A/N : Never use lame Luftwaffe lines when picking up a German. Ever. Ever.
Chapter 3
He should have waited. He knew he should have.
But sometimes his self-control was a little...
"Why don't you take a walk with me?"
"Sure!"
...lacking.
And even though maybe he should have taken a step backwards, laid everything out in front of him, and told himself that this was too important to let anything distract him, he just couldn't keep his hands to himself.
Why couldn't he keep his hands to himself?
Arthur would kill him—literally—if he could see him now.
Chest puffed out and chin high and smiling in a self-satisfied manner, oblivious to all else around him as his eyes were glued to the immaculate Wehrmacht walking calmly beside of him, feet moving of their own accord and hands reaching out every so often to lightly brush a sleeve, and pulling off a trilling, exuberant Hungarian accent that would have put Zsa Zsa herself to shame. And the soldier wasn't really helping things by playing so coy and sending him those cool glances that just screamed 'tease', and Alfred had a feeling, as the soldier invited him on a seemingly innocent walk down a great hall, that maybe he was the one being charmed.
Which didn't happen very often.
He'd certainly gotten more than he'd bargained for. In a good way.
And, well, if the checkpoint was waiting in the crowded foyer, then let him wait. Opportunities like these did not come around very often.
Oh yeah, Arthur would kill him if he knew what he was up to—in a bad way. He'd probably grab him by the collar, drag him out back, and shoot him in the back of the head like a fuckin' dog if he ever got a whiff of this.
Well, part of being a spy was taking risks. Maybe this wasn't a necessary risk, exactly, but it sure as hell was a fun one.
"So," the soldier began, his hat tucked neatly under his arm, "I don't think I ever caught your name."
"Ah, well," he began, breezily, "I never caught yours, either."
As the soldier sent him a raised brow and a snort that bordered on being sarcastic, Alfred tried to keep the mood light as he leaned in, close enough to smell the subtle cologne the soldier used, and whispered, "Names are just names, right?"
Hopefully so, because after declaring himself Hungarian, it would have been a little bit of an inconvenience if the soldier had, someway or another, come across the papers (which he's stuffed into his waistline next to his gun, just in case) that said Kaufmann.
Drama he didn't need tonight.
He was hoping for a pleasant romp upstairs and then an uneventful journey back down, before he had a new task cast down upon him.
Thankfully, the soldier only smiled, a bit cleverly, and said, "Well, I suppose the best things are the things you don't know."
Truer words had never been spoken!
"You sound like a man after my own heart."
"I doubt that," came the wafting reply, and Alfred, having exceedingly high hopes for this one, decided that there had been enough play and insinuations to go ahead and just be a little bold.
Looking over either shoulder, he took a great care of the surroundings.
The noisy, well-lit foyer was a good ways behind them, long rays of warm light trailing behind them in the dim hallway, as they walked side by side without a sound. There were no other people here, no servers or staff of drunken ministers, and the people that had had too much fun in the lobby were starting to make their way up the staircases to sleep it off up above.
No noises. They were all alone.
Time to close in before an interruption came.
"Say," he began, keeping his voice a low, smooth croon that most of the girls were suckers for, and the soldier sent him a glance, pale eyes gleaming out from the darkness.
"Hm?"
He cast one last look at his surroundings, and when he saw a door in the middle of the hallway, unguarded and likely a closet, he saw his chance and leapt on it.
Straightening his shoulders and narrowing his eyes, he leaned in, and murmured next to the soldier's ear, "Are you sure you're a Heer?"
The soldier humored him, and only lifted a lazy hand to his chin, staying silent.
"I think you're really a Luftwaffe, because you're blowing me away."
Before he could even see the reaction, he worked his magic, and managed to grab the soldier's wrist with one hand and grab the handle of the door with the other. Hardly a second, and all light was gone as he shoved the Wehrmacht through the closet threshold and shut the door behind him without a sound.
Darkness.
This was what it felt like to really live, tucked in a small space with no light and with a complete stranger, warm with alcohol and adrenaline and rule-breaking, on the edge and as he wanted; not like Arthur's version of life, which, to him, felt like it may as well have been a dull recital of War and Peace. In Russian. Long and unending and boring as fuck.
