Work Text:
The story opens with a device that pushes a lot of my buttons: a scene is clearly described, but we don't know exactly what's going on because we're given ambiguous or even misleading clues. It's up to us to piece the evidence together as we read. This technique is particularly effective for a fandom of spies, missions and investigations such as Eroica.
If you also enjoy figuring out the pieces of the puzzle, you should read the story first, because the review contains spoilers. I'm leaving some spoiler space to help you (link above).
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
The first word of the story is Klaus's rank: he's now a Colonel. So we know time has passed. Klaus is attending a Catholic funeral; he delivered a sombre eulogy. He thinks that this funeral is different from all the others he's attended; he feels "empty." Klaus looks at the cross placed on the grave. It bears the name 'von dem Eberbach.' We're now on the edge of our seats. Who died? The following line is Klaus's direct thoughts. I quote:
What words of wisdom do you have for me now, Father?
How many hundreds of times had he heard the same thing? “When I was your age, I was of higher rank. And married.”
What advice do you have for me now?
I came to the conclusion that the funeral was Klaus's father's, and I kept thinking it through the next few scenes. Time enough to develop feelz and contemplate them. Watch poor Klaus, feeling empty and shocked at his father's death. Follow him go through the grieving process. Speculate when Dorian will show up to console him.
However.
The following Sunday, Klaus visits the grave again, and who walks up from behind but his father? Klaus is angry, and takes it out on Eberbach senior. Quote:
“Go on, say it,” Klaus challenged. “When I was your age, I had the same rank and was also a widower.” He turned to look at his father, his eyes blazing. “Only your son lived.”
Klaus’s father could not have looked more hurt if he had been physically struck. His mouth dropped open, but he found himself at a loss for words.
“What will you be telling me now? That I should re-marry, the way you didn’t!”
“Klaus!” his father snapped.
“No, I’ve heard enough,” Klaus spat back. “I did what you’ve been pushing me to do since I was eighteen. Don’t talk to me about this again. Ever.” So saying, he strode off, leaving his dumbfounded father staring after him.
After a few whirrs, my brain came up with a new set of conclusions. Klaus's a widower and his son died. We're glimpsing quite a lot of back story we're not given yet. We're still hooked, and the story is doing a really nice work of reeling us in gradually.
In the next scene, Dorian does show up to console Klaus, but the situation is rather different from the one I'd envisaged. I'm quoting the full scene here, because I loved it; it's got so much information packed in such a small space, and conveyed entirely through dialogue.
“What the hell are you doing here, Lord Gloria?” Klaus demanded as he stormed through the cemetery.
Eroica rose to his feet, meeting the attack head on. “I’m merely paying my respects, Colonel.”
“Respects my ass,” Klaus snarled. “Didn’t you give me enough grief before I was married? Now you come to pester me again! I just buried my wife and son—” He broke off and closed his eyes. My wife and son, he thought, feeling the hole within him open again.
“I apologized for that years ago,” Eroica said gently. “Mercedes accepted it. Why can’t you?”
“Because my wife didn’t know you as well as I do”
“Colonel, I’m not here to fight with you.”
Klaus glared at him. “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see you—”
“You son-of-a-bitch. Have you no sense of decency? You’re lucky we’re in a cemetery. Otherwise I’d deck you right here and now.”
Eroica gave the man before him an odd look. “Did you love her?” he asked suddenly.
Klaus was completely thrown by this. “What the hell kind of a question is that?”
“A normal one. She loved you. Absolutely and unquestioningly.”
Klaus stood staring at the Earl in a stunned silence. “How the hell would you…?”
Eroica gave a small smile. “She told me.”
“What?” Klaus struggled to get hold of his thoughts.
“Your wife was the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known.”
“What?”
“Can we go somewhere where we can talk?” Eroica asked calmly. “You need to know a few things that Mercedes never told you.”
My expectations have been thoroughly confused again, several times. Dorian is sad at the death of Klaus's wife Mercedes: he knew and liked her. He'd apologised to her for pursuing Klaus. Dorian also knows things Mercedes'd told him in confidence, and is handling with equanimity the fact that Mercedes had loved Klaus very much. The first chapter ends on a hell of a cliffhanger.
*
The second chapter opens with a flashback. We're now in Dorian's point of view, just after Klaus's wedding. Dorian runs into Klaus's "Amazonian" wife; she confronts him—"her expression as hard as her husband's"—and wants to talk to Dorian about his relationship with Klaus. More expectation-confounding is going on. And it's not just me whose expectations have been confounded. Mercedes thinks Klaus married her because she looks like a female version of Dorian, and that they're using her to hide a relationship.
