Custody of the Eyes

May, 479 IC, Odin

“Leigh, can I speak to you for a minute?” Staden asked. Yang was at the front of the SW classroom, juggling all the data disks and papers that had been passed in to him last minute from the engineering cohort. He wasn’t looking forward to grading them, but he would have to, regardless of his personal feelings on the matter.

“Of course, sir,” Yang said. “In your office?”

“Whenever you have a second,” Staden said, then headed out of the classroom, towards his office a few floors up.

Yang finished collating all the messy paperwork and jammed it into his bag, then made his way up to Staden’s office. He knocked on the door. “Come in.” He opened the door, saluted, and Staden waved at him to sit down.

“Was there something you needed, sir?” Yang asked.

Staden steepled his hands on his desk and looked at his rather wan and exhausted looking TA. “Have you been getting enough sleep, von Leigh?”

“No, sir,” Yang said. “But I turned in my thesis this morning, so I should be fine now.”

“Oh, right, I forgot that you’re also in the history cohort.” He squinted at Yang. “I’m not sure how you’ve survived double coursework, working for me, and GMing your little game.”

“That last one isn’t very hard, sir,” Yang said. “Mittermeyer is good but not particularly surprising, so I don’t have to do too much research.”

“It was very kind of you to let him take a turn as ‘Fleet Admiral’,” Staden said with a wry smile.

“He can have the title,” Yang said. “I was never very attached to it.”

“Still, the fact remains: you’ve done an admirable job as a student here.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Staden said, “but I’ve taken a bit of an interest in your career.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“As a teacher here, I do have some sway when it comes to recommending my students be placed in assignments I feel like they will do well in. I felt like this was a particularly important duty of mine, in your case.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, sir,” Yang said. “I’m sure I’ll be fine wherever I’m assigned.”

“I’m not entirely certain that that is true. Besides, I’m not stepping far out of my usual purview. I also helped some of your friends find positions that suited their particular… profiles,” Staden said. “It was a real headache finding someone who was willing to take Eisenach.”

Yang laughed. “He wrote to me a while ago. He’s doing well, so thank you on his behalf.”

“He’s talented, but refusing to talk isn’t going to win him any friends.”

“Apparently, it helps his reputation among the enlisted men. They don’t bother him because they think he’s terrifying.”

Staden laughed. “I am glad to hear it.”

“Are you going to find a position for Reuenthal?” Yang asked.

“No, he’s number one. There will be plenty of people who will take him, and I think that he can carve himself out a niche wherever he ends up. In terms of your other friends…” Staden thought for a second. “Wahlen will be fine. He’s capable and steady, which means that he’ll do well almost anywhere. Bittenfeld, I’ve found somewhere that will keep him constantly busy, which should keep him out of trouble. But you’re not here to talk about them,” Staden said.

“I really don’t need or want special treatment,” Yang said.

“It’s not special treatment,” Staden said. “If I let you loose into the world, and you ended up with a CO who hated you on sight, that would ruin your career. You’re too talented for that to be the case.”

“May I say something, sir?” Yang asked.

“Go ahead.”

“You didn’t like me, either. I’m sure that I would be able to…” He stopped when he saw the look on Staden’s face, a mixture of annoyance and appraisal.

“Here’s an unfortunate fact about the Imperial military,” Staden said. “Not everyone is willing to respect ability. Names go a lot further than they should, and talent often falls short when it comes to earning a person a reputation.”

“I see.” Yang was tempted to protest that he didn’t care about earning a reputation, but he felt that kind of thing would fall on completely deaf ears.

“So, in order to not completely waste you, I have found you a position. Don’t tell anyone about this yet, because postings aren’t supposed to be announced until graduation, but it’s about as sure of a thing as it can be.”

“Thank you for your trouble, sir.”

“It’s no trouble. An old friend of mine, Commodore Merkatz, is in need of an adjutant. You’ll fit the bill nicely, Sub-lieutenant von Leigh.”

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “What’s he like, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Hm. I think it’s hard to get a sense of him. People tend to either love him or hate him, and they decide that immediately upon meeting him. He’s competent, tough, but fair. He should be a rear admiral by now, in my opinion. I think you’ll get along. He doesn’t punish people for showing initiative, as long as it works out.”

“I’ve never had much of that,” Yang said. “Initiative, I mean.”

“I think that is completely untrue,” Staden said. “Just as a personal word of advice, try not to speak so negatively of yourself when you graduate.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve done an excellent job as my TA. I’d say that you will be wasted as a soldier and that you should be a teacher, but perhaps that’s not true.”

