Quantum Chromodynamics

January 485 I.C., Kapche-Lanka

Reuenthal had been taken back to Kapche-Lanka central command and thoroughly chewed out by almost everyone shy of Ovelesser himself. He didn’t mind this, not the yelling, nor the fact that he avoided speaking to Ovelesser directly. After all, no matter how much people may have disapproved of his actions, they couldn’t exactly punish him for them. He and Mittermeyer looked rather heroic, when it came down to it, holding the base against pretty bad odds. Reuenthal hadn’t truly stepped outside of his own authority— he hadn’t been able to contact command— and answering a direct request for aid from an ally was hardly something that could be looked down upon.

Still, Reuenthal knew that the original plan had been to leave Mittermeyer, and all the other construction bases, to their fate. And it was clear that the high command was well aware of that plan, and that Reuenthal’s actions had embarrassed them into acting. Reuenthal was beginning to get a sense of what it felt like to be Yang, he suspected. He was also developing a sharp hatred for the high command, or at least everyone in charge of the operation.

It wasn’t as though Reuenthal didn’t understand that sacrifices must sometimes be made. After all, his charging in to rescue Mittermeyer had cost, in the end, about two hundred fifty of his own men. He could even understand the secrecy in not preparing Mittermeyer and the other construction base commanders of what was coming. If the rebels became aware that the empire knew of their plans, the plans would most assuredly change. But he could not understand why command had been so reluctant to give the order to rescue the construction bases, even after the main objective of capturing the Alliance bases had been totally successful. Were they so callous as to treat the lives of everyone in the construction bases as totally disposable and not worth saving? Did they think that the physical bases themselves were so unprofitable that there was no reason to keep them?

Even with his growing hatred, Reuenthal was very good at keeping his face a smooth mask during these meetings, not giving away any of his feelings about the behavior of his superiors, and answering the questions asked of him with the kinds of answers that he suspected that Yang would have given in his place. He certainly didn’t have Yang’s guileless, honest face, but Reuenthal knew how to appeal to authority, which was a benefit on its own.

When he was done being yelled at, Reuenthal was basically forgotten about, which he didn’t mind at all. He was going to be stuck on Kapche-Lanka for a while, just until the situation on the planet, and in the space around the planet, stabilized enough that they could get crew transports in to shuffle people around. Reuenthal couldn’t say that he minded. He spent his time writing the obligatory condolence letters to the next-of-kin of the dead members of his battalion, then sending them down to those mens’ actual direct superiors to pass along. It wasn’t as though Reuenthal knew any of them particularly well. He had only been in command of them for a few weeks, and he was certain that, as soon as the transfer orders came through, he would not be in command of them any more.

Reuenthal was right on that count: after a few days he received a notice. His promotion to captain, probably the most grudging ‘for heroism’ promotion ever granted, was accompanied by a notice that he was being transferred back to the Ministry of War on Odin. He certainly didn’t mind that. It was unlikely that he would be given a front line position again any time soon, since he had just done something unpredictable, and that was the last thing that anyone wanted in front line commanders, but he looked too good on paper to be sent off to some remote colony. The idea of being back near Yang pleased him.

What did not please him, not exactly, was the message he found in his inbox a few hours later.

I see that you’ve made captain. It doesn’t surprise me, and you deserve it. If you’re not busy, I would like to celebrate your promotion, and also pay back that debt I owe you. I’ll buy drinks, if you want to get some. I understand if you don’t. Anyway, I’ll be in the officer’s lounge in bldg 2 later tonight.

Happy New Year.

Your friend,

Wolfgang Mittermeyer

He didn’t know how to feel about that at all. He hadn’t known that Mittermeyer was even at central command. They hadn’t left his base together— Mittermeyer had stayed to assess the damage, and Reuenthal had left without really speaking to him. He pulled up Mittermeyer’s file and saw that he had also been promoted to captain, a fact that he had failed to mention in his letter, but it didn’t surprise Reuenthal at all. He wondered if Mittermeyer was also being reassigned. He couldn’t tell from the relatively public database he had access to.

Rather than make a decision and reply to the letter, Reuenthal spent some time sewing the new stripes onto the shoulders of his uniforms, doing a very neat job but poking the sewing needle through the fabric much harder than was necessary. He only stabbed himself in the thumb a few times, an injury that he certainly could have avoided if he felt like avoiding it.

When he had finished, he had nothing left to do, and so he stared blankly at the wall of his room for a little while. He thought about writing a message to Yang, but then remembered that Yang would tell him to go talk to Mittermeyer. Why did Yang want that? Reuenthal still couldn’t understand.

He wanted to get drunk. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any alcohol in his room, and the only place to get any would, in fact, be the officer’s lounge. He could pick a different one than Mittermeyer was in, but that felt a little too much like admitting defeat.

Still, he waited a long time before actually going out to the officer’s lounge. He wondered if Mittermeyer would give up on waiting for him, though Mittermeyer hadn’t specified a time in his message. It was late, though, when Reuenthal finally made his way through the odd, inflatable tubes that ran between the domed buildings that made up Kapche-Lanka central command.

There was a strange feeling in his chest as he walked through the halls: a feeling of anticipation mixed with anger that he was trying to stifle into something else. He would have been lying to himself if he said that thoughts of Mittermeyer had not featured heavily in his dreams over the past few days, mixed in with images of swirling snow that morphed into fire when touched with light or blood. Not nightmares, exactly, but intense dreams that had woken him with a feeling that his skin was too-tight for his body, as if he was cracking out of it like a shell. And it was, involuntarily, thoughts of Mittermeyer next to him, swinging an axe, hands and helmet covered in frozen blood, that had occupied Reuenthal’s fantasies, as well. The image had burned itself into Reuenthal’s eyes, and he would need some stronger, brighter light to clean it out. He would forget it all when he was back on Odin, he was sure, or at least be able to put it aside.

