#lua.wrt

Magnus would have never let on once the true depths of his depravity. Not when he had an image to uphold. Especially not when some of his brothers already saw him as an outsider, someone who didn’t belong. 

He recalled the time Leman drunkenly explained what he and his wolves did with the natives of Fenris who were willing participants. He’d frowned at the barbarity apparent in his actions and tried to pay attention to another conversation. Still, it seemed to be a hot topic of discussion on the rare occasion when so many of the Primarchs were together. 

Horus has described in depth the actions of a pretty serf on the Vengeful Spirit, how they’d captured the heart of one of his coldest sons, and it intrigued him thoroughly. Sanguinius had even mentioned the pleasurable welcome back to Terra he had received as a gift from one of his admirers. Magnus could only shift in his seat at the time. 

Ignoring feelings was easy for him. He had repressed it for so long that he no longer looked at another person and saw their beauty; instead, he considered their value and usefulness to him and his father’s cause. 

Unfortunately, it was just repression, and that conversation at the time had undone years of careful training in his mind, re-weaving the binds of sexual appetite within him. 

He’d returned to his private chamber with his cock hard that evening, dripping with pre as his mental fortitude broke completely. He stared at the ceiling for hours, recited the most boring parts of history, and conjured anything unrelated to him and his needs in his mind in an effort to stop it. 

Unfortunately, for that night and many others going forward, will was too strong. The only relief he ever got was his own hand or a sculpted pillow that he'd stared at in complete regret afterwards. Even sorcery couldn't help him here.

Weeks it lasted, the quiet command for everyone to leave him, even Ahzek had grown curious of why Magnus needed so much time completely on his own. Excuses were given and curiosity was somewhat vanquished; frustrations directed at how unsatisfying his experiences were compared to what his brother's spoke of grew. 

They'd have never ended without necessary intervention.

Magnus had settled on an older-looking tome nestled somewhere in the back of his old collection. His mind felt tired, scattered between all of his desires that seemed ever further apart in recent days. He skimmed the words written in a dull ink, stopping to reread words when he felt his mind slipping. 

Throne, he wanted to feel the softest of hands around him, have a new warmth surrounding his burning tip, know the sounds he could make someone make as his fingers wrapped in their hair and he buried their face in the trimmed hairs of his crotch until they swallowed every drop of his come with their eyes never leaving his. 

Concentration wasn't finding him, not when he had an ache at the bottom of his stomach begging to be fixed. Almost like a demon within, fighting for just the smallest taste; Magnus was concerned that if he gave in to his temptations, he'd fall further and never recover. This wasn't about being virtuous, this was about his own sanity. Magnus had a proclivity to invest far too much emotion into anything. 

More words pass, and his mind wanders again. 

His hands gripping the pressed sheet beneath him so tightly he'd ripped it, breath evading him as he rocked his hips into the air, fucking absolutely nothing yet coming so hard with his lips covered in the sweetest of nectars and their legs holding him down. 

Magnus' eyes raise from the book. The thought alone has his cock growing beneath his robes. He lets the pages slip from his fingers as he lets the scene play out in his head. Something new, unexpected, submissive.  

His thighs clench. He can picture it so clearly. Slipping his tongue inside, hands grasping thighs, his moans lost entirely to all but vibrations to feel a release all down to him. He shudders. Was it so much to want to be told how well he had done and rewarded for it, too? His brothers never spoke of it, no one spoke of anything like it.

The book is closed, unsurprisingly, with a hard thud. Though he gently places it down on the table behind him, the door doesn't get such nice treatment; he slams it a little too hard for anyone nearby to not poke their head out and see what the primarch has been agitated by this time.  

All they would have seen was his figure moving unnervingly fast down the hallways. 

In search of something in particular?

Always. 

The sweet-looking angel who seemingly followed Ahzek around everywhere recently.

A little smile that slipped through when Ahzek was talking, Magnus recalled it perfectly, with hands that shook from being in the vicinity of someone that important, and eyes that never actually tried to meet another’s. 

Magnus had pushed the memory from the depths of his mind before. Told himself it was a lack of contact with someone who captured his desires in appearance alone, or that he mistook them for something due to the lasting effects of whatever sorcery he had practised that day, or… something rational. 

Because the last time he’d made himself come in agonising silence, his mind had started to form into the same shaking, delicate hand right before him. 

He panicked, woke himself from whatever lust-induced daze he’d fallen into, and carried on with his private session like it was a task made just to get him through the day. A mistake, he now realised. 

His own justification was that if his brothers were indulging in these activities, if Sanguinius especially had partaken in something to fulfil a deep-seated fantasy, then it must be normal. Better yet, it must be a good thing. Something he should be partaking in and, more than anything, enjoying. 

The thought lingers in his mind as he pushes the large door open with a hefty swing. He clenches his jaw as the doors thump against the walls, gathering far more attention than he had originally wanted. Of course, everyone in the room would drop to serve him the second they realised it wasn't someone in over their head storming about the sacred walls, especially feeling his presence as he neared. Not that he noticed, his focus was towards the back of the room anyway. 

On those modest, coruscating eyes that were haunting his thoughts every single minute that passed without having them serving only him. Spotted between the shelves, wide and somewhat fearful, unable to look away and bow like they were meant to for someone of his standing. Not that he had cared. 

He's not sure what's said in the strides he takes to the back of the room. The room was emptied by the time he regained his senses, lost in a silently given command to not move in a far more authoritative voice than he meant for it to be. 

You wouldn't have moved anyway. 

You would have stayed put without even so much as breathing as the Primarch of the Fifteenth approached you with his skin ablaze and gaze refusing to move to anything else. In truth, he felt bad for making you look like you were torn between throwing up, crying, or dropping to your knees and apologising for whatever you had done to make him personally find you. 

Nothing to apologise for, you'd soon find out, because you'd never actually done anything. 

And now Magnus was here before you, he had no idea what to actually say. 

"I sincerely apologise for this interruption," Magnus starts, hoping it may quell some of your obvious worry. It does little in aid, much to his annoyance. "My sons have spoken highly of you, and I wished to thank you personally."

It was an obvious lie on both parts. He tries to offer a smile, but you still look like you may combust at any given moment. He decides a hand on your shoulder would probably not help, so instead he takes a step back to alleviate something. 

"I have..." Magnus stops himself, looking down to the ground and sucking in a breath to force one more small opportunity to back out. He doesn't take it. He's too close; painfully hard. If you could take your eyes away, you'd probably have noticed. "...a request to make of you."

Your thoughts must catch up to you a few seconds later when you bow your head, nodding repeatedly. "Of course, my Lord."

"Let me take you somewhere private," Magnus tells you. He steps away with the expectation you'll follow. Thankfully, you can't feel how his cheeks burn or his mind tells him to lock himself away and never speak to another being again. He can feel how your heart races to far over 120 beats per minute, though, and it makes him feel worse. He turns back to you over his shoulder. "This is so I can explain.  I will, of course, need you to agree to the task that I am offering. It's nothing too much, but you... You must be agreeable."

If he could take back the past 10 minutes, he would, but his mastery hasn’t yet allowed him proficiency in chronomancy. 

He takes you to a quiet room. Not his private chamber, or personal study, or anything that one would usually have found him in. Through fear of being caught, perhaps, but equally through his concern for your wellbeing upon seeing so much of him so quickly. He would ease you in gently. 

The room, far away from anywhere a reasonable person would be at this hour, is one he recalled being mentioned as needing refurbishing and to be remodelled at some point in the near future. As such, the old leather armchairs and a love seat remained from the scholars who once used this room. 

He invites you to sit in one of the armchairs, waiting for you to be seated before taking his place on the love seat. His shame, unfortunately, returned on meeting your eyes once more. 

"I apologise for asking you this," he starts, intending to force the words out before you could speak again. Unfortunately, again, he looks up from the floor too quickly, and your doe-like eyes, scared to displease him, stop him one more time. "I… believe that…"

"There is no need to apologise, my Lord," you tell him, "please do not apologise."

You haven't heard what he has to say yet. 

"Thank you." Magnus leans forward, hands clasped together, forehead and cheeks starting to feel unusually warm. He clears his throat before continuing. "You must understand, this is not a usual request, but I do not know of anyone else I could ask."

He's making this far worse by talking. 

He waits for your nod, which comes with a slight furrow of your brows. He tries his very best not to stumble over his own words again. "I would very much like for you to… service me."

Adequate, he thinks, it was how Fulgrim had phrased it one time when they were discussing his recent activities. 

Your voice creeps in past his congratulatory thoughts. "Sorry, my Lord… service you?" 

His heart feels like it’s in his mouth. 

A string of curses meet him. 

"Yes," he answers, a polite smile gracing the curves of his lips. He'd feign his confidence, which usually worked. "I will ensure you are compensated if you agree and… and please be sure it will be no reflection onto you if you decline because I do understand the implications this can bring and that being in my presence may cause you more harm than initially anticipated so please do not think you must accept, so I… I understand entirely if you decline."

Magnus finishes his string of words with a quick inhale and a sheepish smile. It was sometimes a gift to have skin like his. Much easier to hide his true feelings. Especially when you look back at him with parted lips and no evident answer. 

Magnus knows he needs to shut up sometimes, but he never can. 

"But… But I did hope you would accept," he adds, a poorly disguised truth in his eyes, "I… uhm… wanted you, specifically."

You still haven't moved. Was it that obvious it was far more than just hope?

"I do apologise, my Lord." You bow your head slightly, and Magnus' heart sinks back into the depths of his chest as he prepares for his rejection. "Have I misunderstood what you mean by… servicing?"

Magnus doesn't answer quickly enough. 

"Does my Lord mean… the service that one would go to a courtesan for?" 

He clears his throat, avoiding your eyes. "Well, it… Yes. Yes."

You hum. 

His heart thumps. 

When you look back at him, half of him wants to reverse time to prevent this whole conversation from ever occurring, and the other half wants to go back in time to kill his brothers before they ever started him on this depraved path of self-fulfilment and stupidity. 

Most of him felt similar to the very human feeling of wanting to throw up.

His gaze flickers between you and the floor. He can feel your mind processing everything, ignoring it felt impossible, until it seemed to stop. He looks back at you, stopping to wait for your answer. 

"Of course, my Lord," you answer, "I am… agreeable."

Magnus hums. "You do not just give me the answer I wish to hear?"

"No, my Lord," you answer, simply. 

"You want to partake in this?"

"Yes, my Lord."

“You are sure?” He confirms a final time. If he hadn’t sounded timorous before, he did now. “I promise you it will not affect your standing or negatively impact you if you decline. Truly. I swear it on all that is sacred to me.”

Magnus pauses again to watch, eager to catch a hint of hesitation laced in your expression. Somewhere within his conversations, he had heard of others being taken advantage of, and he wanted to be sure that was not the case here. In fact, he recalled how a story had passed on, gossip if you will, of how some of the Eighth treated their serfs and remembrancers. The truth behind it was unknown, but knowing his brother’s mediocre handling of his legion, could it have been so untrue? 

He digresses. 

“I want to,” you repeat to him, nodding as you shift forward slightly in your seat. Magnus studies you like the world depended on it; actions misunderstood as you slouch back slightly and struggle to look near him again. “I… I would like to… My Lord."

He’s not sure why he laughs, but your timid muttering of my Lord seemed ironic given what he was about to ask of you. “Please do not call me that.”

“Then what shall I call you?” You ask, your bottom lip pulled between your teeth inside your mouth. 

Throne, your lips looked so soft, he could practically feel your warm mouth around his aching cock already. His tip nestled in against the back of your mouth as you choked around him and dragged your soft hands over his thighs and begged him for more. Then he’d feel how warm you truly were, he’d ease you open with one finger, no, no, two fingers slowly, then a third so you were ready for him to feel you throb around his cock and beg him for more, and then he could turn over and let you bounce on his cock and tell him to be a good boy and beg you to let him come until…

Reality strikes him with a shiver down his spine. You’re still watching him intently, like he was meant to answer. Would you even fit all of him inside you? You must be able to if his brothers were doing this. Perhaps he would need to amend his body in a different way so you could… Oh, he was meant to be answering you. Where was he? What to call him…

“Magnus,” he tells you. He’s unsure it’s the right response, and it carries very hard in his voice. He tries to laugh it off. “You cannot call me Lord when you’re…”

He stops himself. 

