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alicia_hTitle: Trespassing
Prompt: Trespassing and Laughter (as well as 2 and b from this prompt from![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
stayintheroom on dreamwidth)
Bonus? No
Word Count: 878
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original (German occupation of the Channel Islands)
Pairings (if any) Erica/Haber
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con etc): none
Summary: Erica doesn't mean to spy or trespass or intrude, she just wants to see him.
I can hear laughter and the scraping of knives and forks against plates coming through the open window. Standing on tiptoe in the somewhat wilted shrubbery to peer into the room, I can see the backs of the officers’ heads as they tuck into hearty meals that many of the islanders would have killed to have on their family’s table. I recognise Haber immediately, deep in conversation with the man at the head of the table.
All the myriad conversations are in German, of course. It is a testament to the influence my childhood summers with my German grandmother and her family that I can follow all these interwoven threads of overheard chit chat just as easily as if it was happening in English. If it was my intention to spy on these men, my fluency would be to my advantage.
If it had been my intention to spy I would have failed spectacularly, as I have just been spotted by a man patrolling the outside of the large house. He shouts to somebody around the corner bringing him jogging round the side of the house as he readies his gun. If they had thought it was my intention to spy, then they might have shot me on sight. A chill runs right through as I realise they may still decide to do just that. If I struggle. If I try to run. If I put one toe out of line in these next few crucial minutes.
I am being dragged in through the old servants’ entrance. My two escorts could be any of the faceless grey-green men I’ve seen around the island. After sitting me down roughly at the table, they argue vehemently in German over who will stay to watch me while the other fetches a superior officer.
The one who does eventually go brings back exactly the man I had been hoping to see. However, Haber remains impassive as he tells me in surprisingly stiff sounding English that he shall have to remove me from the premises before I get myself arrested for trespassing.
"Does it count as trespassing if you lot were, strictly speaking, trespassing first?" I ask with hopes of getting some sort of reaction out of him. Anything would do.
There is nothing. His face does not move from that stern, stranger-like expression. He does not meet my eyes with his so I cannot tell if they held for even the briefest moment a faint twinkle of suppressed laughter, a flare of fury or a tiny twinge of shame.
When we've met before, I always felt I could read him, that he was so easy and open with me that it would be absolutely impossible for me not to see every single thought and feeling written in his face. At least on that was my sense of our meetings when I was not broken, bleeding, concussed and half-drowned or else dizzy and disoriented with sea sickness. On those particular occasions I naturally took more notice of myself and my own troubles than I did of him.
We are out of the mansion and its sprawling grounds and what he must think is a safe distance down the rapidly darkening lane before Haber slows his step. He brings the two of us to a halt and turns me around to face him, asking with his voice full of desperation what I thought I was doing.
"I wanted to see you. I can’t say why but it suddenly struck me that the reason I’ve been so fed up was because I hadn’t run into you at all this week. I thought I must be missing you and I also thought the only way to solve it was to try and see you."
"You are a foolish woman, Erica." I can see him smile. It is a wry, partly despairing smile, but a smile is a smile all the same.
"And you are still a mystery to me, Captain Haber, even when you’re not playing the stern soldier. You have never even told me your christian name and yet you’ll happily use mine when nobody is around to catch you talking to me like I’m a human being."
"You can be Fraulein Gardner again, if you wish. Though I prefer Erica." I see the flash of a real smile before he says, "And I would like to be Leonhard, and not Captain Haber, if you prefer it."
"I do prefer it," I assure him and I lean in towards him as his grip on my arms loosens and our stance together grows more natural. His forehead meets mine as he pulls me closer, looking into my eyes with the last of the daylight dying around us. I whisper his name, careful to get the German pronunciation exactly right. "Leonhard."
I hear the roar of wheels tearing down the lane a second or two before the yellow-white light sweeps over us. I jolt back with the shock of the sudden brightness. Twisting around to look, I try to see behind the blinding headlamps to the black car and its driver. There is no time to move. Somewhere beyond the blackness of my tightly closed eyes, there is a shout in German and a squeal of brakes.