He was not able to put it aside now, though, not when he was walking into the lounge, nearly empty for the lateness of the hour, and seeing Mittermeyer sitting alone at the bar, a single, half-empty beer glass in front of him. He was staring vacantly into space, and his hands were loose on the glass. Mittermeyer didn’t notice Reuenthal come in, and Reuenthal almost took that as a chance to change his mind and walk out, but seeing Mittermeyer compelled him to walk forward and take a seat next to him at the bar.

Mittermeyer looked up, startled, and then smiled, the kind of wide smile that Reuenthal had always liked, as though Mittermeyer was pleased, and surprised to be pleased, and even happier for that surprise.

“Reuenthal!” he said. “Congratulations on your promotion!” He flagged the bartender down to get Reuenthal a drink, which he silently accepted. He waited until the bartender had left to say anything to Mittermeyer, and in that silent moment, Mittermeyer’s smile faltered slightly. There was some satisfaction to be gained from that, Reuenthal thought.

“Did you think that I wouldn’t know you got promoted as well? There’s really no need to congratulate me.”

Mittermeyer relaxed a little, perhaps because Reuenthal’s tone wasn’t as poisonous as it could have been. “Well,” Mittermeyer said, taking a sip from his beer, “I certainly don’t know if I deserve mine.”

“Why, were you thinking that you’d end up a commodore instead?”

Mittermeyer frowned a little. “It would be a lie to say that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.” He tilted his beer around. “That’s why I say I don’t really deserve it. I would have been in real trouble without you.”

Reuenthal shrugged and took a drink from his own cup. “You would have escaped,” he said after a long second.

“Yes, into the wasteland,” Mittermeyer said. “Much more pleasant to starve or freeze than to be killed with an axe.”

Reuenthal did chuckle a little at that. “Better to be a living captain than a dead commodore, I suppose.”

“I don’t think there’s any supposing about it,” Mittermeyer said. “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” Reuenthal said. “Forget it.”

“You said I did.”

“Not for coming to the base in the first place,” Reuenthal said. “Perhaps for putting my own career on the line to come, but not for coming in general.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

So Reuenthal explained the whole situation, how Mittermeyer had been set up to fail, and how high command had been embarrassed by Reuenthal taking the initiative, forcing their hand to come and rescue the construction base. Mittermeyer’s mouth was a pinched line, and he tugged at his ear, a weird tic that Reuenthal had never seen in him before. But he was looking at Reuenthal with a steady gaze, and his eyes were wide and appreciatively open. “Maybe I did lose my chance to become a commodore from that,” Reuenthal said as he finished.

That made Mittermeyer frown. “I don’t think so.”

“No? I’m being taken off the front lines.”

“Are you being sent to the frontier?” Mittermeyer asked, sounding genuinely unhappy.

Reuenthal let him stew in it for a second. “No,” he finally said. “Back to Odin.”

“Oh! Well, that’s fine, then.”

“Is it?”

Mittermeyer hesitated. “I’m going back to Odin, too.”

“Congratulations.”

“Not sure why you’re congratulating me now,” Mittermeyer said.

Reuenthal raised his glass. “I failed to make your wife a widow.”

Mittermeyer looked at the raised glass hesitantly. “Were you trying to?”

“Do you expect me to answer that question in a way that satisfies you?”

Mittermeyer shook his head and finally raised his own glass. “To both of us returning to Odin alive.”

“If we must toast to that,” Reuenthal said. “Prosit.” He knocked his glass on Mittermeyer’s.

They drank in silence for a little while. It was an awkward silence, but Reuenthal was glad for it anyway, since it meant that he didn’t have a chance to say anything unpleasant. He thought he was being on his best behavior, though he wasn’t sure that anyone else would agree. He was proving to Yang that he could be both civil and controlled, wasn’t he? But, of course, that hadn’t even been what Yang was concerned with. Reuenthal stared down at his glass, almost empty. Mittermeyer flagged the bartender down to get them another round of drinks.

“How have you been?” Mittermeyer asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Fine,” Reuenthal said.

“Not going to elaborate?”

“I’m not sure what there is to elaborate on. My posting on Odin before this was boring, and I continue to be alive here.”

“Leigh always said in his letters that you were doing well.” He tilted his glass. “I just wanted to hear that from you directly, I guess.”

“And what else did Leigh tell you about me?”

Mittermeyer frowned. “Not much.”

“Oh?”

“Do you want me to tell you that he gives me the day in and day out of his life, and all the details of every time you see each other?” Mittermeyer asked. “Because he doesn’t. He—“ Mittermeyer broke off and shook his head.

“What, then? What does he say?”

“Gods, Reuenthal. He tells me that you’re fine. And then he tells me shit like ‘I will tell him to talk to you, if you want.’”

“And what do you say in response to that?”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “I have not once figured out what I’m supposed to say to that.” He looked down at the scarred laminate of the bar countertop. “Does he tell you to talk to me?”

“Yes.” Viciously, Reuenthal added, “And maybe he’ll stop pestering us both, now that I have.”

Mittermeyer looked away. “Yeah.” There was very obvious pain in Mittermeyer’s voice, and then there was again a long silence between them. This one was more painful than it was awkward. Mittermeyer didn’t look at Reuenthal, but Reuenthal could not help but stare at him, the way his shoulders were slumped slightly, highlighting how he hadn’t yet bothered to sew the new captain’s stripes onto his uniform. Or perhaps he had intentionally not done so, in order to not draw attention to his own promotion. The thought made Reuenthal frown.

He broke the silence. “You’ve been on Kapche-Lanka for a while,” he said. “Do you feel like you’ve gotten used to it?”