You stare blankly at him. 

He can’t finish his sentence. 

When you’re what, Magnus? 

“When you’re…” his mouth felt incredibly dry as he couldn’t find the words he wanted to say. He knows exactly what he wants from you, but saying it feels wrong. Like a secret he was never meant to share, or a hidden exploit in his father’s greatest creation. “Well, when we are to have a relationship of this sort, I mean.”

You nod, still uneasy. 

Magnus’ mind doesn’t seem to rest. “When I say relationship, I mean the dynamic between us, of course. Because you will be more than others who hold the same rank as you, and we would not see each other as one typically would. You will come to know me in a far different way than others, and I suppose that means I will know you in a different way, too. A better way. More personal.”

It’s about then he realises he didn’t even ask your name. 

He could ask, or he could find out at some point and avoid the awkwardness of asking for the name of someone he had asked to service him. Like he’s a car. Or a Primarch so desperately in need of release he can’t even get a whole sentence out coherently anymore. 

“I look forward to it, my…” You stop yourself as Magnus’ attention diverts back to you. A sheepish smile appears as you push your hair back behind your ear. “…Magnus.”

He grins at you. “Perfect! Formal introductions over then, shall we begin?”

Judging by the look on your face, you were not expecting that. 

“No point delaying what we both want,” Magnus tells you, “unless of course you have changed your mind, which is fine, if you were unsure.”

You shake your head. “I haven’t. But I would just query… your expectations?”

“Oh.” Magnus hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Anything. Everything.” 

“Everything?”

Magnus hums. “I would like to experience every sexual pleasure that exists in this world. I see it as important to understanding myself and the human kind better, and no doubt I can gain much knowledge from seeing the depths of what humans like, and don’t like, and what may be far out of the bounds for what’s normal.”

He surprises himself with how much he can just make up these days.

“Forgive me if this is too forward, but… would you not just wish to experience something for your own enjoyment?” you ask. 

“Well,” Magnus stops himself from talking this time. Did he meet a kindred spirit? You knew his thoughts before he did. Or, his humanity before he did. “Yes. I would. You are right.”

You smile, gently, and shift forward on your seat. Magnus’ gaze shifts from your eyes to your lips, to your hands that he’d thought about before. He wasn’t trying to hide it, either. “What would bring you enjoyment now?”

“I hadn’t considered,” Magnus answers. More of a timely untruth to hide his enthusiasm. He brings his hand to his chin like he was considering, but he can already feel your doubt. You dip your head down as he hears the slightest chuckle. He's that obvious? Why should he be surprised. "What I believe would bring me enjoyment… What I know would bring me enjoyment is for you to make me, well, there is no gentler way to put this, is there. For you to make me, ahem, come."

You hum in response. "I had assumed. That is what one usually wishes to achieve."

"Of course." Magnus laughs softly, feeling the heat in his cheeks again. He looks away for a moment, as if conjuring the words from a conversation he'd had in the past once again. None make themselves known; he's on his own this time. He wasn't yet prepared to say exactly what he had been thinking about, either. "May I ask what you would suggest?"

It may have seemed like he had given you all the power in the universe for just a moment. 

"My suggestion?" you repeat. He nods, encouragingly. "I suppose I would suggest… starting slow?"

Magnus nods. "Your hands?"

"My hands," you confirm, "just my hands?"

He stops himself from outright saying yes as the syllables reach his tongue. "Unless you think I should have more."

You nod once. 

"What I mean is," Magnus tries to speak, stopping as he feels his chest thumping, "if I deserve more."

A perfect disguise for his tendencies. He must applaud himself later. He can see the smile creep onto your lips, which you try to disguise behind your fingers as you rub your cheek meaninglessly. "I understand."

"Good." Magnus lets his back relax a little, trying to make it feel less formal. "Shall we start?"

If ever there was a reason to throw him into the depths of the galaxy, this was it. 

You're shy at first, not moving until whatever thoughts had processed in your mind finally start to fade. You peek at Magnus once, maybe a few more times through your lashes, he'd never miss that, before lowering yourself gently to your knees right between his own. 

One of your hands reaches for his thigh. Magnus' gaze becomes even more intense as he follows your movements with such fervour that he may as well be committing even your breaths to memory. You're not shaking, you don't seem worried, but Magnus can feel your hesitation. Naturally occurring, he deciphers, because who wouldn't be terrified of someone like him being right there. 

"You need to…" 

Magnus drags himself back to you, brows raised slightly. He realises you're gesturing to his robes and feels stupid for not thinking of that before. "Right, of course."

He could try to look less innocent, really. 

The robes of white and gold, concealing how desperate he was to feel your touch just beneath the thick sheets of material, are adjusted to come up to his waist, undergarments stripped away until his bare flesh remains. 

It was never that Magnus was conscious of the body he sculpted, but under your eyes, it didn’t feel good enough; until he realised you were staring for just a little too long, captivated by his body in the ways that many had before. He vividly could recall a conversation where Fulgrim had explained that he was questioned about what primarchs kept beneath their clothes. Perhaps you were exploring those same thoughts. 

"Please, continue," he tells you, breaking the silence and whatever train of thought you were holding. Not to push you, but he was already leaking from head of his cock. He was sure the inside of his garments had been soiled too. He shouldn't have carried on talking. "Please."

Whilst he curses himself for appearing so desperate, he's not sure if you notice it. You shuffle forward on your knees, prying his thighs apart slowly, until you're perched between in perfect view of the cock that was aching for you. To be touched, rather. 

"You should put your head back," you tell him, voice soft against the silence that still looms, "just, relax."

Impossible for him. 

But he does try. 

He lies back, chest muscles still tight, his sight trained directly on you, regardless of where he is. He wanted to look when you first touched him, when he saw those hands wrap around him and make the very first movements. It's a marvel to him as he watches you look between your hands and his groin, then briefly around the room around you, then spit into the palm of your hand. He doesn’t understand at first, but then he feels it. 

A fragile coldness to soothe his throbbing length. He gasps at the first touch, and though you pause in fear at the sound he makes, he urges you to carry on with a pained nod. "Please carry on."

You follow his instruction. One hand, not big enough to wrap around him completely, nor big enough to engulf his whole length, but enough to move one from the bottom to the top of his shaft. He shouldn't moan when he feels the pressure on his head, but he can't help it. It's involuntary, it's feral. 

He'd never be able to go back to doing this on his own, if he closes his eyes, he doesn't know what's going to happen next and, throne, it feels like heaven wrapped into a tiny bite-sized piece, how is he going to survive ever having more than just your hand?

He lets his eyes fall shut at some point, lost in your movements, falling into the rhythm of your strokes and drinking in every sense like it was the sweetest nectar. 

How is he going to survive you?

He takes a glance at you. He’d never considered a human to be beautiful before, not given the divinity he sat within, but you were exactly that. His head is leaning against the back of the loveseat, hair damp with sweat and stuck to him in the least comfortable of ways, yet he looks at you like you’d somehow become the answer to anything and everything he ever wanted. 

His eyes close again when he meets your gaze. You slow down your pace, as if you were trying to check he was okay or just see what he was doing. Again, it's involuntary how his body responds, craving so much more, wanting to feel everything. 

He rocks his hips once, then a second time, craving any more of your touch that he could bear. When he feels your fingertips on his hip, airy to the touch yet sinking straight to his bone, he whines. 

“Be still,” you tell him, voice quiet yet commanding. He nods unceremoniously, eyes squeezed together as he steadies himself and tries so hard not to move again, even if his body willed him to fuck those pretty hands and give into desire. His efforts were never made in vain. “Good. Stay there. Be good for me.”

Oh, why did you have to say that and have him remember how badly he wanted to hear those words over and over until he knew nothing other than how to behave for you, only for you-

“You want to be good?” You question, this time not a tease. It was a discovery with an edge of destiny. “For me?” 

Magnus’ whine confirms anything you needed to know. 

“Oh.” He can hear, feel, the smirk that registers with your words. He feels your weight over his groin, your strokes slower than before, as you lean over him, still kneeling before him. “You want me to tell you what a good boy you’ve been for me?”

His intuition is truly blessed. You were everything and anything he ever wanted. How could you have known what he wanted to hear otherwise?  

“Yes,” he gasps, voice raspy, hips controlled. His eyes are wide when he finally has the strength to look at you again, glassy and clouded with need. “I want to be… your good boy.” 

His reward is feeling his cock in your mouth again. Still too big to be taken entirely, but enough for him to feel the velvet of your throat swallowing around him, coaxing him to give in. 

It was never going to take long. A man deprived of feeling from another for his entire life never would. 

He can feel the throbbing down right down to his balls, his cock inexplicably, impossibly harder beneath your touch as the pressure builds somewhere between his spine and his stomach in a way he hasn’t yet known how to describe. He’d stay here for a lifetime. The cusp of what he wanted, knowing it was so close, but still enjoying every moment. 

Was it too late to ask for that?

Inexplicably, yes. 

His hands shake. His thoughts disperse. He questions the very reality itself.

"Are you going to come for me?" you ask, honied words dripping with a request for him to do exactly that. "You don't need permission."

Your mouth isn't around him. It's just your hand, sliding up and down in the perfect rhythm, the bend in your thumb curling around him at just the right angle, your other hand now joining to stroke the rest of his cock that didn't fit in just one. 

He wouldn't have been able to wait for permission anyway. His mind shuts down completely. 

He hears your soft chuckle fill the space between you. "Show me how good you are."

No.

He can barely register it happening before he realises. He feels a pulsating in his core, then in his cock. Too quick for him to stop or do anything about. Not yet. No. He knew the second he was finished, this was over. For now, perhaps, but he never wanted it to end. No, no…

The way he whines is entirely feral, gasping and practically hissing, arching his back further into your touch. One pulse turns to a burn, then into a rope of thick, warm come leaving him. Then another, and another, and oh throne, another few more. 

The white hot bliss stays for a moment. Just long enough for him to consider narrowing his eyes at you and having you choke on him next time without mercy. Better yet, play out that scene where he’s got you bent over his desk sliding his cock in and out of you with such ease because you’re so, so wet and he’s prepared you so well with his hands and his mouth and whatever he could use as a lubricant to make it enjoyable for you too, so he can hear you moan for him as well.

He could dream. 

Reality hits as it fades. Magnus blinks a few times, quickly, breaths slowing again. He peers down at you, dry lips gapped as though he wanted to say something, but he never speaks. He just… admires. He looks dishevelled, a complete mess of a man who was meant to be near a god, completely undone by his own needs. He can feel the perfect form he created flickering beneath his lack of control, he can feel the judgment of his brothers laced into his actions, even if he tells himself it doesn’t matter. 

You, on the other hand, look serene. Ideal. If you hadn’t accepted, this wouldn’t have happened and… 

He wouldn’t have ever got to experience what it was like to have his cock stroked during, and after, he’d experienced the bliss of an orgasm at your fingertips. 

He has to double-take, breathing heavily from his nose as he tries to contort his body enough to see what you’re doing, as if he didn’t already know, and why you were doing it. He reaches for your wrist, trying to hold you in place to stop the feeling of every pleasure centre exploding at once, yet never really actually holding you tight enough to bring you to a halt. 

“What are you—ah,” Magnus’ words can’t be finished. It’s a forbidden pain,  like he’s been seared by the light of an emerging star. “Stop. Please. I can’t…”

Your head tilts to the side like you’re challenging him. “You can’t what?”

“It feels…” his breathless pants make it hard to talk, “pain.”

You never falter. 

"W-Wait," Magnus hisses, his hand grasping for yours. His grip around your wrist tightens as he feels your thumb run over the slit on his head, every muscle in his lower body tensing. He fights through a whine, a moan, to talk. "It, gods… it hurts."

Your hum in response isn't comforting. Not when you stroke your hand down again, grip just a touch tighter, then slide your hand up all the way. "Does it really hurt?"

He almost screams his response, but the feeling of your mouth sinking around his length, warm yet somehow bringing relief to the burning desire he felt in every nerve, stops him. He still grips your wrist but lets you stroke him beneath your lips. 

His head is thrown back first. His eyes disappear somewhere into the back of his head. Everything feels like it's on fire, and you look like the very last ember that burns. His hips jolt upwards, voluntarily drawing a rhythm into your hand because you just weren't going quick enough, trying so hard to feel more of his cock fill your delicate little mouth. 

