Agatha's Art Blog

Beguiling

Getting ambushed with inappropriate out-of-pocket questions had become worryingly normal, to Yvgeny. Heretic Astartes, it seems, are not subtle creatures by any metric- even Byzanti, who has many secrets (and cannot resist making that known, no matter how his companions curse and moan about it) tends to speak his mind thoughtlessly. Maybe that’s just what happens when you’re a god amongst mortals- no fear of retaliation, no need to every second-guess what you say or who hears, because what consequences could possibly exist for something as dangerous and unkillable as a chaos marine? Gods didn’t care about the opinions of mere men.

At the very least, they certainly didn’t seem to care about social consequences. Otherwise Yvgeny wouldn’t be staring up at Byzanti not in fear but just…straight up confusion. Surely, surely he was not hearing this bullshit correctly. Maybe he was still half-asleep, having taken all of a single step from his bunk before being stopped by a veritable wall of pink-edged armor.

“Begging your pardon, sir? What did you just say?” Overcorrecting to polite deference was an easy defense to fall into. Nobody could say he was pushing boundaries if he minded his “please”es and “sir”s.

“I asked you, my dear guardsman, and I'll make this as clear as possible, so you understand exactly what I'm saying-” Never using one word when twenty would do, this one. “-when was the last time you had an orgasm?"

“Uhm.” Yvgeny’s thoughts, for what must have been at least the fifth or sixth time that week, turned to the notion that just pulling the pin on the crack grenade and holding onto it tight would make everything much simpler to deal with. In fact, he wouldn’t be dealing with anything, anymore. Wonderful. But instead he just keeps staring up at the hulking mass of armor before him, holding the universe’s most uncomfortable eye…contact? with the beady, glassy lenses that served as the Slaaneshi champion’s eyes. Sometimes he wished Byzanti would blink. Well. No. That would be worse, actually. “I. I don’t, uhm. What?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t know! How sa-a-ad.” The speaker set in stretched flesh that sat where Byzanti’s mouth should have been crackled as the word was drawn out. “Think about it for me, will you? When was the last time you had a little fun? Indulged the inner animal of the flesh?”

Yvgeny breathed in deep through his nose and braced himself for an answer he was sure he wouldn’t want, if he got it. “If I may. Sir. Why are you asking?”

Honestly, he didn’t want to think about it. Both for the obvious (the last thing he needed was to be thinking about, eugh, pleasure, at the behest of Slaanesh) and because…well, he wasn’t really certain, and he suspected actually thinking about it would just be depressing. It had been a while. Long enough there wasn’t an easy answer that came to mind- probably some rare moment of privacy, a few minutes with a wash station to himself or trying to be quiet in a bunk. Stress relief, fast and automatic. Somewhere hidden in all the action and chaos there were fundamentally unsatisfying and distant memories. He couldn’t keep his eyes up on Byzanti and instead glanced down the vast halls one way and the other- uncertain if he was hoping someone was about to interrupt or praying that nobody was overhearing this.

“I’m bored.”

Yvgeny felt a surge of panic in his gut. Boredom and chaos did not mix, in his experience. “So you’ve come to question me over my, er, sexual history? Surely, you must have something better to-”

“I don’t have anything better to do, actually! So enlighten me. After all, who else am I going to ask? Sefis?” He went into a long laugh that made his whole body shake. Yvgeny wondered if astartes were aware of how damn loud they all were. Was it their sheer size? “I already know the answer to that, unfortunately, no…but you! I know so little about you, Yvgeny! You’ve mysterious depths I’ve yet to so much as begun to plumb!” Somehow the stretched flesh of pierced skin had just enough expression that he could leer, which made the panic already brewing in Yvgeny’s gut lurch up to his chest. “Speaking of plumbing depths-”

“ew.”

“-are you going to answer my question? I have been nothing but patient through all this hemming and hawing! What, are you embarrassed?” He was clearly delighted by the prospect, leaning over the human more as Yvgeny squirmed under his gaze and tried desperately to shrink down into nothing. “Come now, don’t be shy. I won’t judge. Lets try something easier, hmm? What was your last partner like? Mm?” He was leaning down further, getting far, far too close. Close enough that Yvgeny was uncomfortably aware of the sheer amount of heat Astartes gave off. Like living ovens, with metabolisms that ran like proper engines. It made the thick, perpetually-slightly-organic smelling air of the ship feel downright humid. “A woman, maybe? I know Imperials are all about that breeding propaganda, more drones for their hives and all that, but you don’t seem picky.”