“Used to what?” Mittermeyer asked, startled both by Reuenthal talking and by the complete non-sequitur. It had been a question that Reuenthal had wanted to ask since he had arrived on the planet, so it felt like a natural conversation topic.

“The atmosphere,” Reuenthal clarified. “The way it makes you feel like there’s not enough air in the room. The feeling at the back of your mind that something is wrong.” He took another long drink, finishing his glass, and the bartender provided him a new one without comment.

It took a second for Mittermeyer to answer. “I don’t even know if I noticed it, to be honest,” he said.

“Don’t tell me that I’m more sensitive to this than you are,” Reuenthal said. “I couldn’t bear the thought.”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “No, I don’t mean that.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I just— I already had plenty to think about. To worry about. The air wasn’t going to change that either way.”

“Oh? What worries were those.”

Mittermeyer glanced at him with a flat and unhappy expression. “You know very well.”

“It would be presumptuous of me to assume that I was taking up so much residence in your thoughts.”

“You’re right, you would be,” Mittermeyer said. “But it’s not anything that I’m not used to from you.”

Reuenthal chuckled. “Please, wound me more deeply, Mittermeyer.”

Mittermeyer scowled and said nothing.

“So, what was it that was bothering you, if it wasn’t me?”

“I’m not sure why you would care.”

“If we’re going to sit here and talk, then we should sit here and talk,” Reuenthal said. Getting a reaction out of Mittermeyer amused him, or it was at least a feeling he could call amusement. It was close enough.

“You might not understand this, but it is stressful to leave your wife for a long time, to go to the front lines, to do work you feel yourself truly unsuited for.”

“And which part of that do you think that I wouldn’t understand?”

Mittermeyer turned slightly away. “You’ve never once found work that was unsuited to you, have you?”

Reuenthal took another drink. “Unlike you, I have never once pretended that I had any interest in engineering.”

“Yeah.”

Reuenthal raised his glass. “To never having to pretend,” he said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Mittermeyer’s shoulders slumped further. “You have to be cruel, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what’s cruel about the truth,” Reuenthal said. “You seem to have gotten what you wanted. Or am I wrong about that?”

Mittermeyer took a long time to answer. “No.” He didn’t look at Reuenthal. “It was what I wanted.” But there was a clear and unspoken addition that Mittermeyer had not gotten it.

“Was?”

Mittermeyer didn’t answer. They fell into silence once again, until Mittermeyer finally said, “I won’t ever have it, so there’s no point in wanting it. And just the act of wanting it in the first place—” He shook his head.

“I should have realized that you would give up on things so easily.”

“Will you cut it out?” Mittermeyer said. “I’m sorry. If that’s what you want me to say.”

“I don’t want anything,” Reuenthal said. “I’m free of it completely.”

Mittermeyer snorted. “Sure.”

“You say that like it’s a thing that a person is incapable of. It would seem that you have everything that you could want. I didn’t ever think you were greedy.”

“Even your compliments are intended to cut me, I see.”

“Yes,” Reuenthal agreed. “So, what is it that you want?”

“I thought you said you didn’t care.”

“I certainly don’t, but I’m asking out of idle curiosity.”

“I wanted to see you,” Mittermeyer said. “For a year and a half. Maybe eventually I would have given up on it, but then you came— you saved my life and now you’re just here to taunt me about it.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m taunting you.”

“No, you wouldn’t say that.”

“I could be much more insulting. I have a whole dictionary of epithets I could use against you.”

“Seriously, Reuenthal, stop it.”

So he did, falling silent with a shrug. He felt like he couldn’t quite get himself as under control as he wanted to be. But, then again, he had no idea how he really wanted to behave, or what he even wanted out of this conversation. Why had he come? He couldn’t explain it to himself.

He knew what he wanted, actually. He wanted Mittermeyer to have never married his wife, but that was an impossible want. A safe want, for its impossibility. It was impossible, for example, to want to hold the sun in his palm, and so he couldn’t hurt himself trying to achieve it. Wanting the past to change was one thing. Wanting something tantalizingly close in the present was another.

Perhaps Mittermeyer felt the same way.

The ugly silence stretched on between them. Reuenthal was moderately drunk at this point, which was not helping the clarity of his thoughts or his mood. He studied Mittermeyer’s hands as they rested on the bar counter. He was doing a strange little motion, over and over, where his hands would start out relaxed enough, purposefully so, and slowly, over the course of a minute, he would begin to ball them into fists, digging his nails into his palms. When Mittermeyer caught himself doing this, he would reach for his glass, take a long drink, and then set his hands back down on the table: relaxed, deliberate. Reuenthal had always liked his hands, and he was transfixed by this pattern and movement.

“How’s your wife?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Don’t ask me that question.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s no good reason you have for asking,” Mittermeyer said. “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”

Although Mittermeyer had a point, it was a matter of pride for Reuenthal to act affronted. “Perhaps I am asking because I would like to know that you are being taken care of.”

Mittermeyer relaxed a little, some of the tension leaving his back. He turned towards Reuenthal. “I am,” he said. “She’s fine. Great.”

“You miss her?”

“Of course,” Mittermeyer said. “How could I not?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t know if that would be the predominant emotion that I would feel, if I had a wife to be away from.”

Mittermeyer gave him a look. “And are you about to get a wife, or is this more of you talking about things in my life that you don’t understand?”

“I don’t know if one needs a wife to understand the ways in which wives behave.”

Mittermeyer frowned deeply. “Reuenthal…”

“My own mother cheated on my father, you know, and they were living together at the time. I imagine that it’s that much easier when you’re in space.”

“I’ll thank you to stop making insinuations about my wife.”

“I’m not making insinuations. I’m stating the facts: there’s no such thing as a woman that you can trust.”