"Shall I stop?" you ask him, somewhat of a tease with your voice vibrating against his sensitive nerves. 

He can't help the moan that leaves his lips this time as you take his very tip into your mouth again. Never any further though. He despises how badly he wants to beg for more. “No. Throne, no.”

You hum around him again, spark reforging a feeling he hadn’t felt since the first time he ever tried to experience the pleasure humans did. Whatever you say, he doesn’t catch it; his vision was filled with a galaxy of stars, and his mind couldn’t register anything other than the lewd sounds of your hand rolling up and down his shaft in quicker succession. 

A breathless gasp leaves his lips, hands grabbing at anything in their vicinity. His thighs are shaking, back arching, thoughts entirely absent for moments longer than they ever had been before. He tries, so very hard, to raise his head and look down to where you kneel before him, but you slide your fingers over one particularly sensitive spot, and he’s throwing it back again, some kind of mewl his only response. 

You let his hips move this time. He holds your wrist loosely, keeping your hand in the same space as he uses whatever core strength he could muster to fuck your hand to the point of orgasm once more. 

With you, it would never take long. 

It stings as he feels his cock pulsing once more. He didn't think it was possible for it to feel so different. He's overstimulated, he's experiencing a deadly mix of pain and pleasure that's so cloying it might as well have already ruined him. 

He doesn't even remember coming the second time; only opening his eyes to your maidenly figure nestled so perfectly with him.

Then the feeling of every bone in his body being hit with tiredness, and his skin feeling covered in stickiness and grime that he hated. 

Once his breath had steadied, thoughts cleared, and thighs had stopped shaking, he finally sat forward once more. He was closer to you than anticipated, although he felt like he shrank away from you in fear of the awkwardness that could follow. You'd serviced him. What if that was it? He didn't want for that to be it. So, he talks, like that hadn't got him into this situation to begin with. 

“I feel ashamed,” Magnus comments, openly observing his sweat and come covered thighs, a bitter taste in his mouth. 

“For what reason?” You ask him in return. Only then does he catch the absence of regret in your eyes. He won’t assume, but… You didn’t seem ashamed. “You wished to enjoy yourself. Did you?”

Magnus frowns, just enough for you to notice. “Yes, very much so, but… with all this mess it had created, look at me.”

You don’t follow his gaze. “That usually happens, my Lord. It is normal.”

“Magnus," he corrects you. It seemed the barrier for formal titles had far been crossed. He spends too much time with his eyes lingering over you, raising his hand at your quiet apology when it’s given. Was it normal to enjoy the way you looked, hands covered in his come, a slight sheen over your skin and unkempt, once-tidy hair evidencing such an intimate act between you both? He leans forward without a plan, reaching for your upper arm, fingers ghosting your skin. "Let me help you."

You shake your hair. "Let me help you."

He's not given time to tell you otherwise; it was easier for you to scurry off from the floor with only the bow of your head left with him. He can hear the rush of water in an adjacent room, accompanied by what sounds like you cleaning your hands. In a state of wonder, his minds drift to another scenario. 

It would be quite intriguing to see his come painted all over your body, his own decorated piece of art. Better yet, to see if dribbling out of you, just so he could fuck it right back into you. Though he was torn between whether he'd do it gently, hold your hands and kiss you sweetly, slow so he could feel every single movement, every time your body pulsed around him. Or, he could be rough, fast, hear you beg for mercy or for more, whatever you felt like you needed more. 

In fact, he could ask you what you wanted. That way, when he delivered on everything you wanted, when he felt what it was like to have you a mess at his fingertips as well, he could hear you say how well he did again. 

Your presence draws him back to reality. He clears his throat as you kneel down in front of him with a clean cloth, beginning to wipe away what he had been scowling at before. 

"It really is normal," you tell him again, pausing for just a moment to look up at him. He nods, twice, like he does believe you. "Will you want to do this again?"

Magnus forgets to breathe. 

Hadn't thought of that. His cock twitches, he hopes you don't notice. 

"I apologise," you reply quickly, "that was too forward. I just meant..."

"I know. Please don't apologise." 

Magnus is carefully piecing together an answer. He notes your intrigue, like you're hoping for something. For his own sake, he won't let himself believe it’s for anything more than repayment.

"I would like to," he returns, humming at his own answer. "Of course, that only applies if you would also like to."

You smile, nodding. "I would."

"Good. Because I must ensure that you are adequately repaid for your time with me today."

Your movements become softer as your brows pull together. "Repaid?"

"Not in the traditional sense, I suppose." Magnus' laugh fills the room. He hopes it will put you more at ease. Alongside speaking far too much, he also had the tendency to say the wrong thing, it seemed. "It would only be fair if I... Returned this favour. Tomorrow, perhaps?"

"Oh." Your voice seems raspy. "Yes. Yes, I would enjoy that very much."

Somehow, Magnus had won a great victory whilst seated in a love seat of a dusty, old room, naked from the waist down. He'd congratulate himself for that one later, it just proved he knew exactly what he was doing. 

"Tomorrow, then." His regal smile never disappears, though if he really listened to his needs, he'd have asked you not to leave him from that point forward. There were no rules against it, but for your sake, he'd act like he wasn't obsessed with both you and how you made him feel, inside and out. "My private chambers will be more suited. I will find you around the same time."

"You do not need to find me, Magnus. I can come to you."

He shakes his head. "Let me find you. I appreciate the moment for us to talk."

"If you are sure," you reply. He holds your gaze for far too long. When you look away, the ends of your lip curl ever so slightly. He won’t admit the feeling at the pit of his stomach, not yet. "Tomorrow, then." 

You had watched the candle for hours. 

It was the last of the bunch you had on you. You’d brought a match to its wick so carefully you could feel your hands shaking with fear, the thought of darkness a looming possibility that you were not quite ready to face. In any grace that the Emperor had left for you, he must have blessed this candle; it should have been burned to its end by now, yet still, it stood strong against the black of the night. 

You may have fallen asleep. Memories seemed to blur in this place. You vaguely remembered walking around the room at one point – but you could never be sure what was real anymore. 

The ache was real, though. 

Your limbs were tired, bones equally so. Your knees had been pulled into your chest since you sat down, hugged tight against your body under your jacket, which now acted as your blanket. Your eyes felt heavy. Your neck was barely able to keep your head upright. Your fingers were wrapped around a knife, a dull and pointless thing, though it began to slip as your eyelids began to drag themselves shut. 

You’d been here before, just once. A beautiful landscape filled with trees and ruins from a time before. Overgrown greenery filled every crevice of brick and stone which had once protected its inhabitants; the trees had grown taller than any structure that remained unharmed. 

You’d felt safe here, years ago. Stood in the empty rooms and embraced the comfort of knowing how many people had stood in your position and lived to see a better life. 

So when you ran, when you crawled away from the pits of despair, this was the first place you’d thought to come. 

The creatures would perform their symphonies through the night. The wind would sweep its way through each room to ensure no trespassers lay dormant. The wood, old and battered, would creak under its own weight to remind you that the world still existed outside. 

But tonight, all you heard was the crackle of the candle flame and your own pulse. 

Your head snapped up, eyes blinking a few times to adjust to the dim light. Your heart seemed to pound louder as you scanned the room around you. 

It was too quiet. 

Paranoia had become your best friend. 

But this was different. 

Your fingers curled around the hilt of the knife again, bringing it to your chest. The aches seemed to dull in comparison to the throbbing in your throat and chest. Defending yourself from an intruder, someone who wanted to try and make some quick money, steal something valuable from a wandering soul, would be easy enough. 

You pushed yourself to your feet in a tired but swift movement. The jacket was replaced over your shoulders as you lifted each leg at a time and rolled your ankle in a circle. As you let your hands fall to your side, your left hand instinctively touched the pouch that had been tied to your belt. 

Two small vials, a sprig of yarrow, and the chain you’d always held so close. 

Your fingers twitched as they approached the zip of the pouch. Your heart seemed to calm for just a moment. It was only the caw of a raven outside that stopped you, rustling the trees as it flew away and left you almost on your own. 

There was no sign of the sun in the sky yet, the empty windows showing the never-ending void of the night beyond the trees that slowly lost their leaves. As you tuck your knife back into your belt, the flame trembles. Once, then again. You close your eyes, squeezing them as if it would absolve all the tiredness you felt, giving yourself just one moment of peace. 

Then you were smothered by it. 

Your breath caught in your throat as the smell. 

Ash. Honey and oleander. 

It was suffocating. 

You look to the door across from you, pulled slightly ajar. You inhale one more time, hoping that it was your tired mind playing a joke on you. 

It only seems to be stronger. 

You reach for the candle, snuffing the flame quickly. Your heart hammers against your ribs as you press yourself against the wall, hands flat against the stone, expecting the very worst. 

It was real.

He was here.

The air stood still for long enough for you to feel him again. 

You could have only wished for an intruder. Maybe you could defend yourself then. Maybe you had the smallest chance. 

Running seemed pointless. 

You crept your way through the halls, pitch black in some places, others given some light by the stars that lined the sky. Your feet whisked you in whatever direction seemed like it would keep you harm, but whenever he was with you, your senses never seemed to work as intended. 

You passed through a long corridor decorated with vines and roots, twisting their way through your path, forcing you to slow down as you weave your way through. You paced down a stone staircase that led into the forest that surrounded the ruins. Each slab of stone seemed to give way to the dirt beneath when you stepped down, catching your steps just long enough to steal momentum. 

You forced yourself to carry on. 

You don’t look back. 

You knew better than to look back. 

Even as branches scratched their way down your arms. Even as thorns bit at the exposed parts of your legs. Even as your legs felt like they’d given up on you. 

Even as the delicate scent of him embraced you and tried to hold you back. 

You could taste him like the sweetest syrup gracing your lips. You could see his shadow in the corner of your eyes. You could hear his voice calling in each of your steps. You could feel the way his arms would reach around you to keep you safe.

A broken stone had settled your fate. 

Face down. Palms scrapped, hidden by grit and dirt, enough to leave you ignorant of anything beneath. 

You scrambled your way to your feet. You had to believe that he wasn’t following, that it was your imagination, that you were tired and just needed to catch up on the weeks’ worth of sleep you’d missed. 

Then you heard a soft crunch. Loud enough to be heard over your own breaths and heart. Then another.

Don’t stop, you begged yourself, don’t fucking stop. Your lungs burned, the bitterness of the chilled air making things harder. You needed to stop. 

Ahead two boulders sat pressed against each other. You threw yourself at them, pressing your body into the alcove that their edges and your legs struggled to keep you standing. You could see through the gap between the boulders, just a tease of what was beyond. 

One trembling hand covered your mouth. You held it down to try and suppress anything loud. 

Footsteps echoed through the trees. Deliberate, slow, pressed into the dirt like there was no care in the world. The silhouette that you once would have chased, run to with love and excitement, now rooted you in place. 

Not from awe. 

From fear. 

Your blood ran cold. 

He wasn’t rushing. He didn’t need to rush. 

At first, he looked the same. His elegance with each step, his perfect posture, his size and stature. Then he came closer, and your perception was shattered. 

His wings dragged behind him, dull and blackened. His hair was longer, left untamed as the golden shine had started to fade. His armour was scratched and broken, covered in blood and throne knows what else. 

You held your breath as he stopped. 

He turned his head slightly, looking first to his right, then back to his left where you stood hidden. 

You pressed your body back into the boulder, trying to fit in beside the ivy and layers of vines that had grown. The world stopped turning as he looked over at the boulders. 

His stare lasted longer than it should have. But then, he kept walking. Slowly. He scanned his surroundings for any clue or noise. He still knew you were there. 

Minutes passed. You could make him out in the distance, walking without any other worry. A sigh, as quiet as you could make it, fell from your lips as you could breathe again. You let your eyes fall shut, squeezing your hands together in disbelief. 

The stinging on your palms brings you back to reality. You open them in front of you, looking down to examine them briefly. 

The black and brown mud mixed with the gathering droplets of red. The finest little cuts hidden beneath. Only small, but just enough for you to squeeze out drops. 

Surely not enough. 

You lean forward into the crevice, peeking a glimpse of the world on the other side. It all came to a halt when you could no longer see him. 

Not a sound echoed, no movement was known to you. 

But you didn’t breathe. 

The night did it for you.

Your skin pricks. Your pulse slows. 

