'Klaus?'

His voice brought Klaus out of his reverie.

'Sorry, what?'

Taki gave him a strange look.

'I need the list. For the groceries. I'll meet you at Schmidt's.'

'Right.'

He handed Taki the list that Claudia had written out and tried to avoid his eye. Taki had picked up on it that time, Klaus realised. He had to be more careful than that.

He had tried to catch a quick glimpse of Taki's face as they pulled into town. During their first few trips, his nervousness had been patent. Now, however, he seemed perfectly at east. Almost content.

And then Klaus was suddenly taken with how Taki's hair managed to take that shape. How it decided which way to fall and where to part. How it managed to feel like satin or silk no matter what time of day. He had just been about to reach out and touch it when Taki had spoken.

They got out of Wilhelm's truck, a newer and more reliable double of Verner's, and Klaus waved at the Fritzes across the road coming out of the butcher's. He was always a little startled when he saw how Mrs. Fritz' hair was streaked with silver and that her husband walked with a new stoop. He expected time to have stopped in the town since he'd last been there. He then realised he was a few short months away from turning twenty-seven.

Slow down, he told the gods.

Pay attention, they told him in reply. He turned in time to see Taki nodding at the grocer's portly wife as he entered their store.

It was still difficult, even so many weeks on, to gauge whether the sleepy town had anything positive or negative to say about Taki's presence. But the signs so far were largely in his favour.

After he loaded the truck with supplies from the grocery, Taki was about to enter Schmidt's dry goods store before he stopped to hold the door open for two teenage girls who appeared behind him, chatting to one another animatedly.

'After you,' he said.

The chattering stopped for a moment and both girls stammered their thanks.

Klaus, who was already inside, later overheard young, hushed female voices in the adjoining aisle wondering aloud about the handsome foreigner who spoke their language so fluently; whether he was just a tourist or if he had moved to town for good and how exciting it would be if it was the latter.

Klaus couldn't help agreeing.

'You're making good impressions all over the place,' he remarked as they pulled out of town an hour later, the back of the truck filled with groceries and hardware supplies.

'Am I?'

'Maybe I underestimated my countrymen.' After remembering his recent scuffle with Wilhelm, he added, 'Or maybe you're just a hit with the ladies.'

Somewhere behind his smirk, Klaus was suddenly imagining it. Taki in a completely different life. A life where they'd never met at Luckenwalde. Where Taki had gone home to win the war and then, a year or two later, married some pretty young thing. Lord and Lady Reizen. With a troop of stunning, dark-eyed children.

The life Taki would never have.

The irrational little tug of guilt Klaus then felt was identical to the one Taki had experienced months ago when he read Claudia's letter.

It went away soon enough.

The colour in Taki's room at the compound was always a dim, slightly unreal blue. The colour here, in the room that had once housed an ancient boiler, was gentler. More real. The moonlight fell past curtains Eva had chosen, infusing the darkness with something soft and silvery. Klaus smelled the unsanded wood of the floorboards. And flowers. Always flowers.

He sat on the edge of the old bed as softly as he could but the infernal thing protested at once.

Taki awoke to the sound of creaking and looked over his shoulder.

'Klaus?'

He started to sit up.

'What's wrong?'

Klaus, who had expected him to ask what he was doing there, smiled gratefully.

'Nothing. I just missed you suddenly.'

Without giving him time to reply, Klaus held his face and kissed him gently.

'Can I get in?'

'Klaus –'

'I swear on Eva and Heinrich's lives that I won't try anything. I just want to be near you. For five minutes, tops.'

There was a silence.

'Please?'

He waited in the still, grey moonlight. And took Taki's reluctant half-sigh and averted gaze as a yes. He slid beneath the covers and pulled Taki to him, his back pressed against Klaus' front, and slid his top leg between Taki's.

'Your feet are cold,' he noticed. 'Are you warm enough in here?'

'I'm fine.'

He shifted until there was no gap whatsoever between their bodies and kissed the back of Taki's neck, sighing in contentment.

Taki, meanwhile, tried to fight images of the past few days. Images of Klaus sweating under the sun, flashing him grins, wiping the back of his neck with the shirt he then casually discarded. He tried not to notice the strength of Klaus' hold around his chest and waist. When he lost that battle and felt himself stiffening slowly, he then focused his energies on hoping Klaus wouldn't notice.

He lost that battle too.

'Are you okay?'

Klaus was worried about why Taki's breathing was slightly more forced than usual. Why he had squirmed a little. Why his nod was a little too sharp to be placating.

It took him a few seconds. And then, momentarily forgetting his promise, he moved his hand to the front of Taki's pants. And his eyebrows shot up.

The touch sent bolts of electricity through Taki's body.

'Klaus,' he complained through gritted teeth, once again thankful for the darkness that hid his fierce blush. 'You said you wouldn't –'

'I know, I'm sorry.'

Taki heard the smile in his voice and felt a small, familiar prick of humiliation. He was relieved when Klaus, through an immense force of will, moved his hand back up to Taki's waist. He closed his eyes, hoping vainly that it would end there.

For several heated seconds, neither of them moved.

And then Klaus kissed his neck again.

'If you want,' he whispered carefully. 'I could make you come. Just with my hand, from where I am. It'll be quiet. If you say no, I'll back off, I promise.'