“I trust Eva.”

“Eva... What makes her so different?”

“She— I trust her. That’s all that you need to know.”

“You might be making a mistake there,” Reuenthal said. “Evangeline. I’m sure she’s no different than any other woman.”

“Keep her name out of your mouth if you’re going to talk about her like that.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal picked up his glass. “I just am trying to prepare you for any eventuality when you go home. After all, I know something of what it’s like.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I do know that two years ago, I went into space, and it wasn’t until I got back that I found out that you were getting married,” Reuenthal said. “It was something of a shock, I can admit. And, of course, we were just friends. I imagine it’s that much harder to learn of what your wife has been up to when you really are married.”

“The two things have nothing to do with each other,” Mittermeyer said.

“No?”

“You don’t have to like her, and you don’t even have to like me anymore,” Mittermeyer said. “But I would appreciate it if you at least gave her the respect she is owed, as a person, and as my wife.”

“A fine speech.”

“She hasn’t done anything to you. If you want to be angry, take it out on me.”

“She’s done something to you, though.”

“And what is that?”

“I think she’s blinded you to the possibility that she is just like every other woman in the world.”

“Of all people, I think your opinion on the women of the world counts the least.”

“I know them well enough,” Reuenthal said. “Mittermeyer.”

Mittermeyer was angry now, his cheeks flushed, and he looked at Reuenthal with his thick eyebrows drawn down over narrowed eyes. “What, Reuenthal? What do you have to say about my wife? Say it, so that I can get it through my head that you’re not worth being around any more, if you can’t even manage to be polite about the woman I do love.”

“Another fine speech.”

“Give one of your own.”

Reuenthal raised an eyebrow. “Oh? You want to know what I think about you and love?”

“Sure.”

“I think she’s tricked you into believing that you have the capacity for it. Maybe she’s using you, maybe she’s glad to have a husband who’s away eleven months out of the year; I don’t know. She’s pretty— I’ll give you that— I can understand you see that in her, at least, but what is there under the surface?” He shrugged, keeping his face still. “Evangeline is full of the same rot—”

At this point, Mittermeyer stood up, knocking his barstool back, and grabbed the collar of Reuenthal’s shirt, pulling him forward and breathing heavily. “I told you to keep her name out of your mouth.”

“And then you told me to talk, so which is it?” Reuenthal smirked a little. He had forgotten what it was like to have Mittermeyer’s hands on him, have his face so close to his own, and it was thrilling. Even though Mittermeyer was ferociously angry at him, if this was the best he could get, if he had to goad Mittermeyer into it, he would take it.

“Take it outside before I call the MPs,” the bartender said, coming over. His voice was bored, but clearly serious. Mittermeyer dropped Reuenthal as though he had been burned, and Reuenthal stood in one smooth motion.

“Fine,” Reuenthal said. He turned on his heel and headed out of the bar, assuming that Mittermeyer would follow him, which he did.

Reuenthal exited the building that they were in, heading out into the actual outdoors, not into one of the connective tunnels. He wasn’t wearing his protective gear, and the cold bit into him like teeth immediately, snowflakes like shards of ice whipping into his face. He walked on the plowed path a little way, then found a place where tank treads had flattened the snow enough to create a walking path out of the protective light circle of the base. He could see Mittermeyer’s shadow lapping at his feet as he walked, so even in the snow-muted silence of the night, without looking back, he knew that Mittermeyer was following him.

By the time that he had gotten far enough away from the base that he was relatively sure that they would not be observed or overheard, Reuenthal was the kind of cold where he could barely feel the surface of his skin. His daily-wear uniform was hardly any protection against the temperatures deep in the negatives. When he turned around to look at Mittermeyer, the light from the base made him appear only in stark silhouette.

“Well?” Reuenthal asked, spreading out his arms, feeling the wind send snow up his sleeves.

“What is your problem?” Mittermeyer yelled, though with the snow eating all the sound around them, it was hardly louder to Reuenthal’s ears than a speaking voice.

“My problem?” Reuenthal asked. “You were the one who wanted to hit me. You might as well take this opportunity!”

“Why do you have to say anything about Eva? Just leave her alone.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I—“

“You what? You’ll kill me?” Reuenthal’s tone was as mocking as he could make it. He wanted Mittermeyer to hit him, so badly that he burned with it.

“I will.”

“Then you should. Every awful thing you could imagine me thinking about your precious Eva, I certainly already have. And it’s only a matter of time before I say them as well.”

Maybe Mittermeyer decided that was enough provocation, or that he didn’t want Reuenthal to start actually going down the list of terrible things that he had thought over the past year and a half about Evangeline, but after a second of silence, he lunged at Reuenthal, sending snow flying up from under his heels as he moved forward, faster than one might expect from his small and sturdy frame.

Mittermeyer swung a punch at Reuenthal, who dodged it just enough that it grazed his shoulder rather than actually landing. Reuenthal struck back, aiming for Mittermeyer’s jaw, but Mittermeyer ducked underneath Reuenthal’s arm, and he missed completely. He didn’t mind.

Reuenthal was sliding forward in the snow a little now, and Mittermeyer elbowed Reuenthal in the side, which was sure to leave a bruise. Reuenthal managed to grab Mittermeyer’s arm, though, and pulled, hard, sending them both tumbling into the snow.

They both scrambled for purchase, tumbling over each other, a tangled mess of limbs and snow in which Reuenthal couldn’t tell up from down, or whether he was hitting or being hit. The snow caked his back, but Mittermeyer was burning hot to the touch. Reuenthal was aflame. Sweat rose to his forehead from the exertion, then froze on his face.

