Note: The chapters themselves don't adhere to any unified timeline, nothing which happens in one will be dependent on something having happened in an earlier chapter. At some point I might be tempted to follow up the events of one chapter in a later installment, but for now it's safe to assume everything stands alone.
Axis
Claus was beside his bunk before he realised it had happened. At once he turned on his heels, staring at the open doorway, his heart fluttering inside his chest, not quite able to articulate what had seized upon him. Even as he looked around and saw nothing was amiss the vague, formless suspicion stayed with him. He listened, unable to hear anything but the low mechanical heartbeat of the ship. Quietly, as if he were trying not to draw attention to himself, he worked the buttons at the front of his uniform and lowered himself onto his mattress, still watching the door out of the corner of his eye.
It was a minute or so before he made a show of shaking his head and went about undoing the laces on his boots and setting them to one side. He stretched his legs out until the muscles ached, curling and uncurling his toes, his hands squeezing the metal frame of the cot until the edges bit into his skin as if by this accumulation of small, physical sensations he could drown out the dreamlike quality of his anxiety. The red marks were still there on his palms when he made himself stand up and ease the door to.
The usual relief of having finished his work had been spoiled, he reflected, lying back on his bunk. In spite of being tired he was agitated, the thought of several hours spent inert in his bed held no attraction for him, and it was all he could do to resist the urge to get up and begin pacing around. Gradually though his mind wandered. The fatigue in his limbs began to win out, creeping into his mind and making his thoughts soft and indistinct.
It was as someone went past outside and made him flinch that he remembered. He was alone. Somehow he was alone. All the way from the hangar to the cabin he hadn't seen anything of Dio, not even a cursory word, let alone the usual all-out attempt to waylay him. Suddenly it felt important to sit up, to put his boots back on. Without them, sprawled out on his bed like he was he felt strangely vulnerable, though against what he couldn't say.
Quickly Claus buttoned his overalls back up to the collar and began fumbling at his laces, watching at the door for some sign of the boy. Two untidy knots later he paused, listening again, almost puzzled when nothing happened, not quite able to believe Dio hadn't appeared. It had become almost an article of faith that Dio would turn up at the worst possible moment for him. For him not to have taken advantage of this opportunity was unsettling. While he couldn't quite believe the danger had passed entirely more and more he was coming to accept that Dio was not lurking somewhere waiting to pounce on him.
His mind worked over the possibilities. Dio was ignoring him. Claus realised with alarm that amongst the relief and apprehension was an unmistakeable note of disappointment. Before he could arrest his thoughts a spark of bitterness welled up inside him and promptly disappeared like a soap bubble bursting. He felt his skin prickle. His face was flushed. Instinctively he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. In the same movement he had stood up. One hand reached into a pocket, found it empty, turned back on itself blindly and ended up awkwardly cradling his waist.
The urge to do something, to suddenly lose himself in some mundane act became unanswerable. He began straightening out the sheets on his bunk before simply standing beside his own bed felt incriminating in a way he couldn't explain. The entire cabin had become infected with the same atmosphere; it was too intimate, too personal a place to be right now. He couldn't reckon with whatever it was he was feeling in the same place as he undressed and slept.
When he was outside in the corridor he shut the door behind him and began walking. After a few moments he felt better. The dull sound of his footsteps on metal, the smell of machinery, the occasional sense of movement that swept through the vessel like a wave and made him sway to catch his footing - it was like waking from a dream and being reassured to find himself back amongst solid objects again. He spoke briefly to several crewmembers he knew by sight, inquiring as casually as he could after Dio, but none of them could tell him anything.
It was only after he had been gone a good ten minutes, making his way as tortuously as he could toward the stern that he considered going back to his cabin and sleeping. The confrontation he had been reluctantly building to hadn't occurred, he hadn't found Dio, and he was no less tired for the effort. Even so he hesitated at the thought nothing would have changed by the time he got back.
Claus turned aside into a storage room in order to be alone with his thoughts and swore at himself, increasingly frustrated with how he was acting. He would find Dio and settle the matter, he decided. Five minutes in the company of that boy would be like an innoculation against this strange, dangerous fondness for his attention. Then he could give himself up to unconsciousness, whole.
Whatever else, Dio had been busy. Claus finally discovered him in a room near to the claudia unit where he was conducting himself in such a subdued manner that Claus initially walked straight past him. When he realised what he had done, half a dozen steps later, he stopped dead and waited for the boy to appear, a knot in his stomach. Nothing happened. Besides the hum and rattle of the ship around him there was no sound, no pad of approaching footsteps. As circumspectly as he could Claus retraced his steps back to the doorway and peered in.