“In a fairer world,” Yang said.

“Or just a different one.”

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity, regardless.”

“Hardly. I always have to fight to find people with the patience to endlessly grade postmortems—it shocked me that you were so willing.”

“I enjoy seeing how other people think situations should play out. It’s interesting.”

“You’re a unique man, von Leigh,” Staden said. “I look forward to seeing what you do in the future.”

“I hope whatever it is includes an early retirement and a nice pension.”

Staden shook his head. “My patience for your antics remains limited, I see,” Staden said, which was as clear of a dismissal as Yang had ever heard. “Let me know when you’ve finished grading the last batch. I need to have final grades in by the twentieth.”

“I’ll get it done,” Yang said. He stood, and Staden did as well, reaching out to shake hands.

“Congratulations on your graduation, sub-lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir,” Yang replied.

Yang left Staden’s office and immediately returned to his dorm, where he flopped onto his bed and passed out before he could even pull the blanket up over himself. He woke to a pounding on his door and the hazy twilight seeping in through the window.

“What?” Yang yelled at whoever was knocking. “Can’t a man sleep?”

“No!” Mittermeyer yelled back. “Time to celebrate the end of classes. Open the door before I break it down.”

Yang picked up the nearest book from his desk and chucked it at the door, where it hit with a limp thud. He pulled his pillow over his head and tried to ignore Mittemeyer, who was now speaking with Reuenthal.

“Anyone have a paperclip?” Reuenthal asked.

“In my room,” Wahlen said. “Want me to get it?”

“Von Leigh, open the door before I pick your lock and drag you out of there,” Reuenthal said.

“How do you know how to pick locks?” Bittenfeld asked. There was no response from Reuenthal, so Yang had to assume he was smiling his usual ‘don’t ask me any more questions’ smile.

He realized that his friends were not going to give up, so Yang reluctantly rolled out of bed and opened the door.

“Enjoy your nap?” Mittermeyer asked, looking at Yang’s rumpled uniform and extreme bedhead.

“Of course,” Yang said. “Move.” He pushed through his huddled group of friends towards the bathroom, where he splashed water on his face until he felt like more of a human.

When he emerged, Bittenfeld wrapped his arm around Yang’s shoulder and said, “We are going to Joseph’s to get drunker than we have ever been before.”

“You know everyone else is having that exact same idea, right?” Yang asked.

“We’re seniors,” Bittenfeld said. “We get priority.”

“I—” Yang began, but he was already being hauled away down the hallway.

Joseph’s was extremely crowded by the time they arrived, and while outside the bar the night was the quiet gentleness of late spring, inside the place was hazy and chaotic, filled with students shouting and laughing. There weren’t any tables left, so Yang and his friends all ended up standing around a pool table, the one that nobody wanted to use because one of its legs was shimmed up with six crumpled cardboard coasters. That didn’t stop Mittermeyer and Bittenfeld from immediately setting up and starting a game, though.

“You sleeping in made us late,” Wahlen said to Yang.

“Sorry,” Yang said apologetically. “First round’s on me?”

“That’s more like it,” Wahlen said with a grin. Yang went up to the bar and acquired beers for everyone, pushing through a veritable horde of his classmates to do so. He passed the beverages out.

“What are you going to do without us all when we’re gone?” Reuenthal asked Mittermeyer, leaning on the side of the pool table.

Bittenfeld shoved him. “Get off, you’re making the thing tilt.” Reuenthal ignored him and Bittenfeld gave up, though he glowered at the number two ball that was in fact rolling ever so slowly down the table.

“I think a better question would be to ask what you’re going to do without me,” Mittermeyer said, lining up a shot.

“We’re all going to go on and be wildly successful, while you’re stuck at school,” Wahlen said. “Pity you’re not in our class.”

“Can’t change the star you’re born under,” Mittermeyer said. “Besides, if I was in your year, we’d have to be fighting over who’s number one.”

Reuenthal laughed. “And who would win that fight?”

“Von Leigh,” Bittenfeld and Wahlen said simultaneously. Yang shook his head in protest.

“You wound me,” Reuenthal said. “Pretend Leigh gets stuck at third, just like he’s stuck at second now. Which of us wins then?”

“Mittermeyer would have first, because he takes more classes than you do,” Yang said bluntly. “But it would be a tie in SW.”

“I feel like my honor as first is being impugned,” Reuenthal said, but he was smiling.