He was breathing heavily, and felt the ache of bruises all over when their frantic tussle slowed enough that Reuenthal could reach up and grab a fistful of snowy hair at the nape of Mittermeyer’s neck. Mittermeyer’s body was pressed onto his, above him, his knee digging into Reuenthal’s stomach, his hands on Reuenthal’s shoulders. His breathing was also rough and ragged, and Reuenthal had bloodied Mittermeyer's nose, the blood dripping down his face and freezing there above his upper lip. They stared at each other for a second, silently, unmoving.

All rational thought had left Reuenthal’s brain long before this point, and he didn’t think he could have put into words anything that he was feeling, either. All he knew was that he probably wasn’t going to get any other moment like this, so he took it. He dragged Mittermeyer’s head down towards his own, pressing their mouths together, tasting Mittermeyer’s blood in his mouth.

The soft sound that Mittermeyer made was almost inaudible, but the way that the tension changed in his body, pressing more firmly onto Reuenthal, and the way that he opened his mouth to kiss said plenty. Reuenthal’s other hand dug into Mittermeyer’s waist, and Mittermeyer’s hands moved from Reuenthal’s shoulders to his face, hot on Reuenthal’s cheeks. Mittermeyer’s knee slipped off of Reuenthal’s stomach, and landed heavily in the snow, so that he was straddling Reuenthal, then pressing their hips together.

After a few seconds, Reuenthal tugged on Mittermeyer’s hair to get him off. “We’re going to get frostbite if we stay out here,” he managed to say.

Mittermeyer made a choked laugh, or something— Reuenthal couldn’t really tell— and rolled off of him, ending up on his back in the snow. Reuenthal missed the warmth of his body immediately. He stood and offered Mittermeyer a hand, then hoisted him back to his feet. They headed back towards the base, brushing snow off themselves as they went, chased by the cold wind.

January 485 I.C., Odin

The practicalities of arriving back on Odin needed to be taken care of before anything else. Reuenthal’s time on Kapche-Lanka had been shorter than he, and everyone else, had expected, so he was rather regretting the fact that he had broken his lease and needed to find a new apartment. He theoretically could have stayed with Yang during this time, but he didn’t even tell Yang that he was back on Odin until he had gotten a new place, which took several days.

He didn’t see Mittermeyer after the point that the two of them had walked off the crew transport together. As they approached the exit of the spaceport building, Mittermeyer had said, “Eva’s going to be waiting for me,” which had made Reuenthal frown and hang back, having no desire to watch their reunion. He hadn’t heard from Mittermeyer again, either, but that didn’t particularly concern him. He assumed that Mittermeyer would speak to him eventually. After all, they had parted on terms that Reuenthal, at least, was satisfied with. He would still prefer that Mittermeyer didn’t have a wife at all, but at this point, he was going to have to live with it in one way or another. He had even managed to grudgingly promise that he really wouldn’t say anything else about her, which was a concession that he could make.

So, it was a while before he texted Yang.

> I’m back on Odin.

> Would you care to get dinner with me and see my new apartment?

> Oh?

> Too lazy to make the trip all the way into the capital on a school night?

> Bad news?

Reuenthal’s frown had been slowly deepening as every message from Yang arrived on his phone. He couldn’t tell really what Yang was feeling. His tone wasn’t exactly hostile, but that was also something that was hard to parse over text. Reuenthal wasn’t sure what he was even going to say to Yang, so it was with an unusual feeling of apprehension that he took the train to Yang’s boardinghouse later that night.

He wore his uniform (though he couldn’t have explained the instinct that caused him to do so) and brought a bottle of wine with him, along with the mug that he had found on Kapche-Lanka (which had miraculously survived the entire trip in Reuenthal’s bag in one piece). He let himself into the unlocked front door of the boardinghouse, then made his way upstairs to Yang’s apartment. He knocked on the door, received no response, then tried the handle. The door swung open.

“Leigh?” he called. Again, there was no response, so Reuenthal walked inside. The apartment was the same general mess that it always was, Reuenthal saw as he stuck his head into all of the rooms to see if Yang was around. He wasn’t, so Reuenthal took a few minutes to gather up some of the outright garbage that was on the floor and coffee table, making the room about twenty percent neater. He also put all the dirty clothes that Yang had left strewn around into his laundry basket. There was a part of Reuenthal that wondered if Yang was actively trying to torture him by having him come to his dirty house to visit, but since Yang just lived like this, and Reuenthal had been to his apartment many times in the past, that probably wasn’t the case.

He sat on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table while he waited for Yang to return, staring into the fire. When Reuenthal heard the click of the door handle, he stood.

Yang was walking in, and hadn’t yet noticed Reuenthal. He was shaking snow off his hat, and peeling off his gloves, a plastic bag full of their takeout dinner hooked over his elbow.

“Wen-li,” Reuenthal said, which startled Yang. He jumped a little, and the door slammed shut behind him, which made him jump again.

Reuenthal smiled.

“I was going to text you that I had left the door open,” Yang said. “But then I realized I left my phone in my bedroom. Glad you figured it out.”

“It’s always good to check if a door is open before assuming it’s locked,” Reuenthal said.

Yang smiled a little. “Yeah.” He handed Reuenthal the bag of food. “I assume there’s no objection to chicken parmesan?”

“None at all,” Reuenthal said. “I brought some wine.”

“Oh, good, I’m sure all of this will be slightly more pleasant when I’m drunk,” Yang said as he shrugged off his coat. He tossed it on the seat of his desk chair and wandered further into the room to peer out the foggy window. While Yang’s back was turned, Reuenthal hung his coat up on the hook.

Yang continued to stare silently out the window while Reuenthal found the wine glasses, then poured them both drinks. He came over to stand next to Yang, who took the glass gratefully, but didn’t drink for a second. He reached his hand up and touched the new stripe on the shoulder of Reuenthal’s uniform, very gently. “See, Captain, I told you that the galaxy would return to spinning on the correct axis eventually.”