Dio was leaning over a broad metal crate that came to about waist high, his attention taken by an immense roll of yellowing paper which he had stretched out over its surface. Claus recognised it at once, a chart used for navigation; or rather, the reverse of one. Dio had turned the map face down and was marking its surface with a charcoal pencil. Between his slim, nimble fingers the blunt implement became almost elegant, moving at a blur, pausing, tapping, and setting off again, leaving a wake of tiny, incomprehensible figures and symbols behind it.
Watching Dio Claus forgot the trepidation he usually felt around the boy, becoming instead intrigued in what he was witnessing. The quiet, insistent tapping of the pencil roused his curiosity and he stood on his tiptoes at the door, trying to get a better view of what Dio was working on. The writing itself was illegible at this distance, but in the centre of the paper he could clearly make out a vast parabolic arc drawn between a pair of axes and marked out at several points along its length. As he looked he saw half a dozen more sheets like the first on the floor, some rolled up, some open where they lay, all similarly crowded with the same black writing.
If Dio had noticed him he gave no indication of it, something which, even given the strange spectacle before him, Claus thought impossible. The boy shifted his weight and for a second Claus thought he had been discovered. However Dio simply rested one elbow against the countertop and went about rolling the pencil between the fingers of his other hand. He made a quiet tutting sound as if in thought and then, with a flourish of his right hand and an exclamation of joy he was writing again. Whatever conclusion he had reached obviously pleased him greatly as he underlined it twice before moving on.
Claus could see the curve of a smile on Dio's face, that familiar, faintly predatory expression he recognised from so many occasions in the past. He wore it whenever he was in the middle of something he enjoyed, which to Dio meant some attempt to have his will win out against something else, something formidable. Claus knew of two things capable of exciting such a visceral joy in Dio: the sky, and, lately, himself.
It was a difficult thing to grow accustomed to, to look up and see Dio like a surgeon standing over him, drunk with his own power, scalpel in hand, knowing the ether hadn't yet begun to bite. It should have been terrifying, and it was, but not in the way he would have expected. It was not the fear of death or of pain, of his body being broken like a doll. Instead it was the feeling that something in him was being sapped away, gradually, silently, like water hollowing a stone, and that when it finally gave way it would take the rest of him with it.
And yet here he was, standing in plain sight while half hoping he wouldn't be seen. If he were so afraid he could just leave.
Claus woke from the furious reverie of his thoughts, wishing with a moment's anger that he were rid of this intractable problem. Perhaps he should just give up on all this, he thought, and just thrust the boy outside the circle of his affection. It would be easier to hate him than to struggle like this. Perhaps he would try.
"Immelmann?"
Claus looked up. For now it had been decided for him.
"Immelmann!" Dio gave a breathy little exclamation of disbelief and came running to the doorway, overcome with excitement, his previous task abandoned. "Wow, you came all the way down here looking for me?"
"I... er," it never occurred to him to deny it. Claus stumbled over his words and raised his hand apologetically, smiling nervously, "was restless, that's all."
Dio didn't seem to have got over his surprise, for a second he was strangely quiet and then suddenly he waved Claus in energetically.
"Quick, quick," he said, "you have to see this, Immelmann!"
"What is it?" Claus hesitated at the door, trying not to let the boy's obvious delight disarm him.
"I'll show you," Dio continued, quickly, stepping beside his work as if he were presenting it for Claus' approval. "I've been busy with it since this morning."
Claus braced one foot at the hatch, suddenly mindful not to disappoint the eager smile on Dio's face. Before he could stop himself he had stepped inside, one hand groping for the edge of the door as he passed it. When he was beside the map he brushed the nearest edge of it idly with two fingers, as if sweeping it free from dust, unable to meet Dio's eager gaze. It was hard to concentrate on what he was trying to read with Dio studying him so closely, and for a moment nothing seemed to sink in. In the next instant he was leaning in, wide-eyed, one hand holding the edge of the paper down as if to steady it so he could see better. Beside him Dio gave a pleased little laugh in his throat.
The entirety of the expanse of paper had been given over to the unravelling of some mathematical problem. Starting in the top corner and descending in columns of regular, neat little characters were rows and rows of formulae. A few of the equations Claus recognised in part, there was something which looked like a surface fiction equation near the beginning, but most were utterly incomprehensible.
The boy said nothing, bouncing slightly on his toes, apparently waiting to savour Claus' reaction.
"I..." Claus looked up, disbelieving. "You did all this?"
"It's an aerodynamics problem," Dio explained, overcome with pride, "or rather it was. I'm in the process of solving it."
"This is..." he stopped again, shaking his head.