A breath. Not yours.

Like he never left. 

“Lost, little lamb?” he whispers, his cracked yet velvet lips touching the curve of your neck. His hand reaches for your waist. “You always forget – I was made to find you.”

You dare to look over your shoulder. His eyes were already there to meet you. The golden flecks in his irises you knew and loved were gone, replaced by the deep red of the rubies that once adorned his armour.  

You couldn’t look away. 

His arm snaked around your waist, pulling you closer to him, your gaze finally broken as he buried his head into the crook of your neck. He doesn’t make a noise, he doesn’t seem to be conscious until he pushes his head into you further, drinking in the feel of you, suffocating on your presence. 

“You ran again,” he mumbles, voice muffled by the way his lips are pressed against your skin and the bruises that formed on his tongue. 

There’s a gentleness that surprised you. 

He doesn’t look up. You don’t look away from where his eyes once were, not until you feel his hand grip the edges of your body like you’d disappear if he let go. 

“I thought you would be here. You always liked this place.”

You glance down at his arm. It stopped you from reaching for anything on your belt. Not that you stood a chance anyway. He could pick you up and hold you with one arm whilst still battling the most aggressive of demons with the other. 

“What lie did you tell yourself?” He asks, raising his head ever so slightly. You look back at him, meeting his illuminated gaze through the crack between his face and your shoulder. “Why did you think it was safe to come here alone?” 

You part your lips, even without an answer on them, but they tremble without command. His brows pull together as he leans back from you, head tilting curiously to the side. His breath quickens and you feel the corners of your eyes start to sting. 

“Are you afraid?” He asks. Your lack of an answer sends him to his knees behind you. He turns you on the spot, making you face him, and look down to him just a little as he’s almost the same height as you. He doesn’t take his hands from your sides as he pulls you towards him. “No, my little muse. There’s no reason to be afraid. It’s me. It’s always been me.”

You only swallow as your body starts to feel numb. 

“You’re shaking.” His statement is obvious. He pulls you closer to him again, his head resting on your chest as his arms wrap around you. For a moment, merely a second, it feels like before. His eyes meet yours, and they seem to have returned to a honeyed gold. “Please, my love. Don’t fear me. You are all I have.”

You shouldn’t do it. You shouldn’t give in to him. 

Yet your hand finds its way to his hairline, the tips of your fingers brushing his hair back so you can see his face. Sleep deprived, even for what he is. Tired. Hungry. Starved. 

He inhales, just a little, and the crimson from before starts to creep back in. 

“Why do you run?” His voice barely reaches you. Another noise would have left his question to his imagination – not that he cared for your answer, anyway. “I could feel you in the ruins. I could feel how you called for me.”

He presses a kiss to your chest, just below where your collarbone would be, though it’s shielded by your clothes. “I could feel how you needed me.”

He picks his head up so it’s almost parallel with you. His eyes glance down at your lips, but he doesn’t make any advances. Only watches. Only lets a smirk curl on the edges of his lips. 

“I felt how desperate you were for me.”

He leans back on his knees and looks over you. For a second, freedom. Your stomach quivered. He’d never let you leave. 

“Is that what you want, little lamb? To be hunted?” He reaches for your hands, cradling them between his own as he raises them to be level with his chin. He stares at the droplets of crimson mixed into the mud, their trails leaving streaks down your palms, all the way to your fingers. His head tilts as he watches carefully. “Or do you want me to beg for taste?”

He brings his lips to your finger. So gently, so carefully, he takes the end of your finger into his warm mouth and receives the smallest of offerings. His eyes fall shut for a moment, but his grip is iron on your hand. 

“Whatever you want. I can be gentle. I can make you tremble beneath me. I can be everything. I am your everything.”

He ushers your hands back beside you but stays on his knees, holding them until he hears your answer. A worshipping glance that falls over your body is his plea, his desperation. 

But you knew he would consume you if you dared to listen. 

“Please let me hear your voice.” His voice is soft once more, but he hasn’t changed. You just look at him, right in those beautiful, broken, blood-tinged eyes. A whimper almost leaves his lips as he leans forward again. “Please. Please.”

You exhale, a shaky breath a placeholder for anything you could think of. 

You leave him to watch the fear brew behind your eyes. 

You have your own plea to the man who’s still in there, somewhere. 

“You don’t smell like him,” you whisper, voice low. The truth of your fear easily disguises your lie. “You… don’t feel like him, either.”

He freezes.

His lips fall completely, parting, though never finding an excuse. 

“Sanguinius…” his body jolts as you say his name. “I think he died when I left.” 

Silence. 

As if the world, the entire galaxy itself, waited for his response along with you.

Something in his expression cracks. 

Not anger. Not sadness. Not yearning. 

Confusion. 

His eyes are empty, his affliction stirring behind them. Gold and crimson, unstable and fractured. He’d not expected it. 

And just for a second, his grip on you loosens. 

Just enough for you to run. 

You didn’t feel how the thorns and branches broke your skin this time. You didn’t stop to think. You just ran. 

Listened to his screams, his pleas, his promises, echoed through the edges of the forest like a wounded creature whose soul had been torn in two. 

Distance would never be enough. 

But it would have to do. 

For now. 

Because even as you ran, as you escaped him and felt free of his presence, when you were able to breathe again without the suffocation of him being near, you still knew he was there. 

Your eyes never left the treeline ahead of you. Though your hands were soaked with rain, with blood and dirt, you pressed them into your own skin, holding yourself tightly with your back against the cliffside. Your knees were pulled up to your chest again, but there was no candle to comfort you now. 

Only darkness embraced you now. But it could never protect you. Not from the lull of his voice, not from the depths of his whisper. 

You lean back further into the stone, your warmth starting to fade. A bird nearby chirps, another lost soul expecting the impossible, though it fades after a few seconds. Silence weighs you again, reminding you that time was never on your side. 

Thick and unnatural, it boasted its presence. 

You felt his torment before hearing his words. 

You would have wept for me. 

Tears begin to well in your eyes. He wasn’t there, but he was so real. 

 I would have kissed away those tears, one at a time, and showed you that I’d never leave. 

You squeeze your eyes shut as you let your head fall onto your knees. A silent sob wracks your body, your jaw trembling as you do everything in your power to not make another sound. 

I could never die. I could never leave you. 

Your stomach quivered. Your jaw clenched. You crushed your palms against your ears, as if it would stop his voice, stop his madness. 

Because you love me, and I love you. Remember?

You didn’t know if he could hear you. Feel you. Understand how he made you feel. You were sure if he stood right before you now, watched as you cried because of him, he’d try to convince you it was because of the love you shared. 

He didn’t know how to hate. He didn’t know how someone, how you, couldn’t love him. 

You would always tell me. Even when I forgot, when I was too tired to speak, when I couldn’t even remember my own name, you’d tell me. I love you. I love you with all my heart. 

His voice, creating a beautiful mockery of your own words to him, curls around you. With each syllable, he holds tighter, and tighter, and tighter. 

I thought about you more each day. 

He wanted to never leave your mind. 

I wondered if I could ever hurt you. 

He wanted to devour any part of you that remembered existence was possible without him.  

Did you think I would hurt you?

He wanted all of you. 

I would have hurt you. I never wanted to. But I knew one day, I would need to. 

Tears spill from your eyes as you allow yourself to look up. Still alone. Still subjected to the whispering of a lover. 

A fallen god. 

A monster. 

I would have held you. I would have cried for you. I would have put you in the perfect little cage and never let you out.  

Another sob. Your hands fall from your ears to opposite shoulders, your nails digging into your skin with each word. 

My salvation. My sin. My everything. I can’t breathe without you. I can’t sleep without you. I can’t be me without you. 

He pauses. 

In a moment of silence, the world comes rushing back. 

He’s not here. 

He’s all around you. His hands. His wings. His golden eyes. 

He’s not here. 

But the craving is. The unbearable heat of his breath against your skin. The possessive tremble underpinning his voice. 

I miss you, little lamb. 

Your breath catches in your throat as you sit up again. You raise your head again. Your shoulders begin the smallest of shakes. 

When I saw you earlier, it reminded me of how much I love to hear your voice tremble. 

You slam your palms against your temples, shaking your head, trying to stop his voice. 

It doesn’t work. 

Nothing works. 

I wonder when I’ll next get to hear you break. 

The wind that rustles the trees seems to stop. Any wildlife, creatures of the forest that dared to roam, had run as though they knew the answer. 

You knew the answer, too. Deep down. Hidden. 

Buried beneath all the terror and desperation to survive. 

As minutes passed, he didn’t offer any further words. The echo of it still rang through your skull, his bitter, cloying presence running through every single one of your veins. 

You were too tired to blame. To wonder how you’d let it get so far, or where the turning point was. He would never truly fade. You wondered, in truth, if he’d have found you in every life, even if you pushed him away. He believed he would. 

Because he was made for you. In his eyes, at least. 

And you didn’t know how long you sat there. Never letting sleep touch you, afraid that when you woke, freedom would be too far out of your reach. 

Maybe hours, maybe days, maybe more. 

The only record of time was the darkness that loomed and how often your heart was beating, but you were never counting. 

You didn’t cry. You didn’t scream. You didn’t beg. 

It wasn’t as if your silence would save you. 

So you did what he kept asking.  

“Sanguinius?”

There’s no answer, but you feel it. Like a sweet little puppy, just learning his name, just understanding what it’s like to be called on. 

You could see him raising his head up, eyes wide as he searched for you. A smile on his lips as he felt wanted. Needed. He’d rush to your side, make sure he was at your level, cup your cheeks in his hand and promise you the entire galaxy. 

Just to watch you rip his soul free, like wins from bone. Gut him with the truth he never wanted to hear. 

“I don’t love you.”

Your words are soft. The truth, in part, because you could never love him like this. 

But his silence sends dread fleeting through your bones.  

“I…” You shouldn’t speak, but you needed to. You had to. Clarify, make him understand. “I can’t love you. Not like this.”

It doesn’t work. 

He never answers, leaving you to bask in your own thoughts as the trees stand so deadly still. 

You wonder if he will ever truly understand. 

“I’ll never love this. I’ll never love… you.”

The world tightens around you. 

A perfectly sized noose, just for you.

His mind would twist it into whatever he made it. He’d never listen. He’d never understand until you satiated his need. 

And as you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to forget the way he said your name, the way he looked at you with such admiration, you begin to think. 

You think of death. Think of life. Think of him; returning to his side, where both were inseparable. 

Even in the quiet of the forest, peace would never find you. 

His voice is always with you. His touch is always on you. He is always there. Watching. Waiting. This was the first night he’d not said another word to you, not begged you to come home, not promised to make you stay. 

It made you feel sick; how much you missed him, wished you were sat in his arms, wanted him to kiss it all better. All you had was the memory of the version of him you loved. 

And though his memory seemed crueller than he ever had been, there was something worse. Harder.

You ran again. 

His fingertips felt cold as he ran his hand over the smooth, silk sheets lining the bed. 

The books that lay open on the nightstand to the side had been neglected any attention for weeks, gathering dust on the fresh, unbothered pages. A tass with water that had resonated a murky film on top was yet to be moved. He couldn’t touch it. Not yet. 

Silence had been his muse for these very weeks, but it was not born of grief or loss. The door had been locked, not a soul permitted to enter, not a word uttered from him until he knew he was alone, and he knew you could hear. 

“You’re quiet tonight, my love,” his voice crawling through the heavy air like a plague. His lips, cracked and dry, nothing like anyone could have imagined, curled into a smirk as he turned on his heels. “Has something happened?”

Without an answer to stop him, he picked up his feet and paced the room one more time. He slowed beside the last candle that burned, wax pooling around its base as it slowly succumbed to time. As the flame fought for its life, flickering, howling for redemption, he found himself staring, his steps coming to a pause.

Patience was something he had learned so well these weeks. 

He tilts his head to the side, his tangled and wavy hair falling over his face. Not that he minded. He barely felt a thing. The flame flickered one last time before the room finally fell to the darkness promised when his last light walked away. The candle hissed a column of grey smoke as it died. All he could find was the strength to laugh. 

It smelled like you. 

The familiar scent of ash had engulfed the undertones of vanilla and cherries that rushed to pass. He couldn’t miss it. He never would. 