“I have to wonder what you mean by correct,” Reuenthal said.

“Mmm,” Yang said, which didn’t mean anything. He tilted his wine glass around a little, then raised it to the light. “To staying warm and alive,” he said.

“Prosit.”

They drank. The wine was good; Reuenthal had not been cheap when he picked it out, and it settled warmly in his stomach. Neither of them said anything for a while, watching the snow drift down outside. Reuenthal hated the fact that the window was so foggy, because it meant that, rather than being able to see Yang’s reflection in the window, all he could see was a vague dark smudge. He wanted to observe his expression, but didn’t want to stare at him openly, not right now.

After Yang drank about half his glass, he said, “We should eat, or the food will get cold.” They sat down at Yang’s rickety table across from each other, and Yang served them both generous portions of pasta and chicken.

“How was your winter solstice?” Reuenthal asked.

“Fine,” Yang said. “I spent it with the Mariendorfs, and then Magdalena demanded I visit her so that she could weep onto my shoulder for about forty minutes.”

“Thrilling.”

“It was. And I saw Admiral Merkatz at a New Year’s party at Neue Sanssouci,” Yang said. “I believe he’s forgiven me for any of my indiscretions.”

“It would be hard not to, after Iserlohn.”

“Well,” Yang said, then shrugged. “It was good to see him. His granddaughter is very cute.”

“What were you invited to a party at Neue Sanssouci for? Baroness Westpfale hasn’t been allowed back there yet, has she?”

Yang laughed. “No, certainly not. It was a fleet function, but I’m not sure who put my name on the invite list. Probably there’s somebody in the Kaiser’s employ whose job it is just to remember what members of the fleet the Kaiser finds tolerable, who wouldn’t look too out of place at a party, and who are in the capital. I at least fit two of those three requirements,” Yang said, voice very dry.

Reuenthal chuckled. “I trust that you didn’t embarrass yourself too badly.”

“No, it was very boring.” He smiled. “It’s a little awkward being the most junior person in the room, and yet only knowing the Kaiser, Duke Braunschweig, Fleet Admiral Muckenburger, and Admiral Merkatz. Not that the duke and Muckenburger like me that much, but I am capable of holding a conversation with them, if I need to.”

“You know, you could solve that problem easily enough.” Reuenthal casually twirled his wine glass around. “You could be promoted.”

“You want me to be a captain so badly,” Yang said. “You should enjoy your own status without worrying so much about mine.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Reuenthal said. He did stare at Yang now, openly, and Yang just sighed and looked at his plate. Reuenthal changed the topic slightly. “I met your friend, Commander Oberstein, by the way.”

“I know. He told me that he spoke to you.”

“Oh?”

“What did you think of him? Mittermeyer doesn’t like him much.”

Reuenthal’s lip curled a little, involuntarily, and Yang raised an eyebrow at that. They had been avoiding the topic of Mittermeyer thus far— Reuenthal was a little surprised he had brought him up, but the look of distaste had not been about that. “I didn’t like him much, but he was right that we have some things in common.”

Yang sighed again. “I think he’s fine. I don’t know why everyone else disagrees with me on that.”

“By your nature, you are remarkably non-judgemental. I am not.”

Yang shook his head. “And what did you learn you have in common with him?”

“A certain measure of loyalty towards you,” Reuenthal said. Yang looked studiously at his wine glass, which was empty. Reuenthal took it from him and refilled it.

“I see,” Yang said.

“And a desire to ensure that you succeed.”

Yang picked up his wine glass. “I suppose neither of you really needed the other’s encouragement to push me about rank,” Yang said. He held his wine glass such that it caught the light of the fire, sending red-on-red illuminations across his arm and hand, spilling down onto the table. “But I assume he didn’t mention my reasons for hesitating.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“To gain power… It’s a complicated prospect.”

“Explain it to me.”

Yang looked up at him, meeting his eyes, which seemed like a rare treat in this conversation. Yang’s smile was small. Soft. “If you like.” He was silent for a second, still holding his wine glass up to the light. “What I told Oberstein, when he asked me why I was hesitating— I said that to gain power here, within this system, it would require using these tools of injustice. To have power is to stand on top of the past. And the past of the Goldenbaum dynasty— it taints any power that they could grant me.”

“That’s what you told Oberstein,” Reuenthal said. “But is it what you would tell me?”

Yang took a sip of his wine. “No.”

“Then what other hesitations do you have?” Reuenthal asked.

Yang was looking away again, at the fire. “Relationships of power are also relationships of trust,” Yang said. “Or, at least, they should be.”

“What do you mean?”

Yang was silent for a moment before answering. “To give someone power over yourself is to trust them not to hurt you, or, at least, if you must be hurt, to use you in service of some sort of shared goal.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Power without that kind of trust is violence.”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with your rank.”

“Everything,” Yang said. He shook his head. “For one thing— there’s no reason for anyone who became my subordinate to trust me.”

“I think there is.”

He shook his head again. “I don’t mean— I know I could prove that I’m competent. That’s not it. That’s part of it, earning people’s trust, but any goals I have, they’re not necessarily the same goals as those who would be under me. It would be an abuse of power, lying to them about trusting me.”

“Wen-li, I’ve just spent enough time with the high command at Kapche-Lanka to know that the vast majority of officers do not spare a single thought for that line of reasoning.” His tone was somewhat poisonous, thinking of Ovelesser’s intent to leave Mittermeyer to die, for no reason whatsoever. “If there’s one thing that I know to be true about you, it’s that if you had men under your direct command, your goal would be to keep them alive, as much as possible.” Reuenthal shook his head, surprised by his own momentary passion. He leaned back in his seat.

