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They have these events near the armory. Everything’s near an armory in Schwartzgrad, and especially the banquets—half of them end in arms deals. There’s military advances to be shown off and celebrated. God knows none of these people ever think about anything else.
Radi’s own tank was finished just weeks ago. Just in time. It’s the most impressive thing the Empire’s got—though he’s sure someone else will top it in an instant. All this pomp and circumstance is about egging each other on. Competition breeds excellence or whichever such maxim they use to justify their sociopathy.
He’s fond of the Lupus even so.
He wanders out to see her, when the party exhausts him too much to remain. This one had been more of a trial than usual. Radi’s become very good at society over the years, but this position—so firmly in the prince’s orbit—is new. This position in company, that is. Maximilian’s predatory circling is a familiar feeling—he's been grooming him for this even longer than Selvaria, albeit more subtly. Now it had finally come time to close in. He’d known exactly who to go to, for support on this brazen path of his, and he’d made sure Radi Jaeger would be there when he needed him.
(He would judge the way Maximilian made his friends, but—had Radi not done the same to him?)
He stretches out his shoulders and breathes in the drier air of the armory. When he’s calmed his nerves he’ll go back in. It wouldn’t do, after all, to disappear all night. People will talk about him when he disappears. He’s long since learned to smooth over that inherent suspicion that’s followed him from surrender to servitude, and right now he’s come to a precipice where it matters. He’ll go back. He’ll go back when he can breathe, when he can turn his charm back on again—
He stops. There’s a figure looking up at his tank. It’s a figure he recognizes.
Radi clears his throat.
"Klaus.”
Walz twirls around on his heel to look up at him.
“General!” He salutes with a flourish. “Or—so I hear?”
“You hear correctly.”
“Congratulations.”
The first time Radi was made general, he was fifteen. Flagrantly undeserved, even accounting for nepotism—but it saved his life. They’d known it would save his life. It saved his life, and now he is thirty-four, a Brigadier General of the same army that slaughtered the rest of them.
His rank is well deserved. He suspects his deserving would have gone unacknowledged without Maximilian’s influence.
As he crosses the floor to meet him, Radi arches his brow. “You keep up with me?”
Walz laughs aloud—that smooth, languid bark of his. He winks. “How couldn’t I?”
He’s drunk. He can hold his liquor, but it’s clear enough in the smell of him, the warmth of him. He’s the only one. At these events Radi drinks only enough to be polite. For all these years it had been only the risk that kept him away from alcoholism as a vice entirely. But someone like Walz doesn’t have much worth hiding. Even if he were to bridge his inhibitions, to misstep, to offend someone—what difference would it make?
Radi can’t deny it heartens him to spend time with someone who doesn’t think before he speaks.
Walz turns back to the Lupus, looks up at it with sparkling eyes. “This what they’ve been keeping you busy with?”
Radi follows his gaze. “Sure is.”
“Can’t blame you for throwing me over, then. Would you look at the size of her fucking cannon?”
The largest that’s been made yet. Radi knows Maximilian’s got bigger dreams, but his own dreams are more modest. He’s grateful to have been given custody of this stepping stone.
“I heard I missed her debut,” says Walz.
Radi snorts. He’d been sure Maximilian was doing this tonight as part of his overture—bait on a hook. And Klaus Walz had been too busy with…whatever he kept himself busy with, too much so to even notice.
“But—God, was I mad I did. General Jaeger’s marvelous tank! I couldn’t help myself.” Walz claps his back. “May I?”
“Of course.”
He lopes over toward the Lupus. He moves so exuberantly, so loosely. It’s compelling. Radi’s been hanging around Maximilian for too long.
Light, marveling fingers trailing on the panels, Walz rounds the tank. “Oh—this is stunning, Radi.” He bangs on the back, the armor overhanging above the low radiator. “I can’t stand driving around with a massive glowing target on my ass. Always wished they’d at least try to tuck it in a little.”
Radi shakes his head. “Mobility’s improved, but it risks overheating.”
“Good thing you can handle a little heat, then.” Walz grins wolfishly. “What’s her name?”
“Lupus.”
“Aha—”
He tips his head back and howls. Radi can’t help but smile, even if the embarrassment makes him look away.
“Wonderful. Just a little bit wild.” He hops up, clings onto the turret. “Can I look inside?”
Radi gives him permission with a flick of his hand.
Delighted, Walz cracks the hatch. Radi can hear his whistle echo inside before he extricates himself, shaking out his hair.
“You sure you don’t want some nicer upholstery, though?” he asks, half-teasing. “Can’t let the ladies sit on hard steel.”
Radi chuckles. “I think you may misunderstand the purpose of a tank.”
“The purpose of a tank is multitasking,” Walz replies. “And God knows you get damn bored out there. Keep yourself busy, Radi!”
He sits down on the body of the tank, one leg propped up on the treads.
“Now, when I get them to make me one of these, I’ll make them put in seating. Someplace to relax while I’m risking my neck for the Motherland. Least they could do, don’t you think?”
“Mm. Perhaps.”
“And—” He slaps his hands flat against the painted paneling. “—Flames. I’m thinking flames.”
“Menacing.”
“That’s when you know you’ve made it—the custom fucking paint job. Gorgeous.” He pats the emblem a little more respectfully. “This is very you.”
Radi’s become known this way, he’s sure. The skull guy. Most of them probably can’t place it with any culture or tradition. It doesn’t really matter. There’s no reason to fight it, when he finds so much strength in it himself.
Walz gestures at Radi’s shoulder.
“Can’t believe they let you wear that. With your dress blacks, even—command throws a fit if I undo a button.”
“How often do you try to undo your buttons?”
