Please do not alter this story in any way nor post to a publicly accessible Net/Web site without permission.
Web Address: Not available online
Category: Crossover – Eroica/ Patalliro
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Dorian/Klaus, Bancoran/ Maraich
Notes: Original illustrated version published in Guns’n’Roses fanzine, December 1989
Summary: The Marineran Diamond Showroom is has opened in London. How can Eroica pass up this opportunity to collect shiny babbles? At the same time, who is trying to kill Bancoran?
By: Karen Klinck
Illustrations by: Heather Bruton as Nei Mo Han
Written: 1989
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do, you’ll stop them.” Bancoran increased the intensity of his frozen glare. “Increase your security. I have no wish to make amends for stupidity.”
He turned around, lighting a cigarette angrily. Bancoran resented his job at times like this. All too often he was assigned to protect the obnoxious little genius, when all he wanted to do was help kill him. Patalliro was ruining his digestion and his nerves.
“If you have any real need for me, you know where to call,” he added. Then he left.
“Come back here!” Patalliro shrilled. “I demand it. Do you hear me? Come back here. I’ll report you! I’ll—”
The door closed, cutting off his voice. Bancoran stalked to his car, growling at the world. He slammed the VW’s door with more force than was necessary, and started the motor with a savage twist. His mood had not changed by the time he got home, and Maraich regarded him with some alarm—the more so because the smell of burned food still lingered in the air despite all his efforts to clear it.
“Ban? What’s wrong?” he inquired somewhat timidly. “Is it your new assignment?”
“Yes!” Bancoran spat, and stalked by him to reach the liquor cabinet.
“What...” Maraich’s voice trailed off uncertainly. He stared at the glass nervously, watching the scotch pour in.
Bancoran threw himself into a chair, watching the liquor in the glass splash alarmingly, and not caring if it spilled over everything. He took a healthy slug. “You know him.”
Maraich stood very still, his mind churning over past loves, other assassins, and—he groaned with feeling.
“Not Patalliro?” he moaned.
“Patalliro,” Bancoran spat. “Yes.”
“How long—”
“Till something happens and I have to clean it up. He’s got a diamond showroom with almost no security, and he’s sure that (a) no one will bother him, and (b) if they do, I can handle it. The fool!” He drank again, then seemed to wilt and sighed. His mouth twitched. “Sorry. I won’t take it out on you.”
“That’s okay, Ban. I understand. Patalliro…” Maraich shuddered.
Ban sniffed. He sniffed again, and glanced at Maraich, who had perched on the arm of the easy chair. Maraich froze guiltily. After a moment’s glower, Bancoran laughed ruefully.
“It’s been a day! Grab your coat and we’ll go out to eat. Fancy.”
Maraich’s eyes lit up. He hugged Bancoran. “Thanks,” he whispered softly.
“And don’t leave a message on the answering machine,” Bancoran instructed, some of the anger back in his eyes. “I don’t care to be found right now!”
“Maybe he’ll go home again,” Maraich suggested, sliding to his feet and heading for the bedroom. He turned. “We’re eating fancy? How fancy?”
“Fancy enough for a tuxedo and reservations,” Bancoran decided, reaching for the phone.
“Oh boy,” Maraich grinned, and disappeared. His voice floated back. “I’ve got this new outfit I’ve been dying to show you...”
Ban set the phone down. “Make a snappy show of it. We’ve reservations for Mason’s in an hour.”
They dressed quickly, Bancoran in a black velvet tux, ruffled pink shirt, with diamond studs in his sleeves and jet studs in his ears, finished by patent leather shoes, Maraich in a gleaming silver lame pantsuit with rhinestone pumps, a diamond choker and a splash of green sparkle dust down his right cheek. Bancoran looked him over and whistled.
“If we don’t leave right now, we won’t eat tonight!”
That made Maraich blush with pleasure. “That’s enough to make me wish Patalliro made you this mad more often!”
The agent snorted. “I’ll wash your mouth out with soap—and make you sleep in the hall. Let’s go.”
“Threats, threats. Your back would get cold. Is his security really that bad?”
“If it were up to me,” Bancoran replied, opening the car door for Maraich, “I’d scrap his setup and start again. He doesn’t even have infrared scanners!”
“He’s asking for a heist,” Maraich noted.
“Yes, I know. And he wants me to clean up after him, when the disaster hits.”
“Take a vacation.” Maraich watched traffic flow past as they waited at a light. “We could close the flat up, let Mrs. Potts water the plants, go lie in the sun somewhere—maybe a month or so. You work too hard, Ban.”