His hands twitched at his side, gaze shifting to the foot of the door. He wouldn’t dare look properly, no. He was afraid. Pathetic. He believed if he looked, he dared fate to test him one last time. He wanted to trust that whatever universe had birthed him would take pity on someone like him and give him back what he deserved. 

Minutes pass before he hums, the door never opening. 

It was locked, of course, it wouldn’t open.  

His amusement doesn’t fade as he begins his path again, looping around to the silk sheets that lined the bed. Everything remained as it was, apart from the candles that would never withstand the test of time. If he could bring himself to look at where you once lay on the bed, he’d still notice the imprint of your body. 

He moves on. Doesn’t touch the sheets this time. Just walks another lap around the room as though it would change anything. 

As though you would be back in a moment’s time, only stepping out briefly, finding your way back to his arms so he could drink in every single part of you and promise you that he’d never, ever let you be without him for a single second. 

“Won’t you say something?” he asks, eyes still fixed on the floor. “I miss your voice.”

He stops again, this time beside the desk you would often write at whilst you waited for him to return. Where you’d leave him letters of your love for him. Where he’d found every piece of you and put you back together. Where you’d sat and told him you loved him, where he’d kissed you for the first time, where you’d told him you were going. 

He sighed, bringing his hands together behind his back as he turned to face the table. “You would always tell me the sweetest things. Always the things I needed to hear.”

He rests his palm flat on the table. He still felt your warmth. As he dragged his fingers across the wood, tracing the grain as though it would tell him where he would find you, his mind began to fray. 

“My love, please, talk to me again.” 

The silence that hung in the air stung more than before. 

He’d been able to conjure your voice in the depths of his own stirred mind for a few days, but then the façade started to shatter. He only heard his own voice speaking for you, a bitter reminder of what he was missing. 

He smiles again. 

Missing. Yes. Not lost. 

“Do you think distance is enough?” he questions. He removes his hand from the table, replacing it behind his back again. He steps away, eyes landing on the foot of the door once more. His chest thumps as his smile drops. “Do you think there is a place in this galaxy that I wouldn’t be able to find you? That you could exist without me?”

His wings shifted just slightly, the greying feathers rustling behind him as though they reminded him just who he was. For just a second, he felt the strength to bring his eyes to the door and confront his anxieties directly. 

“Do you feel me, too?” 

His stare intensified. The darkness of the room increased.

“Do you remember everything, my love?”

He did. 

There was not a memory that evaded his grasp. Not when he’d already let you slip away. 

“Did you expect me to have burned corners of the galaxy in search of you, demand you to return to me? Or did you believe I would just let you walk away and leave me forever?”

He exhales. Slow, indulgent, memories of you filling the cracks in his mind. Then, finally, a hum. 

“I know you will return, my love.”

And Sanguinius would wait for you to return until the very end of the universe.

He’d wait seconds. Hours. Years. Eternity. Whatever it would take. 

Because you always come back. Always.

His voice falls low, soft words inviting a sickening mix of despair and security. “You love me.”

He did not doubt that fact. He did not hope that it was real. He knew. 

“And I love you, my little muse,” his words continue as he steps slowly towards the door, “but you know that. We always have.”

The air swelled with warmth, a trace of something sweet weaving its way through the emptiness. He stopped immediately, head snapping to his right. His eyes became unfocused as he listened. His wings shivered; his hands curled into fists. 

Then, a small, final smile. 

“I’m waiting.” He lets his eyes fall shut as the familiar bitter almond engulfs him. “You will want me, you will call for me, and you will run straight back to me.”

He exhales again; words savoured on the tip of his tongue. When he opened his eyes, the golden hues had started to mix with the deep crimson replacement. 

“Come home to me, little lamb. Before my teeth remember what divinity tastes like, and I forget how to be gentle.”

His breaths grow heavy, his teeth pressing into his lips until he tastes a iron. His affliction coils beneath his skin. A whisper promising possession; obsession. A hunger that no prayer can starve.

Not blood. Not power. Just you.

“You always were sweetest when your voice trembled under me.”

Only you.  

“And when you do come back… 

I’ll remind you just how sweet you are.

I’ll carve your name into my skin, so you never forget.

And this time, I’ll make sure you stay.”

Time passed by. He only knew because he often reached into the void to feel your heart beating.

Sometimes fast, when you were running. Sometimes slow, when you weren’t. He’d have believed time had stopped without it. He would have stopped without it. 

Others passed by. Nameless. Voiceless. Blurred into one.

He didn’t care to look anymore, or even pretend to, no acknowledgement of their presence granted. Not when his mind preoccupied him, prevented his attention from moving anywhere but that soft beating heart. 

So, when the door opened, he didn’t even blink. 

He stood alone, staring into the pit of fire at the edge of the room, hands locked together, his wings dragging along the floor as he took small, even steps. 

“I hoped to not find you here.”

Sanguinius doesn’t turn. His eyes move upwards, no longer looking directly into the flames. 

“There are whispers that you haven’t left this room,” the voice behind continues, slow and practised. A voice he’d found comfort in before. “Are they true, brother?”

The silence is confirmation. Magnus is still for a moment before he steps into the room, closing the heavy door behind him. 

His presence is overwhelming. For the first time in days, Sanguinius can look away. The fire burns on whilst his attention finally casts a net on the room. Quiet. Just the two of them. Dark. His gaze shifts across the room until he comes to a stop his brother approaching gently.  

“You haven’t had any rest,” Magnus says, steps ending when he stands an equal distance from the fire. “Your mind does not know how to. I can feel it.”

The echoes of a smile curved onto Sanguinius’ lips. “And yours does?”

“I am not the one confined to a room,” Magnus answers. Sanguinius can feel his eyes burning into him. “I hear your mind. How it screams louder than any other around you.”

“That is not unusual.”

“No,” Magnus continues, “but it is louder than usual. Untamed. Not like you.” 

Sanguinius’ eyes flick back to the fire. As neither speaks, Magnus follows, watching the roar alongside him. 

“I thought it was grief. That usually would cause this.” Magnus sounds as though he understood. Cared. Had seen this before. “But you are not grieving. That is different. This isn’t mourning. This is fragmentation.”

Sanguinius hums. He turns his head towards Magnus but avoids his eyes. Magnus is staring, studying him anyway, watching for any movements.  

“Who is it?”

Sanguinius meets his eyes. Flinches. He won’t say. 

“Could you give me a name?” 

Sanguinius shakes his head. “It belongs to me.”

He can’t bear to share the memory. He’s afraid that someone else would challenge him, try to take you away. Only he was allowed you. No one else, not even a brother trying to help.

“Well, they are buried in the darkest parts of your mind, trapped in every corner.” Magnus’ brows pull together. He takes a small step towards him. “They’re burning you alive, brother.”

Sanguinius shouldn’t feel so relieved that his memory hadn’t leaked past his own delusion. He’d not spare the details of you. 

You were his. Even now.

“They were my salvation.”

“They still are.”

“No.” His voice slashed Magnus’ connection to his mind. His eyes returned to the flames. “They’re not here. They’re not with me. They have chosen… They do not love me.”

Magnus pauses for a moment. “They are there.”

“No,” Sanguinius chides, “They don’t love.”

“But I still feel them in you.” Magnus sighs, pulling his hands together, adjusting the golden bangle on his wrist. “In your breath. In your silence. Your heart and soul.”

Magnus pauses. His focus shifts for a moment, as though he could replay every one of Sanguinius’ memories. 

“What did you do to them?” 

Sanguinius doesn’t answer. 

“You lost them, but it is not without cause. What… What could you have done?”

Sanguinius refuses to answer. 

“I only see love.” Magnus looks closer at him. Takes another step closer as if that would unblur his memories. “Yet you are hurt. Lost. I see what it is doing to you. I think you are losing control.”

Magnus watches for more. A tactic that may work on a mere human, but not one of them. He doesn’t move yet, and Magnus tries again. 

“You’ve already lost control.”

Sanguinius’ hands fall to his side. He looks back to Magnus, this time turning his whole body. He felt the golden aura crack himself. 

Another smile. Cold, lifeless. A predator’s natural instinct. “I never lost control.”

“Then what is it?”

“You were always wiser than me, brother.” Sanguinius huffed a laugh from his pale, cracked lips. “I see them when I close my eyes. I hear their voice instead of mine. I remember them in every candle. Feel them beside me when I look in mirrors. What do you think it is?”

His breath quickened. The smile he carried no longer felt hollow. Magnus’ opportunity to interject was lost. 

“I know where they are. Where they’re hiding from me. I feel them breathing, their heart beating, the way their body begs for me. Nothing could keep them from me, not the stars, not you… not even fate.”

“Devotion?” Magnus suggests. 

“Perhaps.” Sanguinius’ smile blossomed. “Prophecy. Worship. Sacrifice. Ache. Hunger.”

Magnus takes a step back, a frown etched into his features. “You speak of them like they’re the air around you, like you’ll die without them. They’ve left you bleeding.”

“I am not bleeding,” Sanguinius insists, “I am thirsting.”

Magnus doesn’t move, his expression unchanged. His lips part as though he had found some semblance of reassurance, but he never speaks them. Sanguinius was already gone. 

He turned away from Magnus. His wings dragged across the ground once more, heavy with dust. His hands rest behind his back as he takes meaningless steps once again. After a few, he stops. 

Closes his eyes. Feels their heartbeat. 

Then continues his path, his musing. “I always find them in the same places.”

He hums to himself, voice falling to a low tone. He looks over his shoulder, finding Magnus once more. “It’s as if they want me to find them again. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Magnus doesn’t answer this time.

Not until Sanguinius stops completely. He turns back to Magnus, now on the other side of the room, with the same smile still burning. “You wonder why they would run to begin with.”

“Naturally.” Magnus stands uncomfortably still, as though pulling apart the weave holding memory and hallucination together. “You do not run from them. Are they frightened by you?”

Sanguinius is quick to shake his head. “No. Never. They enjoy how I chase them.”

He starts to pace once more, looking ahead as though the memories were on a screen in front of him. 

“You would like them,” Sanguinius says softly.

Magnus’ eyes follow him. “Tell me.”

“You dare me?” Sanguinius musters a laugh from somewhere. His eyes fall shut for the briefest of seconds. “I can’t. If I start, I will not be able to bring myself to stop.”

“I want to know more, Sanguinius.” Magnus folds his arms over his chest slowly. “Tell me everything.”

Sanguinius looked away. Felt his brother’s gaze at his side. His head dips ever so slightly. 

He lets his eyes fall shut again. Allows every memory to return to him. 

“I feel them in every step I take, another prayer for them to answer.”

His chest thumps harder as he speaks. 

“But… I met them in a garden.”

Sanguinius looks beyond Magnus. Sees the image in his head – where you stood before him and he was hooked. 

“The sun was out, late, even for summer. I remember the way the corners of the frame were turning violet. They had their hands held up towards the sky, blood on their fingers. They smiled when they saw me.”

Magnus’ frown doesn’t quite reach Sanguinius. “They were hurt?”

“Barely,” he laughs, “the roses had fought them. They wanted to trim their stems and keep them from overgrowing. Cut themselves in the process, told me they didn’t mind.”

Sanguinius hums fondly over the memory. He could picture you sitting there, with the same clothes, the same hair, the same memory that always wandered through his mind. 

“I sat beside them. The way it dripped down their fingers fascinated me. They wiped it on their apron like it was nothing, said it happened all the time. They fascinated me. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Fascination, yes,” Magnus answers. He watches Sanguinius, studies him, like it would somehow lead to more understanding. “but this isn’t just fascination, brother.”

“Then what is it?” Sanguinius asks once more. “Adoration? Possession?”

Magnus shakes his head. “Worship.”

Sanguinius doesn’t answer. 

“You did love them,” Magnus clarifies, “but you worshipped them, too.”

“It’s hard not to worship someone who made you feel whole.”

Sanguinius looks towards the floor once more. His hands shake at his side until he pulls them into fists. When he finally looks back to Magnus, there’s an absence in his gaze that can’t quite be explained. 

“They were kind to me. They taught me what sweetness was. They held me, kissed my hands, showed me love without even caring what I was, or who I was. They…” 

His voice broke, his chest heaved. Magnus doesn’t move. 

“They’d sit behind me and trace over my wings, every feather, as they told me why they wanted me. They called me angel, said they loved me. Magnus, they loved me. Loved all of me.”