“What? What do you mean by tha- erm. It doesn’t matter. Does it matter?” Yvgeny had backed up to the closed door of his bunk by this point and was idly wondering if he could move fast enough to open it, throw himself backwards into privacy, and have it slammed and locked before Byzanti could react. Maybe. But then, what was a single flimsy door to something like that? Best not to think about how little privacy was actually guaranteed.

“Only so far as I’d like to know what I should be, ahaha, picturing.”

Yvgeny cringed and bit the inside of his cheek to ground himself. He tried to subtly grope behind his own body for the latch of his door. It was less subtle than he would have liked. “I would rather you didn’t?”

“Too late!” Byzanti crowed, slamming a heavy hand against the doorframe. Was it possible for something without a mouth to grin? Yvgeny was pretty sure Byzanti had somehow mastered this particular art. He could feel the toothy smile even if he couldn’t see it. “I’m starting to worry you actually don’t have an answer- has it simply been that long? Or, gods forbid, are you a virgin? Wouldn’t that be fun!”

Yvgency’s face went red, and it was agonizing to be aware of. Blushing at the accusation of virginity of all things like…like what? A young man, like some fresh-faced recruit being hazed in basic training? He blustered, and his fingertips caught the door latch finally- “I am not.” He stepped back through the opening door, ready to slam it shut again- “And this conversation is-” except Byzanti (faster than he looked- he knew they were fast but then they’d move like this sometimes, too fast for their bulk) was suddenly a step forwards and the door couldn’t close “-over?”

“Mmmhmm. I don’t think so!” Byzanti’s voice pitched into a manic sing-song as he took another step forwards, and another- it was a small room already, and Yvgeny was crowded up against the far wall with a mere two steps. More trapped than before. “You’ve yet to answer my first question, after all!”

“Sir-”

“Unless you really have forgotten,” The door was sliding shut behind Byzanti and Yvgeny considered praying to the chaos gods in rapid succession if at least one of them, any of them, would open the door and not leave him trapped in here between a wall and an astartes putting off heat like a furnace, asking him “It’s a simple question, dearie! When was your last orgasm, Yvgeny?”

“-don’t-” Like a cornered animal, he grit his teeth as if to bare them- but when Byzanti’s hand came to rest atop his head he didn’t duck away. Where would he even go? Eyes darting side to side, nothing in this cramped little closet of a room but a storage locker (he’d had enough of being stuffed in lockers for now) and the bed (absolutely fucking not.)

“Re-lax, my dear.” Just one armored hand is bigger than his entire head, the curve of his skull fitting easily into Byzanti’s palm. He’s seen what happens to a human skull in an astartes hand, certain that this hand has crushed countless skulls just like his without a thought. He’s thought about how easy that would be a lot, recently, between the four of them - how long did he really have before one of them just casually popped him like a bug between their fingers? “I promise I won’t judge!” They wouldn’t even have to mean it, they could do it by accident. The thought saps the will to struggle out of him.

He stays stiffly still as Byzanti plucks his hat off and tosses it onto his bunk. “If I tell you I honestly don’t remember, will you let it be?” Maybe he could escape if he ducks down, dashes between Byzanti’s legs, and hits the hallway running?

“Hm. Now, that is sad.” There’s a note that’s almost genuine pity to Byzanti’s voice, which actually hurts a little to hear, huh. Especially when the hand comes back to his head and ruffles his hair a little. “For-tu-nate-ly~” Oh god, the sing-song crooning again, which maybe sounded lovely to some manner of chaos worshippers but to Yvgeny rather sounded like a pained yowling. Or maybe metal shearing, if metal shearing had a voice. “-I can help with that.”

“What?”

The hand on his head gripped- just tight enough Yvgeny really couldn’t move if he wanted to now, pressure all the way from his temples to the occiput. Helpless as a toy being posed, he bit down a fearful whimper as Byzanti tilted his head up to meet his eyes…then down to the gem set into his armor, dark and swirling and right at face height with him and oh, oh no, oh no no no- 

“Sir?!” He squeezed his eyes shut but something was - he saw something move in its dark, swirling depths- an angular spiral that, only glimpsed for a second, left a negative afterimage in the darkness behind his eyelids like the green sparks from accidentally glimpsing laserfire - and he could still see it. “Sir, I don’t-!” His arms, which had been feeling heavy and numb at his sides, finally sprang into motion as he reached up and ineffectually tried to push away from the chestplate. He may as well have been trying to move a planet.

