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For Siegfried Kircheis, it started at the very beginning.
He’d been told all his life that one day, the right girl would come. He’d meet her, be struck by her beauty, her gentleness, her goodness, and in that instant, he’d feel himself remade. He’d be ready to do anything for her: fight any battle, give any gift, make any sacrifice. Making her happy and giving her what she wanted would become his new life’s cause.
He was never told that that person might be a boy. But when he saw Lord Reinhard von Müsel for the first time, all he could think was that he was the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen.
He was so struck by Reinhard’s rosy-cheeked face and golden hair that he barely registered what Reinhard was saying to him, about the commonness of his name. And of course, it was too much when his sister, Lady Annerose, emerged behind him, like an older, female clone of her brother, just as much of a golden rose…
And yet… it wasn’t the same as with her brother. Still, he couldn’t help but get flustered when she ruffled his hair and told him to befriend Reinhard.
What else could he do but run away? It was all too much to process. All too much to feel. The world turning upside down, all for two golden siblings, children of some minor, impoverished lord.
The golden siblings who would change Siegfried’s life.
For Reinhard, it was the night they tried to rescue his sister.
Kircheis, as always, went along with him. For years he had taken his friendship for granted: his presence by his side, always there to rescue him, to shoulder his burden and steer him away from foolishness.
When Reinhard struck out at the noble court, at the fake Annerose, it was Kircheis who pulled him out of the crowd. He followed Reinhard as they ran away together.
Of course he did. Of course he did. He always did. He’d learned not to question it.
Yet there was something about their conversation that night that flipped a switch. As Reinhard slowly came to terms with what he wanted, needed to do to make things right for Annerose and for all of them, all of the victims of the Goldenbaum Dynasty’s decadence. When he realized what he wanted was bigger than himself.
What he was saying was treason. Kircheis warned him, as he always did. Yet he still stood by his side, listened, and what’s more, encouraged him.
Reinhard, too, had grown up being told about what it would be like to find the “right woman.” A helping hand, a supportive cushion for all his struggles and hopes and dreams. Someone who would always be there for him, no matter what he did or said. No matter what he shared with her.
It occurred to him that night that that person for him might instead be Kircheis. Or, at least, he was doing all the things that Reinhard had been promised, wasn’t he?
Was that wrong? He’d never heard of it being that way for someone, a man filling the role for another man that a woman usually would. And yet, he found himself pleased by the prospect.
He didn’t want that person to be anyone else but Kircheis.
As he lay on the hill looking up at the stars, he took turns looking at his friend, too, and saw the galaxy reflected in his deep blue eyes. The galaxy he would win, for Annerose, for everyone like her—but most of all, for the two of them.
It was so innocent, at first.
They played at it, made it into a game. It was “practice for girls,” they said. They needed to learn how to dance at the balls expected of the nobility, as Reinhard rose through the ranks and Kircheis followed behind him, so they practiced dancing together. They needed to find good, high-placed wives, which meant learning how to woo them, so they wooed each other. Reinhard and Kircheis held hands, pressed gentle kisses to those hands, pressed kisses to their cheeks, foreheads, lips…
But Kircheis quickly found himself lost in the taste of Reinhard’s mouth. There was a bitterness to it from the tea his lord had just been drinking, but most of all it was sweet. It was the sweetness of childhood, all the happy memories they’d built together running through their families’ estates, cleaning the blood off Reinhard’s clothes in the fountain, rolling down hills, laughing, crying, smiling…
Touching Reinhard brought him back to that, enclosing him in a golden world of his two golden siblings, and then, eventually, just Reinhard and him alone. And, of course, he’d always wanted justice for Annerose, too, who was too good to be forced to serve the lecherous old Kaiser, but he couldn’t lie to himself and pretend it wasn’t really about how it makes Reinhard feel, the look of determination and fury on his face when he found out, and the promise that Kircheis made to Annerose to look after her brother…
(Annerose always, eventually, fell away from these visions, much as he tried to hold her there. Kircheis didn't want to think any deeper about that, why that kept happening.)