“You speak of them like a dream,” Magnus comments. 

“Yes,” Sanguinius returns. Too soft. Too reverent. “That’s what they are.” 

Magnus’ lips raise in one corner, not quite a smile. “Do you still love them?”

“Always,” Sanguinius returns. “There isn’t a day I haven’t loved them.”

“Then what happened?”

“They said they’d never leave.”

“But they did?”

Sanguinius hums. “But they did.”

“Because of something you did?” Magnus asks, braver with his questions, yet never approaching his brother. 

“I thought I was giving them everything they needed,” Sanguinius answers. “They were the only peace I ever had. But… I ruined it.”

He keeps his lips parted, words still coming to him.

“It was too much. That’s what they said. I was taking too much, leaving them with nothing.” Sanguinius pauses again. He swallows, hard, and his voice rasps as he continues. “They were mine. I don’t… They were everything. Mine.”

“But you’re not theirs?” 

“All of me belongs to them.” Sanguinius’ knees feel weak. An ache, longing in his chest as he finds the courage to laugh. Once, bitterly, pain seeping through him. “They don’t know. They’ll never know how much of me is theirs.”

Magnus doesn’t speak for a moment. In all his wisdom, he wasn’t sure how to advise his brother. Not on this, not as he saw the light in his eyes beginning to fade, embers burning at his core as the gold simmered to scarlet. 

But he saw, knew, the desperation behind his brother’s eyes – and despite knowing better, he continued, his tone softer than before. 

“Why don’t you show them?”

Sanguinius laughed once again. 

Was it supposed to comfort him?

Mend the bleeding and broken divinity threaded through his very soul?

Or, Sanguinius thinks, it’s the final push he needed. 

Confirmation.  

Sanguinius doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away from something that Magnus couldn’t see. Not a point in the distance; it was something beyond the realm of his understanding. 

The crack of a smile, then slanted brows and downturned lips, all in quick succession.

You should forget me. 

Sanguinius’ breath chokes. 

Magnus frowns. “What is it?”

Please, let me go.  

His lips part, breath unable to form. 

Please. 

“Sanguinius?”

“They’re here.” Sanguinius tells him. Magnus looks to the empty room, but he never gets the chance to protest. “They’re close. I hear them. Throne, they’re always close.”

Sanguinius steps forward, slow, as if afraid to scare the voices away. Gentle, like a child in awe of something too great for them to understand. Like he was a boy again, like he’d understood love for the first time. 

You can’t keep doing this. I was never yours to keep.  

“No.” His voice is so quiet, Magnus would have missed it if he wasn’t watching so closely. “No. You don’t mean it. No.”

I’m not yours, Sanguinius. 

His eyes narrow at the point across the room. His nostrils are flared, his jaw drawn tight. “You’re lying.”

“You’re speaking with them?” Magnus asks, reaching a hand to his brother. Sanguinius doesn’t react, not even as Magnus squeezes to see what’s still left of him. “They’re not here, but they can hear you?”

“You wanted me to chase you,” Sanguinius murmurs. He brings a hand to his chest as though it would soothe the pain. “You said you enjoyed it. You loved it.”

This isn’t the same. 

“How?” he petitions, voice strained, “what’s not the same?”

You. 

He hilts his head back slowly. 

You’ve changed.

“You said you wanted all of me.” His words are whispered one more time. Delirium spins within, yet he still seems so composed. “You were never afraid of any part of me.”

I was wrong. I’m afraid. I don’t want this.

He laughs again. It’s unkind, unfamiliar. “You promised me, remember?”

Please, stop…

“I can’t stop,” he hisses, glancing at Magnus, but never resting there. “You know I can’t. I need you. You made me need you.” 

Magnus steps forward again, now right beside him. He feels pity. He feels worry. This wasn’t something he could easily comprehend, and he hated it as much as seeing Sanguinius broken.

Magnus pulls his attention back to him. “Talk to me, brother.”

Sanguinius looks at him with wide eyes, glassy, lips shaking. “They begged me to stay with them no matter what.”

“When?”

“That night.”

“What night?”

“They laid beside me, ran their fingers across my chest and said they didn’t care. They’d bury themselves in my madness. As long as it meant they could keep me.”

That was before.

“Before what?” he continues, shifting his eyes away from Magnus. No reply. He looks back to Magnus. He places his hand on Magnus’ chest. “They said… they were the sweetest thing I’d ever taste. They were. Nothing is better than them.”

Sanguinius stops. 

The first bite of metal. The bitterness of grapefruit. The sharpness of cranberry. Then, the sweetness of the ripest plum. 

“I thought about it every day. I resisted for so long. I knew what it could do.” Sanguinius’ eyes aren’t quite focused, but he tries to keep his coherency. He thought Magnus’ approval might save him. “It was the madness they wanted to bury themself in.”

Magnus doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t look away. 

“They didn’t want to be without me, they loved me.” It takes him less than a second to correct himself. “Loves me.” 

It was all he could think about. 

The taste.

“They turned their neck to the side and offered themselves to me. Told me to be gentle… I was. I always was. They wanted me to have them.” His eyes continue their crimson descent. “They gave me every part of them. Skin. Voice. Blood.”

Magnus holds his breath. 

“Their soul.”

Sanguinius takes his hand away from Magnus, shrugs his hand off his shoulder, too. 

“They’d die for me. If they had to.”

Magnus forces his reply. “They never needed to.”

“No.” Sanguinius’ lips part, then begin to curl. “I’d never have let them die.”

“Then what did you do?”

“What they asked,” Sanguinius confirms, indignant. “I only ever did what they asked.”

Because you had kissed him first. 

You’d leaned into him, whispered that you were his, promised him anything he wanted, he just had to ask. 

So, he did. He asked for a taste, for more of you, and you had said yes. You always said yes. 

He remembered how warm your skin was, how you barely flinched as his teeth scratched the surface of your skin, how you nodded for him to continue when he searched for your eyes amongst the fuzziness of the world around him. 

You’d laced your fingers into his hair as he took the first sips. It was so easy. You made it easier for him, reassured him each time that it was what you wanted as well.

“They were shaking,” Sanguinius recounts, softly speaking his thoughts aloud. “I was always gentle with them. I barely even pierced their skin the first time. It was just a taste.”

He brings his hand up to his mouth, tips of his fingers just brushing his lips, memory serving him an image of you doing the same motion. 

His lips part. His breath, already ruined, stutters. His hand trembles as he feels the touch, as if your blood stained his lips once more.

“I’ve never tasted anything better,” he says, “and I’ll never know anything better.”

Sanguinius watches his brother, but his face never changes. Just a few simple words. “That was only the first time.”

“Resisting temptation isn’t easy.” Sanguinius hums as his head tilts ever so slightly. “You’d understand, brother.” 

“This is different.”

“How so?”

Magnus doesn’t answer. 

Sanguinius continues his musings. 

“They’d never truly understood what it meant, but they understood me. They became a part of me. I’d never be without them.”

Sanguinius loses his focus again. 

“They told me to take more if I needed it. Every time, every need I had, they satiated it. Drop by drop. I didn’t stop.” His smile falls. “I couldn’t stop. They let me take, let me drink until it hurt them, until they would beg me to stop, and…”

His hands shook, his words left him. 

He could see you beneath him, lips pale, skin ghostly, a weak palm on his shoulder to stop him. 

He hadn’t meant to love it. Not more than he loved you.

“They were always mine.” Sanguinius’ gaze snaps back to Magnus. “They are mine.”

Quiet builds between them as they stare. Magnus can see it; the delight, the desire, the undoubted possession that Sanguinius held.

It was never grief he felt. 

Never sorrow.  

“I can still taste them.” Sanguinius sighs. “Like it’s the first time. It was always like the first time.”

“This isn’t…”

“Normal?” Sanguinius laughs, excessively. “I don’t need it to be.”

“This isn’t love,” Magnus corrects him. “This is need. Ruin.”

Sanguinius doesn’t follow. The words don’t register with him. “I can’t go on with just their memory. I need to feel them again. I need them. Here, with me. For me.”

Magnus recoils the hand that had reached for Sanguinius. 

It wasn’t his brother anymore. 

“I know where they’re going.” Sanguinius exhales gently. “I always know. They always tell me.”

He turns to leave. 

Magnus doesn’t follow, just watches. The air is wrought with unspoken words, but Sanguinius can’t notice. 

Not like this. 

But he does stop, his thoughts needing to be shared. 

“They always run to the same places,” he tells Magnus. He smiles, nodding curtly. “They want me to find them.”

Magnus didn’t answer, not until seconds had passed and Sanguinius was on the verge of leaving.

“Brother.” He keeps his tone flat. “You can’t go like this.”

Sanguinius narrows his eyes but doesn’t speak. He doesn’t acknowledge the words, but he doesn’t listen to them either. Like something menial had distracted him. 

“They’re hiding from you,” Magnus tells him. “They’re scared.”

“They’re waiting for me,” Sanguinius replies. 

“No.” Magnus approaches him again. He holds the door handle to prevent him from leaving. “They’re running from you. You know that.”

Sanguinius doesn’t answer. 

“You felt it.”

A hum. “I did.”

“Because they needed to.” 

“Because they had to.” Sanguinius sighs, as though it pained him, as though he was reciting a prophecy laid out for both of you. “I’ll find them, and they’ll come back, like always.”

“Not this time.”

Sanguinius’ brows pull together. The air between them shifts, even as his expression becomes less recognisable. Threatened. Hurt. Overwhelmed. 

He watches Magnus like the answers would appear before him. Like you’d be brought back to him without him needing to ignore the truth Magnus was bearing.

One crack in his façade wasn’t enough, though. Never would be.

His hands ball into fists. 

Just an ounce of restraint stays with him. 

“Step aside.”

“You don’t want to harm them,” Magnus says, never leaving his spot. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I am,” Sanguinius snaps, “My mind is clear.”

A pause. Silence. Mourning. 

“I just miss them.”

Magnus swallows.

“I can’t be without them. Everything… it hurts. I can’t think, I can’t breathe. I’m burning, Magnus. My bones are scorched. My veins only carry fire. I’m starving.”

“I know.” Magnus’ gaze never leaves his. “Let me help you.”

Sanguinius’ chest heaves. 

He places his hand over Mangus’, removing each finger’s grasp on the handle. Magnus doesn’t stop him. He couldn’t. No weapon or spell could avert what happens next. 

Any air left between them is gone. 

“You can’t help me.”

The crimson in his eyes burns. 

“I crave their blood.” Sanguinius’ voice is so quiet, trembling. “I ache for their fear.”

Any rationality left in him begs for an apology. He didn’t mean it. But he did. Deep down. No words to apologise ever come to the surface. 

Instead, he remembers. “I dream of one last taste.”

Magnus stills. Realises. 

It was love, but much more. 

Compulsion. Addition. Withdrawal. 

Divinity disguised as despair. 

“You’re not going,” Magnus tells him, his voice faltering for the first time, “I won’t let you.”

Sanguinius hums. 

Then, he smiles.  

“I won’t hurt you,” he says. Pity tangled between each syllable. “But I will go.”

And Magnus shouldn’t let him. 

He should put the creature that had taken over his brother down and save you from what fate had conjured just for you. 

But Sanguinius simply moves past him. 

Wings skim the delicate robes, eyes move back to the unseen reality, affliction bending reality right in front of him. 

Fate. That was it. All of this was meant to be. 

“They always run the same places,” Sanguinius muses one last time, stepping past his powerless brother. “They need me to find them.”

And this time?

He wouldn’t stop until he did.

Horus had lost his focus some time ago. 

Usually welcoming of talks about war, territory, and military strategy, especially in the presence of his brothers, the situation was quite unusual for him. No less because they were accompanied by their sons, and another figure from Prospero that he had met so many times before. 

But this was different. 

His focus wasn’t lost. It was somewhere else. As Magnus and Fulgrim spoke, his words were what was lost – he’d started by telling them he had many opinions to share and somehow ended up saying little more than yes or no for the past hour or so. His focus was on something else. Someone, rather. 

It’s only something small. Fulgrim had made a comment about something related to the artistical choices of whoever dared stand up to him, something of which sparked some humour at the table. He’d then turned to his side and made a private remark to Maevela. She had leaned in to listen to him, her hand grazing the edge of the table as she moved her attention his way. 