No. The word danced on Taki's tongue. He opened his mouth.

But the sound of Klaus' voice, which had become hoarse even in a whisper, combined with the solid length of Klaus' body pressing against his, had made quick work of Taki's ability to rationalise.

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face into the pillow.

Without wasting another second, Klaus' hand slipped past the hem of his pants. Taki gasped when he felt the calloused palm around his cock. He felt Klaus harden somewhere in the small of his back.

'You're already leaking so much.'

The words, whispered roughly in Taki's ear, awakened a different part of Taki's body and he almost shivered.

He realised then that he and Klaus had switched liberally between languages when they were alone. And this was the first time in a long time that Klaus' rich, heavy language was being used in a way that made him weak.

Klaus coated his hand in Taki's pre-come and began moving it over the length of his shaft. Taki's head arched back into his chest and a small moan escaped him.

So Klaus held his other hand firmly over Taki's mouth as he stroked. The bed made a few creaks which Klaus felt out and learned how to avoid. He felt Taki's rapid breaths against his skin and tried to stop himself from rubbing his own cock against Taki's back.

'Fuck,' he summarised, resting his forehead against Taki's shoulder.

Taki was lost yet again in Klaus' hands. His mind was filled with the images that he had tried to fight earlier, combined with the swift, merciless grip on his cock, combined with the feel of Klaus' breath on his neck. The hand on his mouth. The stiffness of the cock in his back.

'What are you thinking about?' Klaus asked, his whisper taut and raspy. Slow consonants, dragged out, dense with lust. 'Are you thinking about my cock?'

He then succumbed to the strong urge to grind his hips into Taki's back and didn't pay any mind to the single loud creak from the bed.

'Are you thinking about me being inside you again?'

Taki moaned quietly into his hand. Klaus sped up his pace.

'Are you thinking about me fucking you hard, lying here like this? Hitting that spot inside you. Hitting it so hard that you –'

Taki came into Klaus' hand, his come dripping over his fingers. Klaus felt him tense and buck slightly, his breath hot and wet against Klaus' palm.

'Taki,' he said with a small grin and Taki felt his head spin again over the way his name rumbled from Klaus' throat. 'Look how much you came.'

He brought his hand to his mouth and licked the come off his fingers, trying to subdue his own cock that was undoubtedly soaking the front of his pants in pre-come.

In the room's stillness, amidst the sweetness of release, Taki was relieved to reflect that Klaus had been right. Despite the whispered words and occasional complaints from the bed, it had all been surprisingly quiet.

Klaus tried to ignore his painfully stiff cock and tried to reflect on the past few minutes. He wondered if he'd just put his niece and nephew's lives on the line or if Taki really had given him permission. At least he had pulled himself back from going any further. Perhaps the reticent fear of Wilhelm storming in on them had burrowed into the back of his mind.

Whatever the case, it was a treat to have a gasping, physically spent Taki folding against his body, drops of sweat coating his neck and face.

Then he heard a few mumbled words, none of which were fully resolved.

'You… you're still… you haven't –'

When Taki looked over his shoulder, Klaus realised he could feel Klaus' need pressing tenaciously against his lower back. He thought of his recent promise and shifted away with a guilty chuckle, surprised and pleased that Taki cared at all.

'I'll live.'

Silence pressed on them again, like it had been hovering and waiting in the corners of the room. Klaus fancied he could hear Wilhelm's snores through several walls and the intervening room.

Taki was warm in his arms.

'Mmm,' he murmured, eyelids suddenly heavy. 'I should go back to the couch. Or I'll fall asleep right h–'

He was silenced by the wholly unexpected feel of Taki's hand on his cock. All thoughts of sleep were scattered and he inhaled sharply. It took him another moment or two to note that Taki was hesitantly trying to slide his hand past the fabric of his pants.

'You – you don't have to,' Klaus breathed, more out of surprise and guilt than sincerity.

He felt Taki hesitate for a moment before drawing his hand back. Klaus wanted to strangle his conscience.

'Unless you want to,' he said tentatively. 'I mean, don't get me wrong, there's nothing in the world I want more. But I don't want you to feel like you… have to,' he finished weakly.

Gods above, Wolfstadt, he thought with gritted teeth. With lines like that, it's a wonder you get laid at all.

Taki closed his eyes and slipped his hand past the hem, past the bristly hairs covering the base of Klaus' cock and held him in his palm. It wasn't the first time he'd done so and yet, somehow, it felt like it was.

Klaus let out a long, tortured exhale.

Taki held him tighter and a small tingle ran up his spine at the reaction from Klaus. Breathing that was more haggard. The huge body behind him that tensed in anticipation.

As he tried to mimic the way Klaus had worked his hand over his cock, he began to realise that facing away from him had a great many limitations. So he turned. He caught a flash of golden eyes through the gloom before he felt for Klaus' cock again and focused. Klaus had squeezed him at the tip and used the fluid to lubricate the rest of his cock, right to the base. Taki did the same.

'Scheisse,' Klaus hissed.

Taki kept his eyes on Klaus' cock, huge and slick with pre-come. He felt himself hardening again at the surreal thought that it had been inside him so many times that he had lost count.