Yang smiled a little bit. “Perhaps. Still.”

“That’s not a good reason.”

“And in the end, it’s the same thing I did say to Oberstein. The power would be vested in me by the Goldenbaum dynasty, to be their tool. The army is a manifestation of the state’s power, and it can be used against its own people just as easily as it can be used against the enemy. More, even. And those people, who I would have power over by virtue of having a gun in my hand— they had no say in that.”

“If people had a say in whether a gun is pointed at them or not, guns would be pretty useless,” Reuenthal said, voice dry. “I don’t think this is a good argument.”

“I don’t think that there is an argument that you would find convincing. Oberstein, either.”

“Then why did you pick this one to give to me?”

“I don’t know,” Yang said, though he clearly did. “Because it’s just the way you look at the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oberstein is interested in the injustices of the past, so I told him about that. You….” He trailed off for a second. “You’re interested in power.”

Reuenthal was silent, and raised his eyebrows, looking very deliberately at Yang, who was now awkwardly pulling at the hair on the back of his head, clearly made somewhat uncomfortable by the conversation topic, even though he was the one who had brought it up. Reuenthal wanted to know what he was thinking. “In what way?” Reuenthal finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Yang said. He looked away, at anything but Reuenthal. “It’s just the way you relate to people.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No,” Yang said. He sighed. “No.”

“Oh?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“It’s like I said— I— you trust me.”

“And you think that you have power over me?” Reuenthal asked.

Yang closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “Oskar.”

“What?”

“You gave it to me,” Yang finally said. “Any power that I have.”

Reuenthal was silent, waiting to see if Yang would say something else. He did, after a long moment, filling the silence, given space in which to explain himself. Reuenthal listened attentively, watching Yang’s neck, his head still tilted far back.

“The trust that you have in me,” Yang said. “I—” He shook his head a little, as though he was trying to clear out his thoughts. “It’s… important… to me. And I wouldn’t want to ruin that.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t?” Yang asked, and now Reuenthal detected a hint of bitterness in his voice. “I wish I could be so sure.”

“What do you think you’re capable of doing that would make me not trust you?”

“I can think of many things,” Yang said after a second. There was silence between them for a moment.

“If you think that I’ve given you power over me, don’t you think you should use it?” It was a loaded question, and Reuenthal realized that he was holding his wine glass very, very tightly. He relaxed, deliberately.

Yang brought his head back level to look at him, then stood, apparently done eating. He took his wine glass with him as he went to sit on the couch, in front of the crackling fire. After a second, Reuenthal joined him, though they weren’t sitting close enough to touch. He brought the wine bottle, now half empty, as well as his own glass.

“Tell me about Kapche-Lanka,” Yang said. It was a command, but like any command that Yang gave, Reuenthal knew that he could refuse it.

“What do you want to know?”

Yang stared into the fire. “Just… tell me about it,” Yang said.

“It’s a miserable place,” he said after a second. “You would hate it there.”

Yang let out a huff of laughter. “I’m sure.”

“It’s so cold there, the moisture from.your breath freezes around your nose. And the air is poisonous. Too much carbon dioxide. You feel like you’re trapped in an enclosed space, even when you’re out in the open, with nothing but snow as far as you can see, and further. It’s so… empty.” He shook his head. “Do you know anything about what the operation was like?”

“A little. But I’d like to hear you tell it.”

So Reuenthal told him about it, the first mission, to capture the base, being in command and killing for the first time, how easy it had been to take the place, the receiving Mittermeyer’s distress call, then the long journey to rescue him, and the grueling fight to hold the base.

“Mittermeyer said he was glad to have you there,” Yang said, interrupting Reuenthal for the first time.

“He thinks he would have died without me, but I don’t think that’s true.” He paused for a second. Yang had told him to tell him about it, “I was glad to be there, though,” Reuenthal said. “I had forgotten what it was like to…” He trailed off.

“Yeah,” Yang said. “I get it.” There was a moment of silence between them. “Then what happened?”

“I was recalled to central command, and yelled at,” Reuenthal said. “I think I took some pages out of your book.”

“Am I being a good influence or a bad one?”

“I have no idea,” Reuenthal said. “I think that would depend on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you. I don’t care what your COs think.”

Reuenthal chuckled a little. “A good one, then.”

“All right.”

“I got a promotion for heroism.”

“At least it’s a deserved one.”

“If you say so.”

“I would have done the same thing, if I were in your place.”

“The exact same?”

“Oh, probably not. But I would have gone to help.”

“Yeah.” Reuenthal stared into the fire. “You would have never forgiven me if I hadn’t gone.”

“And, what, left Mittermeyer to his fate?”

“Yeah.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I thought about it.”

“The wonderful and terrible thing about thoughts,” Yang said, “is that, generally speaking, they can’t change the world until you act on them.”

“Perhaps.”

Yang made a kind of noncommittal sound, then after a beat, said, “You haven’t told me what I want to hear.”

Reuenthal refilled Yang’s wine glass. “You seem to already have some idea of what I might say.”

Yang’s voice was light. “Tell me what happened between you and Mittermeyer.” It was a command, again. Yang was exercising the power that he did have, and Reuenthal complied.

“He invited me out to drink, to celebrate my promotion,” he began. “Or, at least that was what he said. I didn’t want to go.”

“But you did.”

“I did.”

“And then?”

“I spent a lot of time being extremely rude to him,” Reuenthal said. “Did he tell you that?”

“No.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

Reuenthal shrugged. “Stupid reasons. I was still angry at him. I wanted to make him angry at me.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.” Reuenthal finished his own drink. “We had a fight, almost in the bar, but then we went outside.”

“Who won?”

“Mittermeyer.”

Yang waited silently for Reuenthal to continue.