He'd looked away, noticing his staring when she first made a soft gasp. He found some interest in the rows of books behind her, white noise filling his ears as he tries his very best to read some of the words on the book covers. 

Then, she laughs.

He’s drawn back to her, as much as he tried to resist. It’s quiet at first, just a breath, before she lets herself be unrestrained. Her head had tilted back, exposing the curve of her neck that laid bare without any jewels. The movement caught the candlelight perfectly. The delicate line of her throat, the soft rise and fall of her breath. 

Something presses tight against his ribs. He’d looked to Magnus expectantly, but there was no reaction. His brother did not even seem to care that she spoke or made a noise. His attention was in the book on the table detailing a list of artefacts recovered. He hadn’t tried to get her attention the entire time they sat there. He never leaned in to speak with her. He barely even looked at her. Horus’ nails dig into his skin as though the pain might ground him, make reality seem more adjusted. 

Horus had noticed it before, but this was different. His brother was so openly uncaring and indifferent. Maevela, she was… 

She’s so graceful as she listens to Fulgrim. Her hands, so much smaller than his, were restless on the table as her finger idly traces the golden embellishing of the marble. The sun shone against her skin and highlighted her features that stood out so strikingly. Her skin was smooth, yet the hint of a smile remained on the corners of her lips even as she stopped laughing.

And he shouldn’t be thinking that. Not now. There was no reason to. It was ridiculous for someone such as him to be disturbed by such simple emotions. 

He had admired her. Always had. She was dedicated and strong, loyal to an empire that many wished to discard her from. She had stood at Magnus’ side and elevated him with the same, knowing smile on her lips as everyone praised him. No one had looked at her the same way. But Horus did. 

His stomach twists. Knowing his thoughts she be let go off, he sits forward in his chair and leans his elbow on the table. He looks down at his lap for a moment, clearing his throat and allowing his back teeth to rest together as his jaw sets. When he looks back up, he thinks to look to Fulgrim, always commanding the attention around him, but instead his eyes fall straight to her.

He can’t bring himself to look away. Her silent attention paid to the conversation around her is met with agreeing nods and hums. Her hair, loose to fall down her back, is as white as the frost on a winter’s morning, decorated with simple ribbon to hold smaller braids in place. Her eyes twinkle in the light around them, colour a mix of every hue it seemed, finally settling on the green of the forest trees. His breathing catches.

She looks at him. She noticed. 

He looks away quickly, trying to cover up his actions, but he’s returned her eyes to her too fast. She will still looking at him, inquisitively, as if to confirm her own suspicions.

Though her eyes flicker away, his gaze linger for just a moment longer than needed. She shouldn’t have even noticed him, but she did, and she had shyly looked away thinking that maybe he hadn’t noticed as well. 

Seconds pass, then he sees it. Her lips, not once moving from their default position before now, curve into the smallest smile. It doesn’t last, certainly not as Magnus looks around to confirm whatever he had uttered before. But he was not imagining it. 

And suddenly, he knows. 

His heartbeat pounds too hard. He looks away quickly, shifting in his chair again and trying to focus his attention on the paper in front of him. The words don’t even register to him. So much for pretending he wasn’t staring… It felt like everyone in the room had caught him. Especially with how heavy Fulgrim’s gaze on him is. 

He steals a glance up to Magnus, expecting to have been caught somehow. Still, nothing. His brother to the left of Maevela was still oblivious to everything going on around him. His brother to the right, however, seemed to know every single thing that was happening in the room right then. 

Horus catches the smirk that Fulgrim wears. So observant, so aware of everyone’s personal lives, but especially of the two that he had tried for years to weave together as it became more and more apparent that Magnus and Maevela had left their relationship years and years ago. 

Fulgrim turns back to Maevela, murmuring something that only the pair could hear. Horus tries to read his brother’s lips, but he speaks too quickly, lips already contorted by his amusement. Maevela looks back to Fulgrim, brows pulled together and lips already parted, smile beginning to waver. He then asks her something, sounded out careful, as though he wanted Horus to understand. You do realise he was staring, don’t you?

She looks from Fulgrim, to Horus, then down to the floor. She gave no answer that he could see or hear, but he knew she gave one. Fulgrim looks at him once more with his head tilted to the side, pleased with her response most of all. He had been caught, and his scheming brother was going to have everything to do with it. 

“Forgive me,” Horus speaks, commanding the attention from the room. All but Maevela look to him, even Magnus seems pleased to hear his voice. He pushes his chair back, clearing his throat, and bows his head to Magnus in particular. “Thank you for inviting me to discuss our plans, but there’s something I need to urgently attend to. Perhaps we shall continue later?”

No one was going to stop him. Instead, they let him leave, and as he turns, he feels Maevela’s eyes on him once more. Curious. Unsure. He hears her shift in the seat behind him, so much more delicate than both of his brothers, like she wished to ask something. No words every come from her, only the voice of his brother again, words silk-wrapped in venom as he stands as well. Horus stops just before the door. 

“Give me five minutes,” Fulgrim says, his hand on Maevela’s shoulder. He doesn’t even look to Magnus as he speaks. Both of them look to Horus directly, and he can see it just out of the corner of his eye. “It seems our brother needs time to think about… well, something he wants but thinks he shouldn’t have. Let me speak the truth to him. I will be back shortly.”

It feels like such a condescending hand on his shoulder, but Horus lets Fulgrim guide him out of the room into the hallway, hearing the silence falling behind them. He wanted a moment to breathe, but it would not be gifted to him. His hands feel like they shake a little, his jaw hurts from how tightly it’s been clenched. When Horus finally stops walking, Fulgrim turns all his attention to him. 

“In front of Magnus?” he asks, eyes wide. Horus can’t help but rolls his eyes as Fulgrim continues. “Horus, my dear brother, you may carry the emperor’s favour, but do not doubt for a second that Magnus would turn a blind eye to your advances onto his wife. He is just as possessive as you.”

Horus brings his hand to his face, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “I do not doubt he would.”

“Then a word of advice?”

Horus hums. 

“If you are going to steal something from Magnus, at least have the decency to make it worth the trouble. Do not ask me again how she’s doing. Ask her yourself. Don’t just watch her. She is waiting for you, you know.”

Horus looks up to him, ready to argue, but Fulgrim hushes him with a raised fist. He takes a step away, but turns back one last time. 

“You lingered, brother, and if I’m not mistaken, so did she,” Fulgrim states, shrugging his shoulders as though the possibility of futures was endless. He taps two of his fingers against his temple, bowing his head back to his brother before he leaves. “I do hope you will not continue to resist forever. It would be such a waste.”

Fulgrim walks away, leaving Horus stood in the middle of the hall. He does not move, only watches, and as the doors to the room are opened once more, he seems Maevela inside, cautiously looking up to see who would return through the doors. Her eyes search for his own, though he does not linger like before. 

Fulgrim stops at the door. Magnus must surely have looked up by now. “What will you do about it now, brother?”

His fingers flex at his side. Fulgrim doesn’t look back. Doesn’t need to. Horus already knows he is smirking.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Maevela isn’t meant to be thinking about him. 

She shouldn’t keep replaying it in her mind. How his eyes lingered on her. How he looked from her, knowing he was caught, but looked back again. 

But she was. 

Over and over and over. Her hands gripped the stone fence that lined the edge of the balcony. The warm evening never helped the blush that spread over her cheeks, the usual breeze failing to show and save her. She closes her eyes, saving herself from the view of Tizca beneath her, and takes a breath. 

He always asks me about you.

Of course, it would be Fulgrim’s voice that disturbs any chance she has of peace. Every time they spoke Horus was mentioned. She wasn’t even sure why Horus had been invited here in the first place, lest it be at Fulgrim’s wish. Now his words ring in her ears, never leaving her to the silence she craved. Why did Horus ask about her?

She squeezes her eyes shut, dipping her head ever so slightly as though it would force the thoughts and feelings to leave her. She scrunches her nose, her whole face, tips of her fingers pressing into the stone. Then the door opens behind her. 

She turns, quickly, hiding any trace of her thoughts. Her expectations are correct. Though she sees the outline of her husband inside, disguised by the darkness of candles neither of them bothered to light, he never looks at her. Whatever has his attention, it is not her. 

“Ahzek is looking for you,” Magnus says. 

She blinks. She approaches the door, thinking there would be more. She even tries to speak as almost reaches the door. “Magnus—” 

But he doesn’t let her finish. One nod, dismissive, distracted by whatever he worked on, is all he allows her. Just a nod before he turns away, and Maevela is left to her thoughts one more time. He didn’t want to hear what she said. He may not have even cared. 

She watches as he walks away from her, the heavy door of the room inside left to close without another glance her way. 

He must have seen it, earlier. Magnus was as observant as Fulgrim, maybe even more so. He could not have ignored everything that was right before him. He must have heard Fulgrim’s words, seen the way Horus had walked away… Unless he did not see, or hear. He may have chosen not to see her any longer. That decision may have been one he made a long time. 

As much as she knew, she had been able to ignore it. No one dared to speak out of tone with her. Perhaps Ahzek, or Amon, lifelong friends of them both, but that was only friendlier than others. No one had dared to look at her the way Magnus once did, not before Horus did today. 

She should have felt sadness for it. To have someone fall out of love with you? It should have broken her. But she knew. It was not a silent change. It was only confirmed now, any of her suspicions were accurate. She had mourned long before today. 

She doesn’t dwell on the fact. Magnus had told her to find Ahzek, and she would. That’s what she should do. She trails the long hallways and stairs with the intention of finding the First Captain who usually asked for her to discuss something which would keep her distracted long enough to process today. A new spell, an uncovered artefact, something he would not burden his primarch with but knew she would enjoy. 

But fate would not have it that way. 

She had been looking at the floor, noting the frayed edges of a carpet, when she heard the footsteps. The sound resembled Magnus, so used to hearing him around there, but when she looked up it was not her husband that greeted her. No, it was Horus. No armour, no elaborate cape with the wolf around his shoulders. Just Horus. Looking at her already. 

She feels a unexpected relief wash over her, completed by a flicker of excitement that lays dormant at the edges of her nerves. He was likely going to Magnus. He had permission to traverse these halls just like she did, but unlikely they would just run into each other. Yet Magnus would not have orchestrated this. 

There was no planning. There was nothing deliberate. It was just the weavings of fate. His presence had lingered around her since earlier, he saddled each of her thoughts from the moment she was alone. It was deliberate, even if she didn’t believe it so. Inevitable, even.

It should mean nothing. It does mean nothing. As they approach each other, neither utter a word. Even though he doesn’t speak, he slows down, and she feels herself do the same. As if Fulgrim’s word replay to them both. What will you do about it now, brother? Maevela expects nothing. 

She sees him nod, a small smile on her lips, and she should expect nothing. She nods back at him. She should keep walking. He should keep walking. Just as she thinks that he has chosen to do nothing, his voice echoes through the otherwise empty room. 

“Come look at the stars with me.”

Maevela stops. He says it so easily. Like he’d rehearsed it or said it hundreds of times to her before. Like it’s nothing. Like he knew what she would do already. It should be so easy for her to reply no. That she’s busy, that she’s going to find Ahzek as he requested, like she was told to do by her husband a few floors above them. She shouldn’t hesitate this much. 

But she does. 

She turns back to him, reaching his gaze with innocent eyes. Her lips part, words ready to be spoken, but she stops them. She doesn’t want to say no. Her uncertainty, her pause, it would have easily been found by Horus. He would have known. 

“I shouldn’t,” she says. She stumbles over a few syllables, holding her hands behind her back as she denies one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy. “Ahzek… Ahriman, he is looking for me. I should…”

Her foot shifts forward, though she stops herself again. Even with her excuse, she doesn’t want to move. She waits, watches, wonders. Hesitation is laced in her every word. 

Horus nods once. He steps towards her, stopping about a metre before her. Satisfaction lays zealous in his eyes. He does not react immediately, though patience is lost to him quickly – he holds his hand out to her, as a gesture, not a command. An encouragement. An offer. Her fingers twitch at her side. 

And she takes it, knowing she had accepted the fate she was promised. 

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

He had found a quiet spot in the great pyramid the night before. Trying to escape Fulgrim’s incessant words of his future and how he needed to do… something, Horus had walked the halls of the pyramid until he found a balcony, hidden away, likely known to Magnus but not many others. 