And suddenly he had lifted off his pillow, wincing slightly at the creak of the bedsprings, and hunched over Klaus' hips.

Any moment now, Klaus told himself, his heart thudding erratically. I'll wake up.

When Taki lowered his mouth over the dripping head, they both flashed back to the last time he had done so. The last time he had done so like this, properly, of his own accord. Months and months ago. The night before Hans had shown up at the compound.

Klaus remembered his disbelief, which was the same now. The same desire to ram his cock deep into Taki's throat when the wet heat of his mouth enveloped him. The same restraint. He stifled a groan and covered his mouth with his fist.

Taki, in his turn, felt that same counter-intuitive sense of power. Power in the fact that the tall, intimidating, golden presence of Klaus von Wolfstadt was reduced to this beneath his touch.

He was too far away for any more whispered obscenities but the strong fingers running over the back of Taki's head communicated Klaus' intensifying pleasure.

The bed's strained voice inhibited his pace and the fear of waking Wilhelm or the children was an added pressure Taki didn't need. But, over the course of the next few minutes he managed, only once, to take Klaus all the way into his throat without choking.

That was the moment Klaus' head fell back on the pillow and he came. The hand in Taki's hair clenched hard enough to hurt but Taki remained where he was.

The taste of Klaus, like everything else about him, was strong and insistent.

When he pulled Taki up to kiss him, when he held him down on the mattress and forced one final squeak from the bedsprings, he tried to reconcile what had just happened with his memories of Taki from a year ago.

Taki, who had tearfully protested when Klaus licked the tip of his cock for the first time.

Don't, he had begged. You'll get your lips dirty.

He had smiled then, just as he did now, and gathered Taki close to him again.

A few minutes later, Taki's hand was braced on Klaus' chest and his breathing had steadied. The emotion in him then reminded him of the mottled reflections of multi-coloured trees in a river not far from there.

They were both in danger of falling asleep – Klaus' eyes were closed – but Taki couldn't bring himself to break the spell.

His eyes travelled along the muscles of the arm that Klaus had thrown around him. Just below the hem of Klaus' sleeve, he saw, even in the darkness, the small, raised patch of skin on his forearm, glossy with scar tissue.

Operation Hannibal. Taki remembered the sling. The brace. The month they had spent apart. The constant fear that news would reach him of Captain Wolfstadt's death. And then, finally, the voice that called him from a hospital on the eastern front and brought him back to life.

Master. We did it.

He traced the scar with the tips of his fingers. Klaus opened an eye.

Taki remembered Suguri saying the bullet had fractured the bone.

'Does it still hurt?' he heard himself ask.

Klaus raised his eyebrows.

'Not even a little.' His eyes travelled to Taki's left side where his bullet wound would be pressed against the bed. 'Definitely not as much as yours.'

After a pause, he whispered in Taki's ear with a smirk, 'We both have bullet scars. Kind of romantic, right?'

Only a split second after he spoke, his expression changed.

'Although,' Klaus said darkly, 'if I had done my job properly, you wouldn't have been shot in the first place.'

Hans flashed across both their minds at the same time. For a moment, Taki was in a small room that smelled like damp soil and the pain from his hip was rolling over him in constant waves, never receding completely, coming back in more vengeful swells.

Then time rewound and Taki was in his room at the compound, turning his back on Hans. Those last few moments before the world went black.

Time rewound again and Taki was on a platform in the square, unsheathing his katana before Klaus. Klaus, who knelt and watched with eyes that were somehow both resigned and pleading.

It's my fault you weren't there, Taki thought.

Klaus wondered if he was imagining it when he felt Taki burrow further into his hold. He didn't know Taki was reliving the two months that they were separated after he had sent Klaus away. That he was reliving the landscape of heartbreak and guilt.

'Where did you go?' Taki whispered at length. 'When I... after I... exiled you?'

The word was like a scar itself. Taki had, at first, tried to skirt around it but in the end had chosen to fall on the sword. He deserved it. He deserved to hear the word aloud, to remind himself of what he had done.

Klaus once again felt the echoes of the gong in his chest. That ringing hollowness of how much he had failed and how far he was from Taki. He brought himself to the present again, where he and Taki lay together in a bed in his cottage, before allowing himself to drift back to those few terrible months.

'They uncuffed me on the other side of the border,' he began, 'and left me with the bike. Thanks for that, by the way,' he added into Taki's ear. 'I had a feeling the bike was your order.'

Taki didn't say anything. It had felt like the least he could do at the time.

'I rode off and called the old man. Waited until your men turned back around. And then snuck back in over the border through a different town – the same one where I met the old man a few days before that. He was already back home but he made a few well-placed calls and got me through without papers. I've always suspected he had a thing for me.'

A brief smile, hoping the jaded old man was enjoying his retirement somewhere.

'So,' Taki reflected, 'you were only out of the country for –'

'About half an hour.' He chuckled. 'That's got to be a record for disobeying your orders, huh?'

Taki swallowed, unwilling to ask but needing to know.

'And… and then?'

Klaus indulged in the silky feel of Taki's hair against his cheek before he went on.