Dorian's taken aback; hadn't really clocked how much the two of them look alike—which I found surprising, given his narcissism. Unless it was a form of selective blindness? Even more surprisingly, this version of Dorian has given up on pursuing Klaus once the man got married. I asked myself why and how: Dorian never stops at anything in his pursuits, but in this case he did. We're not given any reasons; we can see he's not happy but he's also being rather matter-of-fact about the situation. Resigned. When Dorian tells Mercedes that Klaus and he have never been lovers, there's a further twist: Mercedes is upset, not relieved. She's almost in tears, but she leaves without making a scene.
A few weeks later, Mercedes shows up again. She's waiting for Dorian. A little throwaway line sent me skittering towards a rather kinky speculation: "[Dorian] had no idea how she knew where to find him and looked around, wondering if her husband were lurking in the shadows." Does Klaus have a hand on the meeting? What for? Is there a threesome on the make? Are they messing with Dorian's mind? Is it a trap, and there will be blood, gore and Dorian's head on a platter? But Mercedes is alone and Klaus knows nothing about her actions. The opening lines of Dorian's and Mercedes's dialogue are excellent. Mercedes is blunt and sarcastic; Dorian is depicted accurately and perceptively in just a few brushstrokes. Quote:
“If I didn’t know better,” the Earl said calmly as he strode up to her, “I’d think you were stalking me, Frau von dem Eberbach.”
“Listen to the pot calling the kettle black,” Mercedes replied as she got to her feet. “I need to speak with you again, Lord Gloria.”
“About my non-existent relationship with your husband?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Dorian sighed heavily. “Fine. If you don’t think it’s inappropriate, we could go to my room.”
“That will be fine. I don’t think I’m in any danger of being attacked by you, am I?”
In the room, Mercedes comes up with a few bombshells. She informs Dorian that Klaus loves him, not her, even if Klaus is not emotionally articulate enough to realise any of this. Klaus picked a substitute and married out of duty. Mercedes also says that she loves Klaus and she wants Dorian's help to make Klaus happy: not first hand, but close enough. Mercedes wants Dorian to teach her what to do to win Klaus—including in bed. The scene is long, packed with all sorts of emotions and realisations, and it ends with Dorian and Mercedes striking a deal. The unlikely beginning of a beautiful friendship?
*
The following section, chapter three, features Klaus and Mercedes in bed. She's driving. (Mercedes jokes are scattered in several places in the story.) It's just the two of them, but it turns out that my speculations about threesomes was not entirely wrong. Dorian's not there, but his presence is vividly felt in the bedroom: both parties bring him up, either in rage or in gratitude. Mercedes is following Dorian's suggestions, and it's working extremely well. Klaus and Mercedes had had sex before, but it's implied that they didn't find it very exciting. We are shown now that Klaus likes very very much to submit to a forceful, dominant lover. Mercedes blindfolded and tied him up as he was sleeping, and is now having her way with him. They may not realise it, but Dorian is on their minds while they're having mindblowingly hot sex. Which is… interesting.
*
Chapter four takes us back into the story's present. We're in front of Mercedes's grave, and Dorian just finished recounting past events to Klaus. Dorian concludes by saying that he and Mercedes corresponded for five years, from when they first met until her death, and he kept giving her advice. Klaus doesn't kill him, but it's a close thing. Quote:
Eroica pulled the papers from his coat and held them out. “Before you even ask, I didn’t bring the…intimate ones.”
Klaus’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because I was sure you’d want to kill me if you read them.”
“I already want to kill you.”
Eroica sighed heavily. “Just read those.” He got to his feet and gave Klaus a steady look. “Your wife was the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met, Colonel,” he said quietly. “She was also a very good friend. I’m not ashamed to say that I loved her as a friend.”
Klaus looked up in surprise.
“I shall miss her.” With that, Eroica turned and left.
Klaus goes home and reads Mercedes's e-mails. She's not pulling punches. The mails outline the very peculiar web of relationships between the three characters. Mercedes tells Dorian: "I can’t help thinking of you as my other husband. Is that weird?" Dorian gives her advice on sex, fashion and party etiquette. Mercedes recounts the sex in detail; hints at the fact that what she and Dorian are doing is not always easy or plain sailing; quarrels happen; they mark anniversaries; they both know they're effectively sharing Klaus; and that Klaus is happy. Here's one of Mercedes's e-mails to Dorian:
-- I just wanted to thank you again for your phone call. You are such a dear man. Klaus says that you’re an idiot, which I’ve decided is his way of saying, “I love you.” LOL I’m so glad we were able to become friends. I love you dearly.