He pops the top one, folding the lapel of his dress uniform out over his collar with a heavy sigh. “A man needs to breathe sometimes, you know?”
Radi sure fucking knows.
“They let you get away with a lot,” he says. “Once you’re up high enough.”
“He lets you get away with a lot, you mean,” Walz replies, amused.
Radi snorts.
“The little prince sure is fond of you.”
Fond is one way to put it. Probably the most accurate way, considering what passes for fondness with Maximilian. Radi snorts softly even so.
The mention of Maximilian has chilled the air between them. There’s a silence before Walz speaks again.
“I’ve been talking with him tonight, actually.”
He says it with nonchalance, still gazing up at the Lupus, but Radi understands the gravity. He lifts his head.
“Was it you?” asks Walz. “That ran my name up the ladder?”
“No,” says Radi, and it’s true. Maximilian is clever enough to find someone like Klaus Walz himself. But he had known.
(Gentle words in the crook of his neck. A friend of yours, isn’t he, Jaeger?)
Maximilian knows exactly who to take advantage of: the talented few who will never rise without him. Who he can engineer gratitude in. Though Walz is Imperial through and through, he’s got no pedigree to speak of and no manners besides. He’s fabulously clever. But he’s never going to be anything of any consequence, not in the Imperial army. Maximilian had offered him an alternative path.
It doesn’t seem he wants to take it.
“Gallia, is it?”
“…It’s rich,” says Radi. The basest excuse. “We need their mines.”
“Yes, of course.” Walz flourishes a dismissive hand. “Don’t get me wrong; your little prince was very seductive. But he’s got to be, because everyone knows that throwing your lot in with him is insane.”
Radi says nothing.
“Half the court wants him dead, Radi. The other half just wants him out of sight. They’re only letting him have Gallia because he can’t fuck it up.”
It’s true. He can host all the banquets he likes, but Maximilian’s power in the Imperial court is negligible. To become Maximilian’s man is to align oneself with nothing.
(Maximilian needs Radi Jaeger just as much as Radi needs him. Neither of them will ever be anything without the other. They’re both hungry enough to trust in that.)
“Their entire populace is trained in combat from childhood,” says Radi. “It’s not wise to underestimate them.”
“Yes, but their tactical command’s a joke,” Walz replies. “The brass is just as noble and incestuous as ours, without the schooling to back it up.” He looks up into Radi’s face. “You’re wasted on Gallia.”
You’re wasted on Maximilian, he means. All this time, all this work, and now you’re nothing but…his.
At least it’s a nice sentiment. Radi looks back at him, stoic.
“Someone needs to do it,” he says.
Walz hops off the tank. He steps closer. His voice is low when he speaks, his gaze sharp. “…What’s he got on you, Radi?”
He wants to laugh.
What hasn’t Maximilian got on him? He’s known Radi’s only dream as long as he’s known him, and he’s finally figured out how to put it in the palm of his hand. Walz is right. It’s a threat, it’s always been a threat. But it’s generosity too, and that’s the side of it Walz cannot see. He has no idea Maximilian has the power to give Radi what he wants. No one has. That’s the only reason he’ll be able to.
There’s nothing in the world Walz wants that much. That’s why Maximilian’s overture had been respectfully rebuffed. They have a lot in common, Maximilian and Walz, but that isn’t enough. He has no true goal. Not the way that Maximilian does, that Radi does. There’s nothing for Maximilian to give him. He’s a good man with nothing to give his goodness up for.
“I’m clever enough to make my own decisions, Klaus.”
They were young together. Walz somewhat younger, but the only one willing to give a former prisoner the time of day, and back then Radi was taking his friends where he could get them. His friends. Walz had been the first of his colleagues he’d come to consider a genuine one. He had not been the last.
Radi had learnt a lot from those years. Charisma wins hearts just as well as obedience, and he’d watched it. But just as well has its limits. Walz had only ever cared to employ the one tactic. Radi had done everything he could with both.
And here he stands, now, at his little prince’s shoulder.
With Maximilian’s success, Klaus Walz will be in the line of fire. He’ll be rank and file in the Imperial army, on the defensive against their rogue prince, and he’ll die for something he doesn’t believe in. He’ll be just like the innumerable men dragged on to the battlefield from fields and factories and city streets, who want nothing more than safety and prosperity. Pawns whose deaths the both of them oversee as a profession. Radi had hoped he wouldn’t be.
He'd known he would.
"Well, tell him sorry again from me." Walz chuckles. “And I really am sorry. It’s a shame I won’t get to know the illustrious Major Bles any better.”
“A shame for you, perhaps,” replies Radi, matching his easy tone. “A blessing for her.”
“There’s no need to be cruel.”
Walz’s hand flattens warm over Radi’s heart. He leaves it there for a moment, and then he pats.
“Make her happy for me, you hear?”
Radi shakes his head in morbid amusement. The one thing that would make Selvaria Bles happy is the one thing she’s never going to get.
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
“Good.” Walz grins. “I’ll never forgive you if the lady gets bored out there in fucking Gallia.”
“Duly noted.”
They look at each other in the silence after. It’s almost seamless. They’ve both been practicing their smiles since they saw each other last.
“Well—” Walz slaps Radi’s chest once more, like he’s pushing off from it. Fluidly, with a twist of his hand and without a hint of decorum, he bows. “Farewell to you, General.” He bows to the tank. “And to the lady.”
“Take care of yourself, Klaus.”
“I’m the only one of us doing that, aren’t I?”
Radi laughs.
Maybe so.
He watches Walz raise a lazy hand as he goes, watches the sway of his drunken stride until he’s through the doors.
He closes his eyes.