'I stayed there for a few days until the old man found me somewhere safer to lay low. A town closer to you, even though it was still hours away. I stayed in a little room above an old bar. The owner's good friends with the old man and he had escaped the rat squad so no one knew he was working for the west. Not that he did anything important anymore, really, as he kept reminding me. Spies are only so useful after a war is over.'

'You stayed there for two months?'

'Pretty much. It was too dangerous for me to wander so I just waited. I used the wireless Haruki rigged up for me. The compound was out of range but I kept an ear on the news.'

The hallway outside his room, the little brass numbers, the striped pattern of the bedspread. The splotches on the ceiling above his bed that he'd memorised. The constant pull, the membrane that he could still feel linking him to Taki. The need to be with him and protect him.

Countered, always, by the knowledge that he would be no use to Taki in a prison cell. That he had to stay hidden until he was needed.

'Two months of push-ups and sit-ups and listening to the radio and eating Makimura's godawful food. Forget being a spy, his shitty excuse for tonkatsu should have run him out of the country.'

Taki realised he was both trying to and trying not to read between the lines. He tried to see through to Klaus' pain, knowing he deserved to feel it.

Klaus paused for a moment, his good humour again trickling away between the cracks.

'And then I heard what happened. To you. And all the Reizens. I got on the bike and left.'

Snow whipping past him as the cold, iron grip on his windpipe threatened to drag him beneath the ground.

'A few hours later, the kid managed to intercept my wireless. And the rest you know.'

A long silence followed.

Klaus wondered if he had said too much. Or too little. Taki was lost to him for a while.

'I'm sorry,' he finally heard murmured into his chest.

Klaus took a slow breath.

'You've already apologised. And it wasn't your fault.'

If I could kill him twice, I would.

He then thought about something that had occurred to him many times as he lay in his bed in exile, memorising the shapes of mildew on the ceiling. He wondered if it was time, now, to bring it up again.

'And you know,' he began cautiously. 'The first time you made me your knight, I wasn't exactly... I mean, I wasn't true to you, was I?'

The words inspired a different kind of silence.

They hadn't spoken of it since Katsuragi. Since the Duchess and Berkut. Since Klaus had been laid bare, shaken to his core, only to have Taki tell him that he knew, that he had always suspected, and that he had long since forgiven him for it.*

'And so, it was fated, in a way. That you should strip me of my knighthood. You didn't do it when you found out that I was a spy and that I had lied to you. You had every reason to exile me. Even kill me.'

An awful, metallic taste in Taki's mouth at the thought. He lifted his head and met Klaus' gaze in the darkness.

'But you didn't,' Klaus went on. 'I deserved it, but you didn't.'

'Klaus…'

Taki touched his face, unsure of what he wanted to say, knowing he only wanted to put this strange, previously unspoken demon to rest.

'I didn't deserve to be your knight in the first place,' said Klaus, his voice low.

Taki's heart skipped a beat.

…something I've suspected for a long time. That you deserve more than me. That I'm not whatever it is you've been searching for.

Hearing his own fears reflected in Klaus' words was sharp and unsettling.

'Of course you –'

'Not the first time,' Klaus clarified gently. 'And then, after everything happened, you asked for me back. It felt like I had… proved myself. And the second time, on the pier, neither of us hid anything. And it – it meant a lot to me. Being able to say those vows again. You know?'

Silence. Klaus pressed Taki's hand to his heartbeat.

'It all worked out,' said Klaus, searching out his eyes. 'In the end.'

Taki tried to filter through it. There was too much there. But it seemed like Klaus had spent enough time thinking about it. And there was no need, there would never be a need, for him to know about Taki's own quiet demons.

'I suppose it did,' he said uncertainly.

They stared at one other for a long time afterwards until eventually Taki forced himself to look away, caving to the irrational fear that it was too strong, whatever it was between them, and that it would awaken something from the depths of the Earth.

Taki awoke the following morning bathed in sunlight. He heard the sounds of Eva and Heinrich playing on the lawn and realised he had slept in.

And that Klaus was still pressed against him, fast asleep. Taki felt another surge in his gut at the sight of the hair that had fallen over his eyes. The eyebrows drawn into a soft frown even though his lips seemed to be smiling slightly.

He sorely regretted having to wake him.

'Klaus,' he said, his tone caught somewhere between urgent and gentle. 'Wake up. You have to go.'

Klaus slowly came to and stretched.

Then, far too quickly for either of them to do anything about it, the sound of small feet echoed down the hall straight towards Taki's room. They braced for Heinrich or Eva to burst through the door and stare at them wide-eyed.

Instead there was a demure knock on the door.

They exchanged a look.

'Yes?' Taki said uncertainly.

'Good morning, Taki!' called Eva's voice. 'Papa asked me to ask you if you know where your dog has gone. I told him you don't have a dog. But he told me you do. How come I haven't seen one? Is he big? Do you think he'll want to eat Ori?'

A small pause followed this unexpected tirade.

Though he knew he ought to feel slighted on both his and Taki's behalf, Klaus found himself struggling not to laugh.

'I, uh –' Taki tried.

'Papa says he needs your dog to help him with the new combine machine. I didn't know dogs could be that smart! My friend Lena's dog just barks all the time.'

'Wilhelm will hear plenty of barking from this dog later,' Klaus whispered while Taki tried to quieten him.

'I'll be out in a second,' he said to Eva. 'Tell your father he – I – tell him we're coming.'

