanning the page, then crawling back for a second look. "Ack. Why did pirates have such atrocious handwriting? Their composition skills in general leave a lot to be desired."

But Benedict's writings were nothing if not colorful. /Cut out his heart and pour maggots in the wound... Break every finger at every joint... Really, Benedict! Was he so awful? Did you hate him so much for what he did to the family, or did you feel betrayed by a flicker of want your body felt for him? Tyrian was so very beautiful... We should have traded places -- you and my Major would have gotten along splendidly, and I've always been a rogue at heart./

"Try to read it -- you are better able than I." And with a little digging, he could once more find Tyrian's old Journals. "I will have to look -- we still have Tyrian's journals in the house, to a certain year."

A quirk tugged at Dorian's lips. "Did he ever mention Benedict? The poor man would have been crushed to know his loathing wasn't returned with equal devotion. I suppose I can expect to be haunted by his ghost, for turning over his journal to a descendant of Tyrian's bloodline."

"I think you would be satisfied to know that Tyrian and you would have been fast friends," Klaus snorted. His ancestor had been a strange mixture of duty and the same need for physicality that Dorian was at times. "Just read."

"And you are certain you are so very unlike him..." After risking that insinuation, Dorian's eyes moved purposefully back to the page, and he read.

"The accursed Armada, with El Alcon among her ranks, has been spotted making under full cloth for the channel. Our sails are mended, our ships light without the glut of golden wealth plundered from the carcasses of rotting, ruined families. The wind is to our favor. This time, Mother, Father, we will catch them, and I will avenge your souls on the monster, the source of all my woes and the focus of my hatred. I make the vow nightly, on my sword, with my own blood, that Tyrian will die by my hand. Finally, I can feel that soon my vow will be fulfilled."

Finished softly, as Dorian reached the end of the entry. "Paraphrased of course, Darling." That slipped out without his notice, not innuendo at all, but a fond address. "I don't think I can even assemble proper sentences from some of his ranting."

And there had been times in the past that Dorian hadn't been able to make proper sentences from Klaus's rantings, either. But tonight would not be one of those nights, unless provoked again. "I will have to sit down and try to read it some time," he mused a bit flatly. Sometime between missions, during his seldom made free time which he took away from himself far more often than he made it.

The covers were closed gently, the leather strap rewound. "You'll only find more of the same when you do." Perhaps this wasn't the best idea for a Christmas gift after all... Dorian had wanted to give Klaus something nice, thoughtful enough that he would be disinclined to toss it in the rubbish. But a long-winded treatise on the blackness of the soul of Klaus's ancestor wasn't exactly an appropriate token of good-will.

Especially when it was written by Dorian's own ancestor.

Though, Dorian could be certain it wouldn't be thrown out, at least. Klaus understood the worth of history, even if he didn't give a whit about art. "It will be a challenge. Thank you." He felt guilty for a moment for not having anything to have given the thief, but then he reminded himself that the man had broken in, and demanded that he play piano. For the moment, tolerance would suffice. And it truly wasn't so hard to tolerate Dorian.

Especially when the thief was making an effort to behave himself. True to word, he'd not done one indecent thing, or made one suggestive comment. Gone were faggish mannerisms and Eroica's affected surety. Klaus was certain he was seeing more of the real Dorian than Dorian had ever let him before.

And Dorian, when just Dorian, without the trappings of Thief and Earl, was a nice package. A gift, perhaps... "Thank you for coming."

"Thank you for not tossing me out in the street. This is a much nicer Christmas than I'd have had alone." Or with his raucous crowd, for that matter... And something of that sentiment was conveyed in his quiet, serious tone.

"Why don't you get up and sit in the chair, hmn? The fire will burn for most of the night now..."

"I... would rather stretch out," Dorian replied, and did, easing to a recline with his long legs pointed towards the fire. As an afterthought to compromise he snagged the pillow from a nearby chair, and propped that under his head.

With the pillow under his head, he felt so very relaxed -- surrounded by decorations of the sort he loved, a warm fire, okay wine, and the man he loved, just a few feet away.

When Silence came again to the Library, it was light-footed and unnoticed until the next morning.