The mails chronicle five years of their life, including Mercedes's numerous attempts to give Klaus an heir, all of which ending in several miscarriages. The mails also tell us what happened in the end. Heart sinking, Klaus realises that a pregnant Mercedes wrote her last e-mail the day she, and her baby, died in childbirth.
-- Just a quick note, Daddy Dorian! I think I’m in labor. Our Klaus is on the way home and I’ll probably be going to the hospital as soon as he gets here. The doctor wanted me to come in when the contractions were closer together, but you know how impatient Klaus gets. I’ll let you know how everything goes. I’m going to give you the full details of my labor and delivery. I think it’s only fair, since you had so many of my attempts at conception. I love you. And thank you again. Together, we finally managed to make our Klaus a happy man.
Klaus has a lot to deal with. As usual, it all comes out as anger. When Dorian seeks Klaus again, they have a good fight. They also realise that they still have some blind spots. Will surprises never end? I quote:
“Don’t you dare!” Eroica snapped. “The only reason you married that lady was to make your father happy and produce an heir. You didn’t love her! You never loved her!”
“That’s not true!” Klaus thundered back. This admission stunned even him. He stood staring at the equally stunned Eroica.
“So you did love her?” Eroica challenged.
“I don’t…” Klaus’s eyes turned cold in a blink, his voice hardening. “Do you really expect me to forgive this?” He threw the papers at the Earl’s feet.
“Colonel—Klaus,” Eroica said firmly. “I love you. I will probably always love you. For a short time, I was able to help make you a happy man. Why can’t you accept that?”
“And then what?” Klaus snarled. “You would have me believe that I married to hide the fact that I’m a pervert like you? That my wife became you for me so I could—” He gave a shudder but pressed on. “So I could have you without feeling guilty.”
“Exactly.”
Klaus literally drags Dorian to Schloss Eberbach, and gives him the tour of the castle. I'm not 100% sure what Klaus's motivations are, and I suspect neither does he. They end up in the nursery. The room is ready but never used, which is very sad. Klaus and Dorian fight. Dislodged by the melee, a DVD turns up, addressed to "Daddy Dorian;" it contains Mercedes's message from beyond the grave. She tells Dorian:
“Thank you for all your wonderful advice over the years. You truly were my second husband, weren’t you? I can see why Klaus loves you, even though he’s too thickheaded to admit it. I hope I loved him adequately enough for you, you darling lunatic.”
The message as a whole is extremely upsetting, and not a little disturbing. It affects both Dorian and Klaus deeply, and pushes them into each other arms and from there into bed. Was the message a totally honest outpouring, or was there some calculation, too? This is what Dorian thinks, and I quote:
Who’s giving advice to whom now? Dorian thought later as he used every trick Mercedes had described to drive Klaus mad with pleasure for the first time. And again, and again. Christ, the man had stamina! She never mentioned that!
Klaus opened his eyes to see Dorian watching him. Not for the first time, he called him by the wrong name, not that Dorian minded. Mercedes had, after all, been acting in his place. She must’ve done an excellent job, for Klaus to mistake the two. Is that why you fell in love with her?
The story ends with the relationship literally set in stone; Mercedes's headstone. Klaus and Dorian contemplate the new engraving, which says:
Mercedes von dem Eberbach
Beloved Wife of Klaus
And Dorian
"What Advice Do You Have" is a complex story, where the characters end up out of their usual comfort zone and have a lot to deal with. And so do I, to be honest. The story includes some tropes and techniques I really like, and some I struggle with. I really enjoy the 'character A has to watch character B marry someone else' scenario: it's got a lot of potential for angst and pining. On the other hand, I struggle with (writing and reading) OFCs and threesomes, and I don't read het. Of course the story isn't really het, but I still have to do some squinting.
Technically speaking I loved the way we're kept guessing, information is rationed and sometimes misleading, and a lot of space is left to the reader's speculations and imagination. I really liked the initial scenes; Klaus's characterisation is perfect. I was also intrigued by the way the story went against the grain of some of the Eroica fanfic's conventions and canon—in some ways it reads more like RL, or at least original fiction. There's angst, which I always like, and the unorthodox dynamics of the relationship drew my attention. On the other hand, I found the Dorian in this story much more generous, selfless and level-headed than the Dorian in my head-canon. Mercedes is not a simpering weakling, a victim, or a dupe, and she's a lively, intelligent adult woman. However, I found her a little too good to be true, and ultimately self-sacrificing to a degree I found disturbing—for such a realist and matter-of-fact woman specifically, and for what that implies about family values in general. I am still debating what is the respective percentage of conventional and unconventional and of normative and transgressive in the mix.
Overall, a cleverly and skillfully written story, which tackles an unusual scenario, and engages the reader ably. I personally struggle with some of it, but I was willing to be convinced, at least for the duration of the story.