'Okay!' Eva said brightly. Her footsteps receded.

The combine was a recent purchase and one that Wilhelm was particularly proud of. It would cut harvest time to a fraction of the time taken for threshing by hand or with the horse-driven binder. But he had bought it second-hand and needed some touching up. At the moment she trundled about on her huge tractor-like wheels but refused to do any actual threshing.

On Claudia's urging, and mostly to make it up to her for what had happened a few days ago, he had enlisted Klaus' help. Klaus, in turn, brought Reizen, claiming that he was a better hand with large machines than he was. Wilhelm cast a doubtful glance at his small frame and pale skin. The easterner looked like he had never even cracked open the hood of a car.

And yet, in only a few minutes, he was struck by the breadth of Reizen's knowledge and the acuteness of his instinct. After a brief rundown of how the combine worked – the grain elevators, the slide shute, the bagging platform – suddenly Reizen had made several enlightening suggestions how they might start trying to knock her together.

Klaus watched Taki proudly for a few moments before leaving the two of them to their large, rusty child.

Within a few days, Wilhelm was astonished and almost dismayed to discover that he preferred Reizen's company to Klaus'.

Then again, he reflected. That wasn't really saying a great deal.

Hearing from Klaus that he had made a good impression in town stayed with Taki in an almost infantile kind of happiness. From that day on, he tried to discreetly analyse the looks of people he passed, wondering what Klaus had seen.

It occurred to him that the looks he received were no different to those he was already used to in his country. Even though those from his own people were fuelled by reverence rather than curiosity, he realised that he would always stand out, in some way, no matter where he went. It was part and parcel of who he was. The gods had decided that for him long before he was even born.

The thought that he would be different, an outsider in some way, regardless of where he walked on the Earth filled him with a temporary but poignant sadness. Again, it was something he never showed. And it was something that was easy enough to forget when Klaus hummed along to the number playing from the truck radio and reached over to squeeze Taki's knee.

In town, Klaus went to the post office and Taki entered the small hardware store for the first time. He nodded at the owner who stood behind the counter, talking to the man Taki recognised as the town sheriff.

He brought a few cans of paint to the counter and asked for a cartons of eight-inch nails from the rack behind the owner.

'They're not available,' the owner said curtly.

Taki glanced at the full rack behind the counter and then back at the owner. He was in his fifties, hair combed and oiled carefully and his eyes were steady and unblinking. Taki felt a familiar swell of anxiety and defiance.

He stared back resolutely.

'I'll just take the paint,' he said, his voice steady.

The owner made no move to bag the cans.

'Maybe I wasn't clear,' he said after a small pause. 'We don't serve your kind here. Commander,' he added icily.

Above all, it was the silence from the sheriff that unnerved Taki. He leaned his elbow against the counter, watching the exchange passively under half-lidded eyes, the black handle of his gun shining in its holster.

And then, in place of his usual defiance or sense of injustice, Taki felt foolish for the first time. Naïve. Breathtakingly myopic. It occurred to him only then, in a small hardware store, that for the past few weeks he had managed to con himself into feeling at home in that world. In Klaus' world.

The breadth of his stupidity overpowered his anger. He left the store without another word.

Klaus' grin vanished when he saw his face.

'What's wrong?'

Taki went to open the door of the truck, feeling more like an impertinent child by the second.

'Nothing.'

Klaus put a hand on the door Taki tried to open. He was shocked to see Taki was near tears.

'What happened?'

He then noticed Taki was empty-handed.

'Where's the paint?'

'They ran out.'

Taki stood still, pulse hammering in his ears, waiting for Klaus to move aside. Knowing he wouldn't.

Klaus' instincts honed in.

'Did someone say something to you?'

When Taki didn't reply, Klaus was nearly overwhelmed by the anger that flooded his veins.

'Who was it?'

'No one said anything.'

It was suddenly like there was a solid wall between them. Taki refused to tell him and Klaus refused to budge.

As the pointless minutes lengthened, Klaus felt his exasperation with Taki slowly replacing his anger over whatever it was that had been said. No matter how many times Klaus tried to get through, he was only met by more of Taki's obvious lies.

'Fine!' he said in a near-shout. 'I'll ask the pricks myself.'

He headed off in the direction of the store and Taki felt a surge of unexpected, irrational resentment like a whiplash.

'Just leave it, Klaus!' he snapped, his voice loud enough to make a few passers-by turn and stare. He was even more frustrated to find he had switched back to his own language. 'This isn't another chance for you to show off. I don't need you to rescue me every time. How weak do you think I am?'

Klaus took a second for that outburst to sink in and then he stormed back. Taki raised his chin. Though it had been a very long time since Klaus had seen that gleam in his eyes, the frown, the hard line of his mouth, it was only too familiar. And it brought forth a desire to hurt that was just as familiar.

'Clearly you're weak enough to just lie back and take whatever anyone wants to give you,' he said, realising too late he had lost control over his words. He heard the ugly sexual innuendo only after the words left his mouth.

Taki blinked and looked at him in mild shock.

Shit.

'I –' said Klaus, trying to backtrack. 'Look, I didn't mean –'

Taki's stare grew cold again. Klaus could almost feel him retreating behind his old barriers.