And that was why Arthur's rules were meant to be broken.
For the sake of his sanity.
This was disobedience at its worst, and it was with a feeling of immense satisfaction that he reached down and turned the lock on the door, and grabbed handfuls of the Wehrmacht's pristine uniform, pressing him back into the wall, knocking over a couple of stored brooms in the process.
He wasn't really surprised that there was no refusal and not even the slightest of struggles, because it had been hinted at (in not so many words) for the past hour or two, and besides—once you jumped into a closet, you didn't just go barging out in a huff.
Strange looks.
The hat that the soldier kept under his arm fell to the floor with a soft thud as Alfred forced his arms up so that he could loop his own beneath, and he wasn't really too worried about the checkpoint or drama anymore.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was the handsome soldier that was a breath away, quiet and almost too passive, who leaned back and let Alfred do, well...
Anything.
No protesting grunts or shoving at his chest.
Perfect. This might even be better than the Kriegsmarine had been. Even if it was just in a closet.
Finally, the soldier opened his mouth, but it was only to quickly chide, in that deep rumble of a voice, "Don't step on my hat."
A very stern command.
Keeping a mind of his feet as best he could for the dark, he whispered, "Yes, sir!" and continued quite merrily about what he had wanted to do since he had first laid eyes on the soldier—get him out of the uniform.
Keeping his knee pressed firmly between the Wehrmacht's legs (just in case he decided to change his mind and try to bolt), he reached up, and fumbled at his tie.
The soldier stood still, breathing easily, and every so often, Alfred caught a gleam of his teeth in the wan light that streamed in beneath the closed door.
Oh, man! This night had exceeded his expectations.
The tie fell to the floor.
Collar opened, and over-shirt down on the ground next to the soldier's hat, he leaned forward, and set to work with uncanny skill, grabbing the soldier's jacket and snapping off the buttons as quickly as he could.
Hey—if possible, always spare the romancing.
If he weren't in such a crunch for time, he would have been more than happy to have spent the entire night upstairs in a bedroom, using his tongue for all it was worth to sweet-talk the hours away and spend quality time with a very beautiful specimen, but, alas.
Time wasn't limitless. Not tonight. Faster would be safer. Not better, but safer.
Not that this was exactly the safest of places, sure, but he had fucked in worse.
Hell, he had wooed an actual Luftwaffe pilot right on the airstrip once. Back in the early days, of course. He wasn't quite so risky now, not that he'd ever admit it aloud, and a closet was just fine.
And besides, this particular German didn't seem to need to be romanced in the least, and that was fine with him. Just fine.
The Wehrmacht jacket fell to the heap forming on the ground, and in the flurry of heat and in his haste to undo the soldier's tie and these fastidious buttons that he kept so well secured, Alfred did not really notice that the German's left hand was steadily creeping downward.
Better things to focus on.
Like what a rush of fire it was in the pit of his stomach when he grabbed one of those strong thighs and lifted it up around his waist, or how damn good it felt to bury his face in the crook of the German's neck and use his teeth to make sure that he would leave a mark.
Always had to leave a mark.
His way of saying, 'always remember me!' even if 'always' was just a few days.
That was enough.
A muted barely-there gasp from the soldier, and there was the delightful feel of a strong jaw pressing itself into his neck and a leg wrapped around him, and he just knew that this was probably going to be the most fun he had had out here in years—
"What's your name?" the soldier suddenly asked again, breaking the heavy silence, and this time, Alfred was swimming with far too much adrenaline to ignore him.
Besides, maybe he wanted a name just so he'd know what to croon when things got a little, ah, more involved.
No problem.
"Miklós," he lied, the first Hungarian surname that popped into his mind, and the soldier gave a deep, throaty, "hm!"
And that's when he realized, as he lowered his teeth from the neck to a strong shoulder, that he probably should have been a little more mindful of where the damn sneaky son of a bitch's hands had wandered.
Because a hand was suddenly in his beltline before he could stop it, and when the soldier lifted his arm back up, Alfred knew (even though he couldn't see) that the Nazi party papers were firmly within his fingers. A second of skin against paper, and he realized that the soldier was dragging his finger across the ink.