“And then we had sex,” Reuenthal said, voice very flat and neutral.

“I figured.”

“Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“It’s better than you lying, or just not telling me,” Yang said with a shrug. He sounded tired, rather than upset, but he wasn’t looking at Reuenthal as he took a sip of his wine. “Though I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“What do you want, Oskar?” He turned towards him then. “What are you here for?”

“I don’t know.” And that was the most honest thing he could have said. What did he want? He hated the feeling of things falling out of his hands. He had hated letting go of Mittermeyer, and he would hate for Yang to push him away over this. “What do you want?”

Yang sighed, then looked away. His voice was even tireder now. “It’s not like I couldn’t have predicted this would happen. I told you before that I would like you to be happy. That’s still true.” He had a bit of a wry laugh. “I’m not going to speak one way and act another, at the very least.”

“Order me to not see him again.”

“Why would I do that?” Yang asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, Oskar…”

“Wen-li.”

“Can I say something?”

“Please.”

“Let me ask you this right out, then. Are we finished?”

“It seems strange that you’re asking me that question. It seems like it’s you who would make that choice.”

Yang shook his head. He seemed to be fumbling for what to say, rubbing his head again. “Mittermeyer is still married.”

“Did you think I’d somehow forgotten that fact?” Reuenthal’s voice was slightly more vicious than he had intended.

Yang just glanced at him. “No.”

“Then why are you reminding me?”

“Because I’m trying to figure out… Nevermind.”

“What?”

“He has commitments,” Yang said. “Which, well, Mittermeyer has a lot of complicated thoughts about how to honor those commitments, I’m sure, but what I mean is…” He seemed frustrated, but mostly with himself. “I’m just saying that he’s not going to be… always around. I assume.”

“Probably,” Reuenthal said, through gritted teeth.

“And I don’t know. Maybe you want… There’s an appeal to what he has with Evangeline.”

“I’m not going to marry a woman,” Reuenthal said, surprised that Yang was suggesting it out of the blue. He would have probably been angry, if he hadn’t been so startled.

Yang rubbed his face. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean just… the rest of it.” Reuenthal was silent. “I’m not doing a very good job here, am I?”

“It’s fine.”

Yang was looking down at his hands. “I mean to have a home, and a life that you can share with someone else. It would be nice.”

Reuenthal frowned and said nothing.

“But that’s not— it’s not possible. Not from Mittermeyer, not from me.” He sounded miserable. “But, you know, there’s whatever’s left if you can’t have that.”

“I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.”

Yang closed his eyes. “What I’m saying, I guess, is that I don’t care what you do with Mittermeyer, if it makes you happy. I’ll ignore it, or I’ll be happy for you, or whatever you want.”

“Should I thank you?”

“Stop it,” Yang said. “Let me finish.” He took a breath. “And if what Mittermeyer can give you isn’t… enough…” He trailed off and shrugged, clearly very unhappy.

There was silence, then, “I can’t tell what you want, Wen-li.”

Yang shrugged and said nothing.

“Do you want to be with me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Yang asked.

“No.”

He still wasn’t looking at Reuenthal. “Yes, then,” he said. “Of course. Yes. But not— not if you would rather have… something else. Not if you’d be happier.”

“What gave you the impression that I would be happier without you?”

“I don’t know,” Yang said. His whole posture was very stiff, curled up on the couch with his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around his knees. He had put down his wine glass on the coffee table and was staring into the fire.

Reuenthal reached towards him, hesitated, unsure of where to put his hand, and ended up somewhat awkwardly stroking down the top of Yang’s head, fingers tangling in his thick, black hair. Yang let out a little rush of breath.

“I wouldn’t be happier to not have you,” Reuenthal said.

Yang nodded, silently, and Reuenthal stroked some of his hair behind his ear, quiet for a moment.

“I brought you something,” Reuenthal said after a second.

Yang turned to look at him, a very odd expression on his face. “What?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Reuenthal said. “It’s just something I liberated from Kapche-Lanka.” He was trying to lighten the mood.

Yang caught his tone and let him. “Liberated, I’m sure, is a very polite euphemism.”

“Are you going to report me for looting?” Reuenthal asked. Yang managed a chuckle.

“What is it?”

Reuenthal reached behind the couch and fished around in the bag he had brought the wine in for the mug. It wasn’t wrapped or anything, so he just handed it to Yang.

“I went to El Facil and all I got was this lousy mug,” Yang read aloud, voice very flat.

“You don’t like it?” Reuenthal asked. “I figured you should have a souvenir.”

“I went to El Facil and all I got was accused of treason,” Yang said.

“To be fair on that count,” Reuenthal said. “You definitely did do something resembling treason.”

Yang stared at the mug in his hands, turning it around and around for a moment, then laughed a little. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. I’m amazed it survived the journey. I had to retrieve it from a tank that was hit by rocket fire, you know.”

“The universe really was conspiring to help me have this piece of dishware,” Yang said. “I’ll have to be sure not to drop it.”

Reuenthal reached over and took the mug back out of Yang’s hands, placing it on the coffee table next to the wine bottle. “Certainly.”

Yang leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes, relaxing his posture somewhat, letting his legs fold down to the side rather than being up near his chest. Open. Vulnerable, maybe. Reuenthal just looked at him for a moment, then put his hand on Yang’s thigh, leaning towards him.

“Well?” Reuenthal asked.

Without opening his eyes, and with a slightly grumpy tone in his voice, Yang said, “You know, Oskar, another reason why I don’t spend all my time telling you what to do is that I’m too lazy to bother.”

“You wound me,” Reuenthal said, but he reached his other hand towards Yang’s cheek. Yang smiled, a little wanly, and did not seem surprised when Reuenthal leaned in to kiss him.