'Taki, just – just tell me what happened. Please.'

He felt like he was seeing Taki through a small circle. Through the wrong end of a telescope.

After a few more seconds, Taki turned away.

And it was there, on a sunny street in the middle of a country town, when the patience Klaus had carefully nurtured threatened to break and he felt everything bubble up. In a way that he hadn't experienced since he and Taki fought in his room all those months ago.

Talk to me! he wanted to yell. He imagined grabbing Taki's shoulders and slamming him against the truck, watching his look of wide-eyed shock. Even fear. Have I not done enough yet? What more do I have to do?

Instead, they climbed silently into the truck.

The ride back to the cottage was icy, with neither of them willing to apologise or be the first to break the silence.

As the day wore on at the cottage, they had largely managed to avoid seeing one another and the pinpricks of shame started to set in on Klaus. When his anger – anger that he hadn't learned to control even after twenty-six years – began retreating, he saw clearly in its wake.

He realised his frustration with Taki almost always came from somewhere else. First from Hans and his lies. And now from whatever had been said in the hardware store that Taki was refusing to tell him. Words that Klaus should have been there to protect Taki from. And in the end, his own words had probably hurt more than any of theirs.

So he dropped the trowel into the soil and headed up the back stairs.

'Have you seen Taki?' he asked Claudia when he came into the living room.

She was back in the wheelchair after a flare-up that morning, but was in relatively good spirits. So much so that she hadn't picked up on the tension between Klaus and Taki. Ori sat contentedly in her lap, turning yellow eyes on Klaus.

'He's outside with Wilhelm. I think they've nearly got the combine working.'

Klaus stared out the window over the wheat field and thought he spied their small figures on the combine's humped back.

He then remembered a rain-drenched train station when four bigots were struck dumb by Taki's grace and eloquence. He thought of how Taki had somehow mollified even Wilhelm's staunch, misguided patriotism. And the shame hit Klaus even harder.

That evening, he apologised quietly. Taki, in his usual way, told him it was fine. And his eyes, soft again, possibly even contrite in their turn, communicated the apology he was unable to deliver. For being weak. For having lied. So Klaus took his hand and kissed it. He reminded himself that he had vowed to battle through the cold currents.

A few hours before that, when he was still staring out the window at the combine in the distance, his lips curved into a wry smile.

'You know,' he remarked to Claudia. 'I'm not over the moon about how much time Taki and Wilhelm are spending together. Are you?'

Claudia thought about what Wilhelm had said to her only a few days ago about Taki and laughed at how she was surrounded on all sides by half-baked, benign jealousy. She then found herself trying to recall another time in her life when she had laughed so much.

The new, unsteady peace between the three men in her home had lasted a week before Claudia jumped on the chance to capitalise on it.

'I think we should all go into town next week. Get Rudi to take care of the kids for a night. What do you say?'

'I say you're too weak for gallivanting,' Klaus replied.

'Then you three can gallivant on my behalf.'

Klaus snorted at the thought of either Taki or Wilhelm doing anything of the sort.

'Come on, Klaus. It'll be good to get out of the house. And to show Taki a little western culture. Plus,' she added with a sly look. 'I haven't even told you the best part.'

'Which is?'

'Heidi Reinhart is performing!'

Her excitement was left hanging.

'Who?' said Klaus, his tone carefully noncommittal.

She made a face. 'Don't be coy!'

Turning to Taki, she said, 'Reinhart's a local singer who became quite popular all over the country. She's back for a little hometown performance.'

Klaus then shot his sister a warning look.

'And Klaus over here,' Claudia continued, swiftly ignoring it, 'was convinced for most of his teenage life that he would marry her. He collected all of her records.'

From the rug in the middle of the living room where they were busy dissecting a magazine, Eva giggled and Heinrich screwed up his face at the thought of his hero uncle marrying, of all things, a girl.

Taki glanced at Klaus and was surprised to see a faint blush on his cheeks in addition to a self-deprecating grin.

'Yeah, well,' he muttered. 'Things change.'

But somehow, through various cajoles and half-serious threats about going alone, Claudia ushered all three of them into a tailor's shop and made them stand for suits, which ignited a hushed but heated argument over the counter when both Klaus and Wilhelm attempted to foot the bill at the same time.

And a week later, Heidi Reinhart stepped on stage to loud cheers. Honey-blond waves tumbled to her waist. Slender alabaster shoulders peeked over the top of a carmine red dress that judiciously followed her curves to just below the knee.

'Goddamn,' Klaus muttered under his breath.

Taki felt a laugh bubble up from his chest which he only just managed to suppress. Klaus caught his eye from across the table and winked, leaving him unsure as to whether his little utterance had been serious or not. Either way, Taki's heart was inexplicably light.

He wondered if that partially owed to where they were. They had driven a little over an hour to a lakeside town which was locally famous for a large farmyard barn that had been turned into an almost-ritzy jazz club. Round tables draped with white tablecloths were grouped before the stage. Chinking glasses and laughter abounded. Women wore heels and backless dresses and the men were sleek in their suits and bowties. It was a scene that Taki, wearing an ivory shirt and jacket, had never thought he would ever be able to see, let alone be a part of.