Dio gave half a shrug, his head tilted over to one side, the dark eyes almost closed with pleasure.
"Impressed, Immelmann?"
Claus laughed, nervously, taken aback by what he had seen. Idly he wondered whether Dio took this much trouble over him.
"Yeah," he said, speaking quickly. He laughed again, shifted the weight on his feet, tried not to think too hard. One hand fumbled to hide itself in his pocket. Before Dio could notice he turned back to the paper and fanned his fingers out over it as if taking it all in again. "I'm not sure even the engineers here could manage something like this."
"That's why I wanted you to see it, Immelmann," Dio replied, stepping up beside Claus so their shoulders touched. Claus did his best to ignore it.
"What are you working out, anyway?"
Dio draped himself languidly against the makeshift table and took on a self-consciously shadowy, conspiratorial look; it promised trouble, Claus thought to himself.
"You really want to see, Immelmann?" Dio asked, reaching out and walking two fingers up Claus' chest.
Claus nodded before they reached his neck, but even that couldn't prevent Dio catching the side of his face in one palm and laughing briefly as he hopped away.
As Claus watched the boy went over to the door and pushed it to, turning the handle until it was shut. Claus swallowed, his throat was dry and suddenly he felt hot. Briefly he touched at the button on his collar, ensuring it was fastened. His hand found its way out of his pocket, the fingers flexing instinctively. He glanced over one shoulder as if looking for another door. On all sides the walls pressed in. Apparently oblivious Dio had scrambled up on top of one of the heavy crates beside the wall and was reaching down behind it, his feet kicking in the air. In another second he righted himself and emerged with a similar rolled up map under one arm.
"You take that side," Dio instructed, rolling the chart out over the previous one.
Claus splayed his hands out on the paper, holding it down at one corner and again at the middle. Within a heartbeat Dio had pressed his own hand on top of Claus', pinning it there. One fingertip stroked leisurely up and down the length of his little finger. Claus fought a shiver, unsure as to whether Dio had noticed it. When he looked up he saw Dio was studying him again.
"Well?" the boy asked.
It was a technical drawing; an elliptical, torpedo-like thing, pointed at one end and flat at the other, with a brace of fins at the flat end. He felt he would have known at once what it was except that it was filled with machinery he didn't recognise. There was no claudia unit for a start; instead, two tanks fed via a complicated arrangement into a bell-like structure at the cut-off end.
"A torpedo?" he asked, knowing he was wrong but feeling he had to offer something. Dio laughed quietly and shook his head, the look on his face enough to give away that he had expected just such an answer. Claus felt the hand slip from on top of his own and suddenly Dio had vaulted up on top of the crate to sit on its edge.
"Much more dangerous than that, Immelmann," he said, patting the space next to him with one hand. "When you learn how to make these nobody will bother with torpedoes any more."
The intended effect of the statement and Dio's invitation passed Claus completely. He wrinkled his nose and looked at the diagram again as if he were trying to work something out.
"What is it?" Dio asked, overcome with curiosity as to what had caught Claus' attention.
"Er... the claudia unit." He looked up at Dio, expecting him to speak, but getting nothing but a satisfied expression from the boy as his answer.
"Alternative propulsion?" Claus hissed, a note of panic in his voice. He leaned in next to Dio, his voice quiet. "You know that's forbidden."
Dio took the opportunity to toy with the fastenings on Claus' top until Claus suddenly jerked back out of reach.
"By who, Immelmann?" Dio asked, leaning back and kicking his legs up. "On this ship I am the Guild, remember that."
Claus was silent. Dio indicated for him to come back to the diagram, sweeping his feet up underneath him and kneeling at the tail of the drawing as if in prayer.
"Here," he said. Claus still hung back. "I'll show you," Dio went on, trying to coax him forward. He took up the charcoal pencil again and drew a cross inside one of the tanks.
"Ethyl alcohol," he explained, waiting for Claus to look before moving his hand again, this time stopping it over the adjacent tank. "Liquid oxygen." He pointed to the bell-like chamber Claus had noticed earlier. "Mix them here under pressure, burn them, force the exhaust out here," he swept the pencil line out from the flat end of the machine with a flourish and gave an accomplished grin.
"This will go faster than sound. It can't take a pilot yet, but even like this it'll carry a ton of explosive three hundred thousand feet straight up."
"Three hundred thousand?" Claus asked, incredulous. He stepped forward and studied the diagram again as if trying to make sense of Dio's boast from it. When he spoke again it was in exasperation. "That's above the stratosphere, there's nothing up there!"
"There won't be soon enough."
A dozen questions fought for Claus to express them.