“A toast to Reuenthal’s wounded pride, then,” Mittermeyer said and raised his beer. Yang, Bittenfeld, and Wahlen also raised their glasses, but Reuenthal just shook his head.

“Are you going to keep playing our game when we leave?” Yang asked.

“I don’t know,” Mittermeyer said. “I guess I’ll see if anyone else still wants to play next year. It won’t be the same without you.”

“You’ll have to GM,” Yang said.

“I could force Bayerlein to,” Mittermeyer said, but that was an empty threat. He paused. “Man, now you are making me sad that you’re leaving.”

“Tell Staden you want to TA for him next year,” Yang said. “That will keep you so busy you’ll hardly even miss us.”

“You really think I hate myself that much?” Mittermeyer asked.

“Being on Staden’s good side has its perks,” Yang said, thinking about his conversation earlier.

Their talk moved on to less serious topics, and by time he was on his third beer, Yang was feeling warm and light, though tinged with the creeping kind of nostalgia that had the potential to sour the night. There might never be another time like this again, with all of his friends around.

Of course, the relative peace of the night was not to last. In the crowded bar, it was unavoidable that certain other members of the senior class would be around, also getting progressively drunker as the night went on. Gautier and his crew were sitting at the bar itself, far enough away from Yang and his friends that there were other groups of students standing in between, but close enough that they could see each other. They had been shooting the occasional glare over during the entire night, especially at Wahlen, who had managed to cement his spot in the hotly contested third place position.

When Bittenfeld got a little too rowdy and perched himself on the pool table, raising a glass and toasting to the number one, number two, and number three, that was too much for Gautier, and he stood up from his seat, followed closely by Ansbach and Deitch.

Reuenthal just raised an eyebrow at them as they came over. Mittermeyer, who had less personal experience with them, asked, “You here to toast to your valedictorian as well?”

“It’s hardly a position he deserves,” Gautier said.

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked. “And what makes you say that?”

“So many reasons,” Gautier said, shaking his head. “It would be impossible to list them all.”

“Go ahead, start listing,” Bittenfeld said, leaning towards Gautier from the top of the pool table. “But if you say that one of them is because you could beat Reuenthal, I’m afraid I’ll have to punch you for that one.”

“Threatening violence right before graduation?” Ansbach asked. “Let’s not be hasty.”

“I want to hear your reasons,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m curious as to what you could possibly have to say.”

“You really want to know?” Gautier asked. “I suppose I should tell you, since you seem oblivious.”

“Spit it out,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m getting bored already.”

“Reuenthal only keeps his spot because von Leigh put him there and keeps him there,” Gautier said.

Bittenfeld snorted. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m serious,” Gautier said. “Leigh loses to him on purpose, and tells him exactly how to win against everyone else. Maybe he even uses his position as Staden’s little minion to change class grades.” Gautier shrugged, a slick grin on his face.

“You seem awfully confident about something incredibly dumb sounding,” Wahlen said. “Why the hell would Leigh do that?”

“Use your eyes! Isn’t it obvious?”

“Isn’t what obvious?” Reuenthal asked, now with ice in his tone.

“We’ve all seen the way that Leigh looks at you,” Gautier said. “It couldn’t be clearer that he has a little faggot crush on you, and you’ve been leading him on for your own benefit.”

There was a shocked silence from everyone standing around the pool table. Yang’s face flushed, and his hands, holding his glass, suddenly didn’t know what to do with themselves. He couldn’t look at Gautier; he couldn’t look at Reuenthal.

Mittermeyer’s eyes narrowed. Wahlen grabbed Bittenfeld’s arm to stop him from lunging at Gautier, acting as a kind of external self-control.

“You aren’t going to defend yourself, Leigh?” Gautier asked, a shit eating grin on his face. “I see that I’m right, then.”

“It was a shame that Reuenthal was around to rescue you, freshman year,” Ansbach said idly. But that was the last straw for Reuenthal, who lunged across the pool table and grabbed Ansbach by the collar, pulling him forward.

“If I had seen you do it, you would be dead,” Reuenthal said.

“Do what?” Ansbach asked, still managing to keep his composure even when he was bent half forward over the table and unable to escape Reuenthal’s grip.

“He fell on his own quiver, isn’t that right?” Gautier said.

Reuenthal shoved Ansbach back, and he stumbled backwards into Gautier, who caught him. “Still don’t have anything to say, Leigh?”

