Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Happy Halloween!

Also on AO3


"Hello, darling."

Eroica spoke just seconds before Klaus, absorbed in the file he was carrying and foolishly trusting in NATO's security, would have sat down on him, Eroica having taken the only chair in Klaus's office: the one behind his desk.

Klaus growled and stepped back. "What are you doing here?"

"Just came for a visit." Eroica lounged even more insolently - in Klaus's chair - and twirled a curl around one finger. "I like the gray, Major. Very distinguished."

Klaus's hand twitched, but he didn't reach up to touch his hair. "I see you're still dyeing yours."

That brought Eroica up out of Klaus's chair in an outrage that turned into him standing toe to toe with Klaus, the two of them trying - again - to stare each other down.

"I assure you, darling," Eroica all but purred, "that it's all natural. Would you like to verify that? I have a lovely hotel room."

Klaus would have liked to have hit him, or at least bodily shoved him out of his office, but there'd been a series of meetings, directed largely but not solely at Klaus, about not doing "undue" violence to contractors. The new director's definition of "undue" did not match Klaus's, and unlike his spineless and uninvolved predecessor, he was the sort of man to follow through on threats of desk work and suspension.

Klaus ground his teeth together in a not quite acceptable but at least unlikely to get him taken out of the field substitute for the violence he would rather do. He stepped around Eroica and retook possession of his own chair.

"And what would your," Klaus paused, not sure how to refer to the man, "boyfriend think about that?"

"Boyfriend makes us sound like teenagers playing around," Eroica said. He blithely ignored Klaus's pointed look.

Klaus had seen the photos, both the surveillance photos in NATO's ongoing file on Eroica that he was required, as the agent most familiar with Eroica, to review on a periodic basis, and the paparazzi shots his Alphabets were disgracefully indiscreet about viewing on their phones in the bullpen. Minor royalty of some sort, less than half Eroica's age, fond of partying and being photographed.

"I really prefer lover." Eroica paused then, striking a pose that was most likely supposed to be alluring.

Klaus used the reprieve from the conversation to review the next page of the file. The pout on Eroica's face when he next looked up was not unexpected.

With Klaus's attention on him once more, Eroica smoothed out the pout and put on a thoughtful expression. "I'm nearly certain he'd want to watch."

Hitting him would have been so much easier than enduring this conversation.