"Why would you even design such a thing, Dio?" Claus said at last, surprised by the resignation with which he had spoken. It verged on disappointment. Suddenly Dio seemed to look at him differently, as if the fight had gone out of him. For a moment he didn't speak, overcome with an expression of intense concentration.
"I..." he said at last, not meeting Claus' gaze, still looking as if he was deep in contemplation of something. He made as if to say something and then arrested himself before he could begin. When he finally spoke it was in a subdued voice. "I wouldn't have, Immelmann, except that..." Dio stopped again, suddenly pained. He glanced at Claus briefly, as if for approval of what he was saying. When Claus did nothing he gave a shallow smile and turned away again. "You deserve a fighting chance."
Claus would have asked further except for the troubled expression Dio had worn while he was explaining it.
"The science behind it is simple," Dio continued, as if in apology, "it's only applying it that's difficult. Making it practical."
Claus couldn't stifle his sudden burst of laughter. Dio went wide-eyed with alarm.
"What? What is it?" Claus didn't answer, still racked. "Immelmann!" he said at last with some annoyance, one hand planted defiantly on his hip.
"You! Practical?" Claus managed, shaking his head.
Dio gave a thin, distracted smile. For a second Claus fought the urge to reach out and touch the boy, as if to reassure him. He struggled and at last squeezed Dio's arm in his hand, patting it several times, not quite sure if he should speak. Dio was quiet also. Momentarily they stayed like that, connected by the fragile gesture of Claus' outstretched hand.
Abruptly Dio sighed and turned on his heels, suddenly allowing himself to drop backwards like a tree being felled. Before he could stop himself Claus had caught the boy, staggering back half a step as he took the weight. Dio gave a deep, contented purr and drew one of Claus' arms across his shoulder, splaying Claus' fingers out across the front of his uniform. Claus felt another arm wind around the back of one leg, unsure of how to extricate himself from Dio without dropping the boy. In another second Dio had sprung free, apparently untroubled once more. He turned on Claus, smiling.
"Thankyou, Immelmann," the boy said, advancing on him until Claus had retreated the last two steps to the wall and they were almost nose to nose.
"F-for what?"
There was a concerned flicker in Dio's face as he glanced off to one side. Without thinking Claus tried to follow his gaze. In the next instant the back of his head slammed against the wall: Dio had darted forward and pressed their lips together. Between the pain in his head and the sudden plummeting sensation in the pit of his stomach there was only the warmth of Dio's lips, moist and soft against his own. He made to struggle but two hands pinned his wrists against the steel at his back. Dio's lithe body descended against his own, impossibly strong, resisting every effort to prise himself free. It was only as Dio turned one of his wrists back until Claus reared up on his toes in pain that his panicked struggling subsided. The hot, blunt tip of Dio's tongue sought out against his lips. With another twist of his arm it was between them and then as Claus made to cry out it was past his teeth.
Dio gave a low, contented noise as Claus went slack underneath him, fighting now only in brief, helpless spasms. He could barely think, the sensation of Dio's tongue against his own seemed to fill the universe. As much as he tried not to move and encourage the boy occasionally his body would betray him with a twitch or a shiver that Dio seized upon hungrily. The next thing he knew as suddenly as it had begun it was over. His legs gave way underneath him and he slumped to the floor, numb and trembling, trying weakly to get the strange, foreign feeling from out of his mouth.
"Practical, Immelmann. Prac-ti-cal," Dio said from above him, his eyes closed, an almost mystical look of bliss on his face. "I will remember that."
He wiped his lips with the tip of one finger and, rolling his head back on his shoulders, gave a heavy, contented sigh. As Claus watched him the boy simply spun the wheel at the door with one hand and planted one foot at the hatch. Before he stepped through he turned to face Claus.
"This will be our secret, Immelmann," he said. "Promise?" and with a wink he was gone, the door thudding shut behind him.
Claus was still for a moment, wiping his mouth as best he could on his sleeve. Finally, bracing himself against the wall, he stood up, unsure what to do with himself. The peace of his bunk seemed a long way off and there was no way he felt able to face Lavie or Al or anyone else who knew him. At last, treading carefully, he went over to the sketches and looked at them again, pressing one shaking hand against the paper as if to prove something to himself. As delicately as he could muster he gathered them up in his arms and lowered them into the gap Dio had retrieved them from. With them gone there was nothing to say either of them had ever been there. Perhaps he could...
There was a dull ache in his stomach. He was restless, hot, stirred up. His body remembered what Dio had done to it as clearly as if it had been written on his flesh. Breathing quickly he went to the door and opened it. With the feeling he was looking for something he went out into the maze of passages, hoping to lose himself there.
--