And after Reinhart's hypnotic, richly textured voice lulled everyone into a sort of stupor, she glided off stage and perched on the edges of tables to continue singing.

It didn't take long for her to reach their table, where her eyes immediately honed in on the tall, dashing blonde with golden eyes. And suddenly, she was bending low near Klaus, whose cheeks were flushed again, possibly from the wine, and then, when her song was over and the band on stage struck up a slow, beautiful waltz, she was pulling Klaus to his feet.

Claudia cheered. Taki found himself laughing at the look on Klaus' face. Even Wilhelm managed a tight smile.

Heidi took charge at first, sensing that her partner was somewhat reluctant if pleased, and she guided his right hand to just above her waist. But in just a few steps' time, with a small glint in his eye, his hand slid a fraction lower on her waist and he spun her into the steps, twirling her away and smoothly reeling her back.

They fit together perfectly, Taki thought without the slightest trace of jealousy. He watched Klaus' huge form in the perfectly cut ebony suit against which Heidi's dress made a striking red splash. His gold hair gliding in and out of the lights. Her long curls falling over her shoulder and flicking back when he pulled her in, making her throw her head back and laugh. Even when the floor filled with other dancers, every eye in the room was drawn to them alone.

There was no jealousy. But there was the ever-present little thorn of guilt. The guilt when Klaus eventually bowed and kissed the back of Heidi's hand.

Not now, Taki told himself.

And then he was startled to find himself politely turning down a pretty yellow-haired girl who had appeared at his side and asked whether he wanted the next dance.

'I'm too heavy,' he tried to protest, his voice strained and breathless.

Klaus flashed him a cruel, wolfish grin.

'You're perfect.'

And he was in, and Taki's back and neck arched in response, the moonlight shining on his Adam's apple, falling like liquid over his hair.

Klaus held him fast against the side of the boathouse wall with Taki's legs spread and hooked over his forearms. The lake lapped at the pier beneath their feet. Somewhere behind them, uphill, the party carried on into the night. But at the water's edge, it was only the two of them. The two of them and Taki's desperate moans and Klaus' cock that was plunging into him.

There's a pier near here, Klaus had said innocently as they left the barn. And a little boathouse. If you want to get away from the noise for a while.

Taki's trousers had been discarded and Klaus' loosened belt was just barely holding his pants up around his hips. He licked the smooth skin at the base of Taki's throat which had been revealed by undoing the top few buttons of his white jacket and shirt. Taki, in his turn, had wanted to undo Klaus' bowtie and shirt but had lost his nerve, and then run of time when Klaus lifted him and pressed him hard against the boathouse wall.

'Ah… ugh! Oh, Klaus…'

First, Taki threw his arm up behind his head against the weatherboard, trying to find a grip, something to counter the force of Klaus' cock and the swiftness with which his sensibilities had abandoned him. Then he discovered the only thing he could hold onto was Klaus himself, so he clung to his back, to the black fabric of his jacket, and submitted completely. He felt their connection in a place that seemed both within him and outside him.

Yes.

Taki tasted wine – for only the second time in his life – when Klaus drew back and kissed him and the red, bittersweet, forbidden flavour danced between their tongues.

You feel so good.

Moans and unspoken thoughts, all muffled against Klaus' mouth.

Yes! Don't stop. Klaus…

A few hours later, on the drive back to the cottage, a tired and happy Claudia fell asleep with her head on Klaus' arm. Without her, the other three had nothing much to say to one another. Wilhelm carefully carried her out of the truck and turned once, briefly, over his shoulder to lower his chin in goodnight.

Taki was tired but Klaus told him to wait for a moment as he opened the cabinet near the couch and took out a huge gramophone that had gone out of date some ten years prior. He then fished through the few records that had been stacked near it, wondering if any of his old collection had made it to the cottage, and his face lit up.

'Only one,' he said. 'But easily the best.'

There was a single dusty amber lamp on in the corner. The house fell silent around them before he lowered the needle. Heidi's voice filled the room again, scratchy and weathered and somehow even more beautiful coming through the fluted speaker. Klaus held Taki's hand to his chest as the piano chords sounded softly.*

Nimm meine Hand,
Nimm mein ganzes Leben auch.

And they waltzed so slowly they were barely moving. They were like that for minutes that felt like years, Taki's head on his chest, Heidi's sultry laments thrumming to Taki's own guilt and love. Love above all else. And Klaus only smelled roses and thought about how he can't help it, can't help any of it, least of all falling in love. Take my hand, he echoed in silence. Take my whole life too.

Earlier that night, after Klaus danced with Heidi Reinhart and led Taki out of the barn, he laughed loudly at the bizarre and wonderful way his life turned out. He was pleasantly buzzed from the wine, from the dancing and, above all, from the fact that Taki was beside him and smiling.

'You saw my hands the whole time I was with her, right? They didn't go anywhere they shouldn't have.'

He was pulling out all the stops to keep Taki's smile on his face. So far, it was working.

'Would it kill you to be jealous for once, Commander? I'm trying my best here.'

His words inadvertently conjured the prickly, awful jealousy Taki had once felt over Klaus' past with Hans. Not even that memory was enough to dampen Taki's mood that night.

As they walked, Klaus' eyes drank in Taki's suit appreciatively. He took a final drag of his dying cigarette and flicked it away.