“He’s not going to dignify it with a response,” Mittermeyer said, glancing at Yang, who still hadn’t quite managed to get his reaction under control. It was all happening so fast, and so loud. He hadn’t ever imagined that he would be so obvious-- enough for Gautier and his crew to pick up-- Yang shook his head.

“Maybe Leigh didn’t mind getting shot,” Gautier said. “After all, he might want to be penetrated by Reuenthal’s arrow.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Reuenthal leapt over the pool table in one acrobatic movement and punched Gautier in the face. He stumbled back, but Ansbach was right there to swing back at Reuenthal, who ducked out of the way and kicked nimbly at Ansbach’s legs.

By that time, Bittenfeld had unmoored himself from Wahlen and happily entered the fray, lunging at the recovering Gautier.

Deitch was closest to Yang, so Yang ended up getting socked upside the head; he had seen the punch coming and had ducked enough to avoid taking it in the face, but his head still snapped sideways and his ears rang for a second. Mittermeyer had made it around the table at that point, and jumped on Deitch’s back, grabbing him in a chokehold.

Though the fight started out as five against three, it didn’t stay that way for long. There were plenty of members of the senior class in the bar, and plenty of them were drunk, itching for something exciting to do, and had grudges against the top members of the class (simply for being the top members of the class). To see Reuenthal lose his composure was something that a lot of people had been wanting for a long time. Not everyone joined in against Reuenthal; some just joined in because they were looking for a reason to punch anybody.

The fight grew more vicious, drawing in more and more of the volatile crowd. Yang focused on not getting hit. For all his hand to hand class practice (hundreds of hours, at this point), Yang still couldn’t hold a candle to anyone else in the bar.

Wahlen smashed a bottle over someone’s head.

Reuenthal and Mittermeyer positioned themselves on either side of Yang, throwing punches in a way that made it look more like dancing than a drunken bar brawl had any right to look. Reuenthal seemed to be untouchable, despite the sheer number of people who came towards him.

Bittenfeld was pretty much lost in the fray-- only his bright red hair could be seen ducking and weaving among the crowd, though he yelled loud enough to be heard over the general din.

The whole thing seemed to last forever for Yang, who was overwhelmed by the chaos of it, but it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before the sound of sirens became clearer and clearer over the shouting crowd.

Reuenthal grabbed Yang’s arm. “That’s our signal to exit,” he yelled into Yang’s ear, then along with Mittermeyer, dragged him forward, barged through the bar’s little swinging service door, and past the partially-annoyed, partially-terrified waitstaff out through the kitchen.

The night air was shockingly cold after the sweltering bar atmosphere, and Reuenthal didn’t let up running until they were quite safely away from the scene of the disaster.

“We lost Wahlen and Bittenfeld,” Yang panted when they came to a stop, somewhere inside Eaglehead park, he thought, though it was hard to tell in the darkness.

“They’ll either get out or they won’t,” Reuenthal said.

“They can’t arrest the entire senior class,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m surprised you ran.”

“They might not arrest everybody, but they would probably have to pick someone,” Reuenthal said, and he glanced at Yang. “There’s an obvious scapegoat.”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “Gautier won’t keep his mouth shut.”

“He will if he knows what’s good for him,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll kill that man.”

“Don’t,” Yang said. “It’s fine.” He was still taking deep breaths, and his words were more to convince himself than they were to convince Reuenthal. His hands were still shaking a little, and he ran one hand through his sweaty hair, as though that could steady himself.

“They’re idiots,” Mittermeyer said. “They obviously don’t know anything. Don’t let them bother you.”

Yang leaned back against a tree, tilting his head back so that the bark scraped the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“What are you apologizing for?” Mittermeyer asked. “They started it.”

“I’ve been nothing but trouble for you since the day you met me,” Yang said. He opened his eyes and was finally able to look over at Reuenthal, face half obscured in the darkness. They shared a brief look, then Yang looked away again, down at the ground. “Punching him on my behalf makes it look like--” Yang began, shook his head, started again. “Don’t let me drag you down.”

“Please, tell me what else I was supposed to do,” Reuenthal said.

“They weren’t suspicious of you,” Yang said. “Now they might use that against you.”

Mittermeyer placed a hand on Yang’s shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about us,” Mittermeyer said. “They aren’t suspicious of anything; they were just saying shit to get a rise out of people. I’m sure they just picked you because you’re the least likely to start a fight.”

Yang looked down at the ground. “They could have said anything else.”