Does this count as looking after him? he wondered as Reinhard kissed down his throat, and began rolling down the collar on his uniform, undoing the buttons…
Kircheis wondered if he should talk Reinhard out of it, but they were in Reinhard’s private chambers and the door was locked. No one could wander in on them there. No one could stop them. And…the truth was, he wanted his friend like that, oh did he ever. Reinhard opened his jacket and started kissing and biting Kircheis’ bare chest, going further and further down, spurred on by Kircheis’ moans, until he reached the next barrier.
Reinhard looked up at Kircheis then, his face asking a question. Is this okay? Is this what you want?
It was just a game.
But if a game was all he would get, Kircheis would happily play it. He nodded. They’d never needed words, to communicate with one another when they were alone.
Two pieces of the same soul, as others will say in the coming years. As some, he observes looking back, likely would have already said then.
Reinhard pulled the last of Kircheis' clothing away, and claimed his prize.
Reinhard didn’t know what to say, when Oberstein demanded to see him alone. Alone. Dismissing Kircheis, even, who shouldn’t have even counted, when he and Reinhard were what they are to each other. Two bodies, one mind. Symbiotic, each needing the other to be who he is meant to be.
Yet Kircheis was able to see that this was something Reinhard needed. That he had to hear Oberstein out, consider his offer. If that meant that Kircheis had to leave the room in order to allow Reinhard that, then that was what he would do.
Kircheis always knew exactly what was needed. He’d been doing that their whole lives: assessing, diagnosing and prescribing treatment for every problem Reinhard faced, each step following the previous in quick succession. He read rooms like no one else Reinhard knew. Reinhard got all the accolades for cunning, manipulation, political acumen… and he knew he deserved some of them, but he also knew he’d be nowhere without Kircheis.
Did Oberstein understand? Or was he trying to lure Reinhard into a trap? It was a test for him, but he knew that even if he was technically out of the room, Kircheis was close enough to hear most of it, and especially to hear Reinhard when he called for him.
Even unseen, Kircheis' presence lingered in Reinhard's mind, and gave him the courage to carry on with Oberstein's scheme.
Reinhard did end up calling for his adjutant, when he learned what Oberstein was proposing: treason. Yet it was the same treason that Reinhard had whispered to Kircheis under the stars, all those years ago. They had the same goal. The Goldenbaum Dynasty must fall, for the sake of the galaxy, to make the Empire into what it should be, what its people deserved it to be for them.
Oberstein proposed that he would be the shadows to Kircheis’ light. An angel and a devil on Reinhard’s shoulder. And it was true that the man would be useful as an ally. Reinhard would let him believe that he played that role to him, if it suited.
But he could never really be to Reinhard what Kircheis was to him. For Kircheis was, as always, more than just an advisor. More than a friend.
More, even, than a lover.
Reinhard had no idea if Kircheis felt the same way toward him. Perhaps, for him, it really was all just practice for when he found the right woman. For my sister, Reinhard thought bitterly in some dark nights of the soul, for when she is free.
Yet, for Reinhard, it had never been just a game. Kircheis was, with the Empire and his vision for it, one of the twin stars around which his world revolved.
For Reinhard, Kircheis was everything.
Thank goodness Mittermeyer pulled Kircheis away before Ansbach could shoot him more than once. He is already bleeding out, but they’re able to get a doctor in time to save him. He should wake up and be ready to return to duty in a few days, is the prognosis.
Reinhard won’t take chances. He doesn’t leave Kircheis’ bedside, just as he refused to leave him as they waited for the doctor.
Kircheis saved his life, but he almost paid for it with his own. In that moment, Reinhard had felt like he may as well not have bothered. All their time together, all their memories, flashed before him in those terrifying seconds when he thought that his closest confidant, the other half of his heart, might die before him. And so soon after their fight over the massacre. Reinhard did not want it to end at all, but especially this way.
As Kircheis comes to, the first thing he sees is Reinhard’s face, that golden rose that first bewitched him all those years ago.
“Kircheis…no…Sieg…” Reinhard gasps as his dearest one opens his eyes.