Reading it, even in darkness. Clever.
Well, at least he hadn't grabbed the gun.
This didn't stop the fun.
"Ah," the soldier began, a little eagerly, even as Alfred, thoroughly unconcerned, continued his shoulder-assault, "That's strange. This paper says Kaufmann..."
"Oh, yeah," was all he managed to breathe, "Yeah, yeah, I got lots of names."
"Oh," came the simple response, and the soldier tossed the papers down on the ground with a flourish, and then threw his arms around Alfred's neck in a manner that might have been intentionally alluring, whispering, "Well, you're a man of mystery, aren't you?"
"However much you want."
"Ah."
And he didn't say another word.
...well, that had been taken in pretty good stride.
If he'd been in a normal situation, perhaps he would have thought that it had been taken with too-good stride, but in all honesty, he was way too over his head to care.
A blond would probably be the end of him one of these days.
Reaching up, he started work on the buttons of the thin shirt that was the soldier's last protection, worrying more about how he was going to accommodate the tall Wehrmacht's long legs in this tiny closet than he was about how he was going to play off his many names later on.
A bedroom would have been a hell of a lot better.
"You know," the German suddenly breathed, deep voice rough and extremely pleasing to Alfred's ears, "It's funny, but I was going to say—"
"Uh huh," Alfred muttered, only half-listening as he took delight in snapping off one of those buttons.
"—that your accent really is charming."
"Uh huh."
Another button fell victim. The first feel of a smooth chest beneath his fingertips.
"In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to say that it's almost..."
"Uh huh."
Inactive listener. That's what he was.
His fingers lowered to fumble with the German's belt buckle.
A whisper right in his ear stopped him short.
"...American."
The hot air became somewhat chilly.
And then, before he could speak, something cool and hard pressed into his chest.
For a moment, he was too confused and almost too eager to continue to really worry about it, but when his hand flew down and grabbed something cold, he knew damn well the feel of gun.
Steel.
The soldier fell still against the wall, and for a moment, so did he.
Ah...
Damn. It was always the pretty ones! Always.
A stunned silence, and then the fire in his veins dulled down, just a bit, and he muttered, lowly, "You little snake!"
He could hear Arthur's voice in his head again, loud as a damn bell.
You need to be more careful!
He could hear, too, the German snort in satisfaction.
Great.
"Sorry," he finally said, simply, even though his tone indicated that he was not in the least bit sorry.
Ah, shit! Really?
"You know," Alfred whispered, shifting his weight almost irritably, "They kept tellin' me that I had a weakness for blonds! They said it would get me in trouble one day!"
And so it had.
Arthur kept saying it and kept saying it, and he just kept nodding and nodding.
Fuckin' Christ. Well, what could he do now Slowly, he began to reach behind his back, towards his own gun.
But the hawk-eyed soldier felt his movement, and was quick to say, "Ah, ah, ah! Don't even think about it."
Alfred, muttering under his breath, pulled his hand back in surrender, and placed them upon the soldier's waist in an effort to keep his balance.
"I prefer to go to bed without guns."
"Well," the German muttered back, a bit testily, "You'll have to forgive me, but I'm a little upset that you didn't even have the courtesy to find me a bed. The janitor's closet? I'd dare to say that that's a little classless, even for you."
For him? Had his cover been blown?
"I apologize," he began, very carefully, "I didn't know I was having a go at a Sphinx! So is this the part where I die because I didn't answer right?"
A short, thick silence.
And then the soldier gave another snort that was more of a laugh.
"Don't worry too much, Mr. Jones," the German said, lowly and in a voice that sounded all business, "You didn't answer so badly, all things considered, so I'm not going to shoot you right here. Actually, I had been hoping to entertain an audience with you, but your idea of a conversation is obviously...a bit different than mine."
Mr. Jones, eh?
Bastard knew his name, too! Not good.
"Who are you?"
The German only shrugged a careless shoulder, and said, primly, "A soldier."
Well, that was an understatement. Had to be workin' for somebody, or, at the very least, he'd encountered another rogue spy.
What were the chances?
He knew he should have waited. Why, oh why, couldn't he keep his hands to himself?