Prompt: Trespassing and Laughter (as well as 2 and b from this prompt from
stayintheroom on dreamwidth)Bonus? No
Word Count: 878
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original (German occupation of the Channel Islands)
Pairings (if any) Erica/Haber
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con etc): none
Summary: Erica doesn't mean to spy or trespass or intrude, she just wants to see him.
I can hear laughter and the scraping of knives and forks against plates coming through the open window. Standing on tiptoe in the somewhat wilted shrubbery to peer into the room, I can see the backs of the officers’ heads as they tuck into hearty meals that many of the islanders would have killed to have on their family’s table. I recognise Haber immediately, deep in conversation with the man at the head of the table.
All the myriad conversations are in German, of course. It is a testament to the influence my childhood summers with my German grandmother and her family that I can follow all these interwoven threads of overheard chit chat just as easily as if it was happening in English. If it was my intention to spy on these men, my fluency would be to my advantage.
If it had been my intention to spy I would have failed spectacularly, as I have just been spotted by a man patrolling the outside of the large house. He shouts to somebody around the corner bringing him jogging round the side of the house as he readies his gun. If they had thought it was my intention to spy, then they might have shot me on sight. A chill runs right through as I realise they may still decide to do just that. If I struggle. If I try to run. If I put one toe out of line in these next few crucial minutes.
I am being dragged in through the old servants’ entrance. My two escorts could be any of the faceless grey-green men I’ve seen around the island. After sitting me down roughly at the table, they argue vehemently in German over who will stay to watch me while the other fetches a superior officer.
The one who does eventually go brings back exactly the man I had been hoping to see. However, Haber remains impassive as he tells me in surprisingly stiff sounding English that he shall have to remove me from the premises before I get myself arrested for trespassing.
"Does it count as trespassing if you lot were, strictly speaking, trespassing first?" I ask with hopes of getting some sort of reaction out of him. Anything would do.
There is nothing. His face does not move from that stern, stranger-like expression. He does not meet my eyes with his so I cannot tell if they held for even the briefest moment a faint twinkle of suppressed laughter, a flare of fury or a tiny twinge of shame.
When we've met before, I always felt I could read him, that he was so easy and open with me that it would be absolutely impossible for me not to see every single thought and feeling written in his face. At least on that was my sense of our meetings when I was not broken, bleeding, concussed and half-drowned or else dizzy and disoriented with sea sickness. On those particular occasions I naturally took more notice of myself and my own troubles than I did of him.
We are out of the mansion and its sprawling grounds and what he must think is a safe distance down the rapidly darkening lane before Haber slows his step. He brings the two of us to a halt and turns me around to face him, asking with his voice full of desperation what I thought I was doing.
"I wanted to see you. I can’t say why but it suddenly struck me that the reason I’ve been so fed up was because I hadn’t run into you at all this week. I thought I must be missing you and I also thought the only way to solve it was to try and see you."
"You are a foolish woman, Erica." I can see him smile. It is a wry, partly despairing smile, but a smile is a smile all the same.
"And you are still a mystery to me, Captain Haber, even when you’re not playing the stern soldier. You have never even told me your christian name and yet you’ll happily use mine when nobody is around to catch you talking to me like I’m a human being."
"You can be Fraulein Gardner again, if you wish. Though I prefer Erica." I see the flash of a real smile before he says, "And I would like to be Leonhard, and not Captain Haber, if you prefer it."
"I do prefer it," I assure him and I lean in towards him as his grip on my arms loosens and our stance together grows more natural. His forehead meets mine as he pulls me closer, looking into my eyes with the last of the daylight dying around us. I whisper his name, careful to get the German pronunciation exactly right. "Leonhard."
I hear the roar of wheels tearing down the lane a second or two before the yellow-white light sweeps over us. I jolt back with the shock of the sudden brightness. Twisting around to look, I try to see behind the blinding headlamps to the black car and its driver. There is no time to move. Somewhere beyond the blackness of my tightly closed eyes, there is a shout in German and a squeal of brakes.