Kircheis cannot help but smile at the use of his first name. Reinhard only does that when they are alone, and even then, they sometimes slip into surnames and titles. There are other people hovering behind him, alerted by the doctor to the High Admiral’s recovery, and yet Reinhard cannot help himself.
He strokes Siegfried’s face, the way he does when they are alone, even moving his hand to Siegfried’s hair before he stops himself, and looks around.
“I would like to be alone with High Admiral Kircheis,” he says, and the others bow, rushing out of the room at his command.
“Reinhard…” Siegfried begins, losing the title, as Reinhard has requested he do when they are alone in his bedchamber.
“Sieg…You were going to lay down your life for me,” Reinhard breathes as he returns his hand to Siegfried’s hair, running his fingers through it gently. It reminds Siegfried so much of the way Annerose had brushed it when they first met.
“Of course,” Siegfried responds. What else could he say? What else could he have done?
“It is appreciated, but…” Reinhard frowns. “What would I have done, if you had died?”
“You don’t need me,” Siegfried responds. Not like I need you.
“Of course I do,” Reinhard rushes out, almost yelling. He frowns. “I could not have made it this far without you!”
He buries his face in his hands. “My victories would be empty without you, Sieg…”
Siegfried raises his hands now, pulls Reinhard’s away. Siegfried’s right hand clutches them in his lap as he raises the left to bat away one of the tears that has escaped Reinhard’s eyes.
“You would still win the galaxy without me. Like you promised me.”
Reinhard smiles a little at this. “I would, but… Sieg, I was winning it for us. For you.”
Now Siegfried is confused. That isn’t what they had discussed… “I thought it was for Annerose.”
“Of course, but…” Reinhard looks away for a second, then releases a deep breath, like he’s sloughing off a heavy burden. “You’re the one I’ve always wanted to rule beside me.”
Siegfried…doesn’t know what to say. “Do you realize what you’re...?”
“Yes,” Reinhard says. “I have to say it, when you came so close to dying… You’ve always meant so much to me, but only in that moment did I realize what I could lose. If I never told you.”
He looks Siegfried straight in the eyes as he tells him, “Siegfried, I love you. I’m sorry I betrayed you by listening to Oberstein. You’ll always mean more to me than anyone in the galaxy, and I need you to know that.”
Instantly, Siegfried is back in the flower gardens, fountains and rolling hills of their childhood. This is every good thing he’s ever felt, everything he’s ever wanted. All the sunshine and roses and warmth that the world, any world, could possibly contain.
It all comes down to this: Reinhard loving him back. This is what he was built for, this is the life he was meant to live. To serve this man, and receive his love in turn.
What can he do but return his confession?
“Reinhard…I love you, too,” he breathes as he raises Reinhard’s hands to his lips.
His golden rose’s smile is radiant. It is a star that could light entire galaxies. “I know,” Reinhard says. “I think I’ve always known…or at least, I’ve hoped. That it was never about practicing for women, for us.”
Siegfried sits up more, because he knows what he needs to do now. What he wants to do. Which is to meet his best friend, his dearest love, his guiding star, in a soft kiss.
As their lips join, as chaste, closed-mouthed as it is, it feels like the culmination of everything they’ve worked for. It is so much more than all their other previous kisses, no matter how passionate, desperate, gasping those may have been. Because in this, they are in perfect synchronicity. They know, finally, what they are to each other.
But as he pulls away, a stray thought slips into Kircheis’ mind.
“By your side?” he asks. “As emperor, you’ll need to marry. You’ll need heirs…”
Reinhard laughs as he runs his hand down Siegfried’s neck, clutching his shoulder.
“Do I?” he asks as his chuckles fade. “I don’t want to start another Goldenbaum Dynasty. I don’t want to be succeeded by my children just because they are my children. That will just lead us back the same way.”
Siegfried can’t believe what he’s hearing. His eyes go wide. “Are you proposing…”
“I don’t know,” Reinhard confesses into another laugh. It’s a rare thing, from him. Reinhard always knows where he’s going, always knows the direct, right path to his goals, even if he sometimes needs Kircheis to guide him along it. “All I know is that you and I will find it, together.
“I will win the galaxy, with you by my side. And then, we’ll see what to do with it.”