"Well!" the soldier suddenly said, a bit too satisfied and amused for Alfred's taste, "It looks like this almost turned out to be some kind of szomorú vasárnap thing for you, huh?"
Stunned, and a little agitated, all he managed to ask was, "I thought you didn't speak Hungarian?"
The soldier didn't bat an eye.
"I thought you said your name was Miklós?"
"I kinda lied."
"Well, then, it shouldn't surprise you to know that other people can lie too, Mr. Jones."
Alfred, fighting off the urge to give him a good whack, finally cleared his throat, and began, sternly, "So! Now that that's outta the way, ah—you gonna put the gun down now?"
"No."
Right. Well...
Hadn't he said he wanted a conversation? Hadn't shot him yet. That was good. May as well carry on.
His agitation evaporated as quickly as it had come.
"Alright, then. Have it your way."
Ignoring the steel pressing into his chest, he reached back up, and set about tugging at the German's belt buckle with cheery humming.
The soldier swatted away his hand, irritably.
"Stop."
"You didn't wanna listen," he said, airily, "I'm not going to, either. You shouldn't've let me get this far before you opened your mouth."
A high-pitched, irate whisper of, "Mr. Jones! You're pressing your luck!"
"Shoot me or shut up," was his response, and the soldier cursed under his breath, trying to free himself from the tangle he was in.
"Don't test me."
Shifting his weight and able to keep the German up against the wall quite easily for his good position, Alfred could only try to gauge the true danger of the situation as best he could, using only the German's words and the stillness of the gun as clues. The soldier's voice was almost too impassive to sense whether he was lying or not, but the fact that his leg was still wrapped around Alfred's waist was a pretty good indicator that he really wasn't going to shoot him after all.
Well, he'd never been a stranger to danger, and in all honesty...?
Kind of a turn-on.
He doubted he'd really get shot. Not here; too many people.
"So! What did you have on your mind?" he finally asked, as he continued to fight against the hand swatting him away, and resumed quite cheerfully the undoing of the belt's buckle.
The gun was pressed all the harder into his skin, becoming a bit uncomfortable, and after a hesitation, the German spoke.
"Why don't we go somewhere more appropriate?"
"A bedroom? Sure thing! You got a room upstairs?"
A scoff of annoyance, and the soldier drawled, "This is hardly the place to say what needs to be said. Why don't you set me down, and we can talk about meeting up?"
Well, he didn't mind meeting up again, but he had no intention of setting the German down, and he made it quite clear by standing absolutely still.
"I'm staying at a nice little place down the street," he offered, eagerly, "How about there? We'd have, ah, privacy."
A short silence, and then the German sighed.
"Sure. Why not? Tomorrow morning, then. Bright and early. Say, six? Meet me at the clock tower at six, and I'll follow. But I expect a serious encounter. Don't oversleep. A hangover won't be a valid excuse if you show up hours late and I'm forced to shoot you."
"No problem!" he crooned, and lowered his hands down to the German's waist with swift fingers and a bright smile. "Are you always so serious?"
"Always."
"That's a shame. I—"
"And by the way—!"
"Eh?"
The gun grinded into his chest in a deliberately ruthless motion, and the soldier finally hissed out, rather primly, "That was the worst pickup line I've ever heard in my entire life."
Ouch!
That Hungarian broad must've been more of a mentor than a family friend. Sounded kind of alike.
"Don't ever think you can get away with that again."
Okay, well, maybe that line alone had deserved a bullet, but too late now.
All he could do was say, "I'll keep that in mind."
"Good. Tomorrow. Six."
Right. A meeting, huh?
He could only imagine what it would involve, and quite frankly he was a little pissed off about it, because one meeting per night was enough, but he didn't sense any particular danger; if this conniving blond had wanted him dead, he wouldn't have gotten past the first button.
He would listen, then, to what this man had to say.
Hopefully the checkpoint's instructions wouldn't clash with his new appointment, because it would be a bit of a shame to miss another opportunity with this one.
Feisty.
He'd worry about that later.
But for now...
"Well," he prodded, hopefully and heavily, "Do I at least still get to fu—"
The click of the hammer.
"Absolutely not."
Damn!