'You look damn good in white, by the way.'

I can't wait to tear it off you.

They walked down the steady incline towards the tall pines, between which the boathouse loomed on the edge of the dark lake. Klaus felt like it was only yesterday that he and Claudia had raced down that slope to be the first to lay their hands on the cracking plaster of the boathouse.

'Claudia's doing well,' he said, thinking of how her hair had escaped her bun when Wilhelm very carefully guided her through a spin.

'Thanks to you.'

'And you,' Klaus pointed out.

Taki took the compliment silently.

They were thrilled, at times overwhelmed with a sort of numb relief that recalled her gauntness and frailness only a few short weeks ago, about the fact that she appeared to be on the road to recovery.

And yet.

'Dream's about to end soon, isn't it?' Klaus said vaguely as they picked their way over roots.

Taki's smile flickered and Klaus kicked himself. He was right, but there was no need to bring on reality any more quickly than it was heading for them.

So instead he thought about Heidi's bright, seductive smile. The softness of her hand and waist. He thought about the hypothetical Lady Reizen. Taki as a doting father.

'We could have done it, couldn't we?' he mused aloud, hands deep in his pockets, as they strolled onto the pier. 'If a few things had happened differently, we might have gone off and had regular lives with women and kids and all the rest.'

Taki said nothing. But his heart pounded. He wondered in how many different ways, large and small, now and in the future, he would be confronted with all that Klaus had given up for him.

Then Klaus, hands still in his pockets, bent down and kissed him on the cheek. Taki looked up in surprise.

'How lucky are we?'

Time passed strangely after that.

Taki felt as though the final days were being whipped away from beneath his feet. At the same time, he felt certain moments drag on. Old moments like Klaus pressing him against the wall of the boathouse. The dusty amber lamp in the corner of the living room. The night Klaus climbed into his bed and their words built knighthood and pledges and old mistakes into real, living shapes in the darkness above them.

And new ones. The day he and Klaus sat apart between the long, golden wheat stalks and Klaus described his first ever take-off with a look in his eye that never failed to draw Taki in. The day Klaus had kissed his temple without realising Eva was in the room and she had only smiled and returned to her colouring. The day the sound of hooves made Taki turn from where he was hanging up large white bedsheets and saw Klaus riding over on a gleaming chestnut mare he had borrowed from Verner.

'Ever ridden one of these?' he had asked as he drew up alongside and Taki craned his neck up, shielding his eyes from the sun.

'Yes.'

The first time he had ever mounted, Suguri had sometimes let a young Taki take the reins when they trotted to the border of No Man's Land and back.

Klaus sighed.

'Should have known.' He reached down a hand. 'I have yet to find something you can't do.'

Taki was just thinking the same of him when Klaus took his outstretched arm and swung him onto the mare's back.

And more moments still. As though every day, Taki would stumble onto a new side of himself he hadn't known existed. Sometimes he would find he had wandered onto a bed of small thorns; times when it overwhelmed him to look at Klaus and he would turn away and hope he had only imagined the flicker of hurt on Klaus' face.

Far more frequently, however, he was grateful to find moments that anchored him to a world he had seen for the first time and fallen for almost as completely as he had fallen for Klaus.

Despite the whimsical ebb and flow of time during those last few days, in reality, it was only a week after Klaus kissed his cheek in the moonlight that found them both on a train, speeding back to the east.

When the golden fields passed by him for the last time in Wilhelm's truck, Taki felt a lead weight in his heart which he carried throughout the journey home. A weight that was only made lighter by the fact that his hand was firmly in Klaus' almost the whole way.

For Klaus, Taki's closeness was so tangible, his heart so within reach, that he almost didn't mind it when they crossed the border and his master's hand quietly slipped away.

*Author's note: Klaus and Taki's conversation about knighthood is a combination of canon and possible future canon and headcanon. Canon is the part where Klaus was still working for the west in some capacity when he pledged himself to Taki. Possible future canon is the part where Klaus' betrayal is revealed explosively to Taki by Katsuragi of Home Affairs (could be wrong about this, though). And my own headcanon is the part where Taki always suspected Klaus had lied to him in the beginning but he didn't care because of how much he loved Klaus (aww!) and because he suspected that Klaus had come to care for him too – enough that Taki knew where his true allegiance lay. The gold kernel at the heart of any double agent's lies, as Hans put it.

On a lighter note, Heidi Reinhart is a shameless rip-off of the very real Haley Reinhart (whom I will fight Klaus to get to). Please, if you haven't already, listen to her husky, sultry, could-be-1940s-if-you-pretend-hard-enough rendition of Can't Help Falling in Love With You, which is the record that Klaus and Taki are dancing to in the light of a dusty amber lamp.

Also, head to my Ao3 for a little visual of their tailored suits.

Thank you to Georgia for shirtless Klaus doing chores.

And finally, a grateful credit to Hanairoh for the German sex talk idea and her help with other Germanisms - would you please stop being good at everything?

PS In case that ending was misleading, we're not done with Part 2 yet, nor with the golden fields Taki has fallen in love with :)

PPS If you're reading these words, please know yet again how much it means to me that you've followed the story this far. Thank you so much, and I really hope you've enjoyed our boys Xx