“Open your eyes, Yvgeny.” Byzanti purred, the vox-like crackle of his voice dipping low into such a bass rumble that Yvgeny could feel it radiate through the hand holding him. “Trust me. I’m helping you relax…and I’m certain you won’t regret it.” And he broke into peals of laughter as his other hand grabbed Yvgeny’s wrists- broad enough to wrap around both arms simultaneously and hold them down, squeezing with just enough force Yvgeny knew he might bruise through the light armor of his gloves, if the position didn’t sprain an elbow. But then, more pressing, was the fact that the pain opened his eyes in reflex-

And-

-and-

twisting fractal spiral that moved endlessly inwards and outwards growing forever reaching forever his girlfriend’s face forty years ago barely old enough to fumble about like idiots and she climbs into his lap and laughs in a way that makes him stupid and her thighs are warm against his hips and pink pink flesh the inside of a wet mouth the pearl glimmer of teeth spiraling inwards and reaching outwards and the hot-slick red blood of the first time he’s wounded in battle his brain floods his body with endorphins to fight off shock until the medicae can reach him but until then he has a hand to his stomach and there’s so much blood it’s slippery and pain endorphins pain endorphins the line between all sensation is so thin and tenuous he can’t stop shaking after a battle and the gentle touch of a comrade makes him scream and flinch but then his hair is being pulled until it hurts and he’s laughing as his bunkmate bites his shoulder and strokes their cocks together with a spit-slicked hand which isn’t quite enough lubrication but the burn just makes it all the more desperate desperate desperate desperate coiling desperation never satisfied desperation that constricts and squeezes him so much desperation and so little pleasure so little relief even fighting to stay alive no longer tastes like red hot blood victory survival in his teeth fucking into his own fist as he bites the pillow imagines he's biting a lover's neck because he just needs something anything to feel good anything to feel good anything to feel good in this dark miserable place where it hurts all the time and he thinks about lovers and wet mouths and sweet kisses and a hand gripping his ass hard and anything to

anything to feel good

anything to feel

anything just to feel anything

It feels like hours. It also feels instantaneous. Really, it only takes thirty seconds before he starts to thrash in Byzanti’s grip with a throaty moan that feels like something alien crawling up from his chest and out of his lungs. How long has it been since he’s moaned in pleasure?

Long enough he’d somehow forgotten what it feels like.

Byzanti releases him, still laughing as he pulls his hands away and Yvgeny almost collapses, stumbling and wavering as he comes back to his senses and reality lurches around him. He gropes blindly, vision swimming with the afterimages of angular, endlessly recursive spirals and dreamy memories of skin and mouths and- and- trying to find something to steady himself but of course the only truly solid thing in reach is Byzanti. So he clings, for a long moment, to the edge of the ceramite breastplate but ultimately his knees refuse to stay locked and rather than hit the floor- he pushes himself towards his bunk. The mattress will hurt less than the floor, at least.  Sitting there and panting, it’s like his brain is electrified and every sensation is ramped up to unbearable levels. His breath is coming in heavy and shuddering gasps, his whole body feels feverish, and when he reaches up with a trembling hand to his lips he finds his beard is damp with drool.

It’s mortifying.

Yet not half as mortifying as the fact that he’s hard as a tungsten rod, his slacks proudly tented up for Byzanti and all the gods of chaos to see.

---

He's keenly aware of how small and fragile he is in their hands, how easy it would be for any one of them to kill him without a thought, how struggling against any one of them is as futile as throwing himself against a ship bulkhead- but when Byzanti grabs hold of his hips before he can squirm away and flips him onto his back, spreading his legs, a new fear takes him.

It coils deep in the pit of his stomach, and he lets out a panicked yelp- “S-sir!” -as the chaos marine looks down at him from between his own legs- each ankle held fast in a hand wider than his torso.

There’s no sense denying how vulnerable it feels, how little control he has over the situation, how intense the gleam of Byzanti’s beady eyes feels as the hulking marine looks him over.

It’s terrifying.

Yvgeny laughs, the kind of manic, hysterical, utterly joyless laughter he keeps finding overtakes him.

Everything is cracked and broken and so is he, and so is his response to all of this. He should yell, snarl, scream, start kicking- he knows what would make sense to do, but instead…he laughs.

It’s terrifying. It’s pathetic. It…it’s ridiculous.

He saw a salacious pinup like this, what feels like lifetimes ago. It was so generic as to be a kind of background noise, at the time, a woman with a coy smile posed like this- back arched off the little cot she was staged on as a grinning guardsman held her up by the spread ankles. Tastefully positioned just so you couldn’t actually see anything juicy, of course. Your typical Imperium-Approved softcore pornography, meant to inspire the people to breed fruitfully (more meat for the grinder, he’d thought, even back then) though, frankly, he doubted anyone with so much as a sliver of sanity actually got off on imperium smut. That last sliver of his own sanity was certainly working overtime to hold it together right now.