“Yes, exactly,” Mittermeyer said. “They were just--”

“But they didn’t,” Yang said. “They know.”

“They don’t know shit,” Reuenthal said. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang said again.

“There’s nothing you have to apologize for, so stop,” Reuenthal said. Yang looked at him again, this time with a kind of pleading, torn expression. “I’m serious, Wen-li.”

The use of Yang’s real name made Yang abruptly stop, and Mittermeyer looked between the two of them with mild confusion and concern written on his face. There was a moment of silence between them, and then Yang finally said, “I just didn’t think that anyone—that I was—I tried not to.”

“What are you talking about?” Mittermeyer asked. “Calm down, Leigh.”

Yang was a little calmer, now, actually. Something about the way that Reuenthal was looking at him helped. He took a deep breath and spoke slowly, putting the words in order so that he wouldn’t have to say it again. “I didn’t realize I was looking, and I didn’t realize that anyone else could see. I’ve been an idiot. I always have been.”

“Looking at Reuenthal?” Mittermeyer asked. At first, his voice was tinged with amusement, but then he looked between Yang and Reuenthal, and his face fell a little. “Oh.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Yang said. “I would never—”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Reuenthal said.

“Is there something going on that I should know about?” Mittermeyer asked.

“No,” Reuenthal said.

“I don’t know,” Yang said. “No, there’s nothing going on. Not really.” He rubbed the back of his head again and didn’t look at anyone.

“I feel like I’m missing some part of this,” Mittermeyer said. He could have sounded hostile, but he didn’t.

“Before you got here,” Yang said, the words coming a little too easily now, though maybe they didn’t make any sense, “Reuenthal—we almost—but I was stupid about it and nothing happened. I never would do anything to get between you, and I thought I wasn’t, but I guess I’ve never been able to act normal.”

“You almost what?”

“I tried to kiss him while we were both very drunk, during our freshman year,” Reuenthal said, with a flat and unamused voice. “He fell off his desk backwards to avoid me. That was the extent of it.”

“Do you still have feelings for each other?” Mittermeyer asked. He didn’t sound that upset, mostly curious.

“No,” said Reuenthal, which hurt a lot more than Yang had been expecting.

“I thought I didn’t,” Yang said. “But if it’s that obvious to Gautier— maybe I’m just stupid.” He was lucky that it was dark out, because he was sure that his face was beet red with the weird flustered shame that this conversation was bringing up within him.

“It’s okay,” Mittermeyer said, awkwardly patting Yang’s shoulder. “I think Gautier was just talking out his ass and landed on the one thing that would actually upset you. Don’t worry about it.”

Yang shrugged miserably. “Sorry for all of this.”

“It’s fine,” Mittermeyer said again, his voice a little too light. “Seriously, Leigh, I would be a pretty terrible friend if I was bothered by this. You’ve never been anything less than absolutely trustworthy and honest.”

“I just don’t want to cause you any trouble,” Yang muttered, looking down at his feet.

“Getting to punch Gautier is not what I’d call trouble,” Reuenthal said. “I’ve wanted an excuse to do that for a long time.” That hadn’t been what Yang had meant, but he was glad that Reuenthal was willing to change the topic.

Mittermeyer grinned. “He had it coming to him.” A cool breeze swept through the trees, then, shifting leaves throwing new dappled moonlight across the trio. “We probably shouldn’t just stand here all night.”

Mittermeyer threw one arm across Yang’s shoulders and the other around Reuenthal’s back, a true ‘all is well’ type gesture. Yang wasn’t sure how to react, so first stiffened, then forced himself to relax a little. They walked that way until they exited the relative privacy of the forested park, then Mittermeyer dropped his arms out of an abundance of caution, though the three still walked very closely next to each other. The loss of the contact, a physical concession to secrecy, felt worse to Yang than his bruised temple.

“I can’t believe you’re graduating,” Mittermeyer said after a while. “This sucks.”

“We’d all have different assignments, even if we were in the same year,” Reuenthal said, though that was a thin comfort.

“You’re going to stay in touch, right?” Mittermeyer asked, hesitancy in his voice. This was clearly a more loaded question than just simply asking his friends to write to him.

Reuenthal glanced around the street to make sure that there was no one around, then looked down at Mittermeyer and grabbed his hand for a moment. “Of course,” he said.

Mittermeyer smiled, and turned to Yang. “And you’ll write, too?”

“Yeah,” Yang said. “Yeah, I will.”

“Then I suppose I’ll survive my senior year alone somehow,” Mittermeyer said.