“If only we could. But I’ve already been assigned to this thankless mess, Maraich. We’ll make the most of tonight—don’t mention him again.”
Dinner was doing an excellent job of calming Bancoran’s nerves, and Maraich kept giving him fetching looks that were distracting enough on their own. Then a hand touched Bancoran’s shoulder. Only the greatest willpower kept him from whirling with his Walther drawn. Maraich tensed with his table knife in hand. It was no weapon, but it could be the distraction they needed to get a weapon in play.
“At ease, Major!” Sanders snapped, and Bancoran sighed to relieve the tension, turning to look at him.
He said, “Sir?” then added, “Relax, Maraich.”
Maraich took a bite, but kept his eyes fixed on the man behind his lover.
“It’s not like you to forget to put a forwarding message on your answering machine, Major.”
“I didn’t forget, sir,” Bancoran said calmly. “In fact, sir, why don’t you assign someone else to protect the Marineran Diamond Showroom? I’m sure we’ll be happier all around.”
“The Marineran Embassy requested you. I am not at all pleased by your conduct this afternoon. We received a formal complaint...”
“Then replace me.”
“Dammit, man, we can’t do that! You know that!” Sanders sighed. “You’re being unreasonable, Bancoran.”
“I suppose I am,” the agent conceded. He turned back to his dinner. “And I plan to continue being so tonight. I came out to forget the Marineran Embassy and their diamonds!”
“Bancoran, the economy generated by that showroom is vital to our nation, too vital to forget even for a night.”
“They refused my suggestions. They have no security. They want none. Patalliro is certain that no one will bother him because he is who he is. I’ll deal with it when I have to—when he wants me to—after the place is entirely looted. May I finish my dinner, sir?”
Sanders stared at the back of the black head for a moment. He growled, “We’ll continue this discussion in the morning.”
Bancoran paid no attention to Sander’s leaving. He pulled another bite of lobster loose with his fork, dipped it in the drawn butter, and daintily ate it. Maraich was worried, and Bancoran, looking up, noticed it.
“What’s wrong?”
“What will he do to you?”
“What can he do? Put an official censure on my record? I will go on vacation, then—indefinitely! Scream? He does that regularly.”
“He could put me back in that school of theirs,” Maraich said, subdued, toying with his food.
“He’ll have a mutiny on his hands,” Bancoran promised grimly. “Dessert?”
“I haven’t finished yet.”
“Strawberry seedy-cake? Banana cream pie? Trifle?”
“I’ll get fat.”
“Not if you exercise properly,” Bancoran purred, and Maraich grinned.
“Trifle,” he pronounced happily.
“And tea,” Bancoran added.
“And tea.”
Bancoran sipped his after-dinner brandy thoughtfully, watching Maraich conscientiously clean his dessert plate. “You don’t have to take the polish off,” he remarked. “I can order you more.”
“That was good.”
“How about a show? Mousetrap is running nearby—we can walk to the theatre.”
“Marvelous. Maybe we should never make plans....”
“I know.” Bancoran made a face. “Waiter! Our bill, please.”
They strolled along the street, heading for a theatre three blocks away. As they passed a shadowed alleyway in the second block, two figures attacked the dark-haired agent. Bancoran reacted to an arm snaking around his throat as he usually did: he twisted and threw his assailant over his shoulder. The second one attacked with a knife as Bancoran straightened, keeping a wary eye on the hoodlum before him. Maraich shouted a warning and leaped to the attack himself. Bancoran jumped out of the way of the knife and put a foot into the first man’s neck as he tried to charge him from the ground. Maraich was a red-and-silver whirlwind, his eyes blazing angrily. The second man’s knife clattered to the ground as Maraich kicked out; he broke and ran. The first scrambled to his feet, coughing, and followed him. Bancoran stood and watched them go, then calmly bent and wrapped his handkerchief around the knife, and dropped it into his coat pocket.
“So much for that,” he remarked. “I wonder what that was all about... Let’s go, or we’ll miss the opening curtain. They don’t make muggers like they used to.”
“You’ll get the fingerprints checked tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
They enjoyed the play immensely, but when they reached the exit afterward it was raining. Bancoran wore his ever-present tan raincoat, but Maraich had only a light jacket, also of silver lame.
“Stay here,” Bancoran directed. “I’ll bring the car around. No need for you to get wet.”
“What do you think I am, a sugar-plum?” Maraich demanded, pouting.
...
Kaoru-no-kimi