He’d seen the lines of worry in Maevela’s face. He’d heard Fulgrim’s words repeat in his head. As he stood here now, in the place he had unknowingly found his way to, watching her under the starlight, he realised he had been waiting for this moment all along. 

The stars stretch over them, silent witnesses to a moment once forbidden. Though she had not spoken, her mind seemed to have found a peaceful state. Her fingertips moved back and forth on the golden railing, her eyes watching over the horizon as though it had given her the answers she so deeply desired. 

He didn’t consider that he may have brought her that comfort. It really hadn’t crossed his mind. Not until he leaned forward, arms crossed as they rested on the railing, shoulders hunched as he brough himself to her level. She looked at him, distracted for a second, and the corners of her lips started to rise. 

“I bet you have walked every street in this city,” he says, words absent of any emotion. He focuses on a quiet street, somewhat at the edge of his vision, where a couple walk together, hand in hand. “I have always been envious. Prospero is one of the most beautiful places I have come across.”

Maevela hums. She leans forward too, though looks in the opposite direction to him. He tries to follow her gaze, though where she focuses he cannot be sure. “One day I will see Cthonia, and disagree with you.”

“I highly doubt that,” Horus comments, “it’s nothing like this. Only the streets of Macragge may match this. You should be proud.”

“Magnus should be proud.”

“You had no part in its making at all?” he questions. 

“A very limited part,” Maevela tells him. She sighs as she leans back from the railing, avoiding his eyes. “One day I may see Macragge, too.”

Horus holds his answer. He watches her, his hands hesitant to reach out to her as much as his mind tells him to do so. Her arms cross over her chest as she looks back up to the sky above them, the light of the stars catching her eyes as she travels the distance between each one. He sees the sting of a tear form in her eyes, though before she allows herself to be seen in that way, she blinks it away quickly. He doesn’t comment, allowing her to think she was quick enough to conceal it. 

“I will take you.” Horus does not expect an answer, he was stating a fact. He’d travel to the ends of the world to make up for the hurt hidden deep within her. He didn’t need her to tell him everything. Just a moment with her and he could see it.

He watches as the starlight catches in her hair, the soft shimmer of the gems on her dress. She belongs to Prospero, to this world of golden light and endless knowledge. Yet there was something else in her, something untouchable. Something no city could ever match. 

 “Though the beauty of any of those cities, even the splendour of Prospero, pale in comparison to you, Maevela.”

Her breathing stops. She does not look at him, only to the sky, the distant stars, anything but him. He felt his gaze wonder across her. Her hair still the same as before, resting on her shoulders covered by pale blue, chiffon sleeves, the same material that hung dutily over her chest to cover what he dress did not. She has a cuff on her upper arm, a haematite band with a sprinkling of deep sapphire blue gems attached. On her chest lays a small pendant, an obsidian eye motif attached, and another below with a small tablet with an inscription in Prosperine that he could not read. On her fingers, a gold ring with two intertwined serpents, each biting the others tail, one with a ruby eye, one with a sapphire eye. 

As she dips her head forward, a loose piece of her hair falls from behind her ear. She does not notice immediately, but as a soft breeze wisped over them, Horus reached to her. He brushed the hair back behind her ear, his fingers lingering by her. She doesn’t stop him, she doesn’t ask him what he’s doing. She shifts her head towards him, exhaling a slow and quiet breath, as if weighing the moment before it breaks. 

He doesn’t think. He places his hand on her cheek, fully this time, and turns her towards him. He’s so careful that their skin barely touches. His fingers merely brush over her skin. Neither speak. There’s nothing to say. They just watch each other, eyes boring into one another as though everything made sense. In that very moment, he saw everything. 

He leans in, slowly. He stops, maybe a centimetre from her lips, expecting her to pull away. He feels her breath shudder, her fingers trembling as she curls her fingers into fists at her side. When a second passes and she doesn’t move, he presses his lips onto hers, allowing his eyes to close. Her head tilts ever so slightly to the left wanting to feel more of him. His hand moves, floating over her waist until he finally sets it down, tips of his fingers pulling her closer to him, their bodies just touching. 

As he starts to pull away, he feels her follow him. She tries, so softly, to keep him there with her, to chase the warmth of her lips on his. Just for a second, but long enough for him to realise. His hand still holds her waist, not letting her move from before him, the hand on her cheek slowly falling down so his thumb rests on her jaw. Her arm starts to move, like she wants to reach for him, but she stops herself. 

He knew then. He knew the truth of everything. There was no turning back. 

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

She had turned to leave. An unbroken silence had left neither wishing to make a move. With whatever courage she had, she turned to leave him. But he would not have just let her walk away. 

“Maevela,” he says, his voice low. 

She stops but does not turn around. She feels his hand on her, fingertips ghosting her wrist at her side. He does not pull her back. He does not force her. She could easily have walked away, left it at that, never spoke of their kiss again. 

She exhales. Shaky. Unsure of what to say. 

He breaks the tension for her. His voice barely reaches a whisper. “Stay.”

She looks back to him, turning slowly on the spot. Her heart leads, her body follows. She knows she shouldn’t return to him. She shouldn’t stay. But her once soft green eyes have darkened to the colour of a pine tree, the feeling bubbling within her something she does not want to name. “Horus…”

“Just stay,” he murmurs. He takes a step closer to her, brushing his thumb over the inside of her wrist. He would be able to feel how fast her heart races. The space between them shrinks before she can react. She would not stop him, even if she could. “For a little while. Stay with me.”

She trailed behind him as they endured the slow walk to his temporary quarters. No word was spoken, no shared looks. They did not meet another as they followed the path, the silence crackling around them, air thick with unspoken meanings and feelings. He’d shut the door behind them, the click of the lock bouncing around the four walls. 

It was like they had never know what to do with each other. She stands in the middle of the room, glancing around at everything that decorated the area, a room she had walked past a thousand times before yet still looked out of place in. He just watched her. He sat at the edge of the bed, waiting, like he wanted to speak but was unsure of how to say it. 

What will you do about it now?

She doesn’t hesitate any longer. 

She crosses the space between them and kisses him. Gentle, first, then desperate. His hands cup her face, holding her as though she would vanish if he lets go. Her hand falls into his tunic, fist clenched around parts of the material to hold him closer. She twists her hands, trying to feel more, trying to satiate the desire pooling at the pit of her stomach as she tasted more of him. Her lips, swollen, prickled from the stubble that lined his jaw and upper lip, hungrily reach as much of him as he can. 

She pushes him down onto the bed. He watches her, fascinated by her movements, allowing her to crawl back over him so her knees are either side of his body. His hands find her hips to pull her back to him, and she lets herself fall to him, her lips chasing his again like she’s already starved. 

He says her name, somewhere among her kisses, only managing a word between breaths as she feverishly looked to feel everything she can. She never answers him, only kisses him harder. Desperate for him. Needing him. The only time she pulls back, takes a good look at his face, he seems dazed. His eyes are wide, his lips a dark pink and gapped. 

She kisses his lips once, then presses her lips softly up his jaw, reaching his ear. She doesn’t breathe for a moment, but then she tells him. Any restraint she held, it was broken in a second. “I want you.”

His eyes flash obsidian, her heart thumps. She doesn’t register his movements. Both his hands grasp her, flipping her onto her back, allowing his body to straddle hers now. His hands cover her lower arms, his entire being pressing her down into the mattress like this is where she would forever stay. 

His lips ghost along her throat. A stolen kiss on every part of her skin. He’s so agonisingly slow that she wants to whine, cry, but she can’t bring herself to. Her pulse pounds below his mouth. Her name is on her lips. 

“Tell me again,” he breathes, almost growls. 

And she does. 

Over and over. 

Like a broken record. Not that he cares, he never tells her to stop. He listens to her. Drinks it in as his hands worship her skin, racing every part of her body as though he would commit it to memory. His lips are softer than she thought they would be on her neck, or her shoulder, on her chest – until they aren’t any longer. 

He presses her into the bed, his weight, his heat, every part of him surrounding her. She gasps his name between kisses, breathless as she drowns in him. 

“Look at me,” he says against her lip, a subtle vibration between them as his voice reaches a new low, thick sound. He did not request it. He commanded it. She obliged in a heartbeat. “I want to see you as you realise.”

Magnus had never looked at her like that. Like she was the only thing un the universe that mattered. Like he would burn the galaxy is eh asked. Like he would tear apart the very fabric of fate itself just to keep her. 

She shudders beneath him at the thought. She could never walk away from the feeling. She could never again see him the way she once did. But she didn’t want to. Not now. Never again. 

Her eyes never leave his. Her hands sink into the sheets at her side, gripping the material and twisting it in her fingers like it would tether he back to reason or reality. Her thights turn inward, her body signalling just how badly she needed him. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip. His lips curl into a smirk. 

His hands roam her body. Slow. Deliberate. He would not be cruel, but he would not give her space to think, to regret, to remember a time before him. He discards the chiffon cover over her. Reveals her dress below, white, innocent, leaving little to the imagination. He would not starve himself any longer. She was his to consume. 

His fingers trace the edge of her dress as he the length of her neck. He pulls the straps down her fingers, he lets his teeth nip at her skin gently. She doesn’t move, she lets him undress her, though when she feels his weight fully against her, how badly he wanted this obvious through his loose clothing, she shivers beneath him. 

He lifts his head to look at her. His eyes a midnight black, his lips swollen and red. He breath trembles, catches in her throat as he withdraws. To the side of the bed, between her legs, kneeling so graciously. He pulls her thighs, moving her body so she’s just on the edge as well. Her dress is pulled away, tossed to the side like nothing. 

Heat floods her face. She turns, wanted to hide the flush that was apparent, but he does not allow it. A simple call, ordered to her. “Don’t look away.”

She nods. Once. She won’t disobey. She doesn’t look away. She just watches, following his eyes as he looks back to her body. A simple pair of shorts. Her final barrier. She does not stop him as she tears it down, leaving her bare, ready. 

She swallows, her fingers still clutch the sheets around her, but she doesn’t take her eyes off him. No matter how hard it is to stare him dead in the eyes as he parts her thighs moves his soft kisses up her thigh, then his tongue, and then his fingers. 

Her body is so warm. Soft, pliant, trembling. She tries to breath, she closes her eyes for just a second as some kind of reprise. She had never tried to imagine this before. She hadn’t considered that she had already given herself to him, and this was his prize. 

He presses two fingers between her folds. A simple hum, followed by a smirk, at how her body had reacted to him. Before he continues, he brings his fingers to his lips and tastes them. Another hum. Her cheeks flush a deep pink. He doesn’t care. 

Maevela gasps as his fingers enter her. Just two, but they aren’t small. He turns his hand over, so his thumb can find her bundle of nerves, so he still has access to her. His fingers curl, and she feels her body clench around him. A whine, whimper, she’s not even sure, leaves her lips as she lets her head fall back. His thumb rubs circles to torment her. His other hand rests on her thigh and traces her skin with soft movements.

She tenses, just for a moment, her thighs shifting as she began to feel things that hadn’t been there in years. She turns her legs inwards again, but he stops her. She opens her eyes to him, noticing his movements have stopped almost completely. His grip on her tightens. His look was enough. “Be still, my love.”

She obeys. 

Oh, she obeys. 

His fingers work at her. Her hands twist into the sheets further as he adds a third, thumb flicking her in the most sensitive way. Just as she thinks it can’t be worse, he can’t take her any further, he replaces his thumb with his tongue, his lips around her in the most beautiful way. 

Her head spins. She makes the smallest of sounds, her knees bending involuntarily as she curves her body into his own, wanting more, needing more. The further he goes, the more she comes undone, the closer she comes to the knot in her stomach breaking from being so tight. The louder she gets. The whinier her cry for more. 

And then he stops. 

“You are not thinking of him,” he says, lips glistening with her slick beneath the lights around them. Her breathing is so heavy she can’t reply, but she knows it is not a question. Her lips part, but she can’t speak. Her fingers digging into her thigh become tighter. “Tell me.”

“No,” she chokes out, feeling his tongue across her. 

He pulls his fingers from her promptly. “Say it.”

“I am not thinking of him,” she finally confirms, wishing to feel him again. 

A smirk ghosts over his lips. He releases her thigh. He moves back from her. Before she can protest, ask him why, he strips the tunic covering his top from his shoulders, little care for the buttons in his way. Each item of his clothing removed, agonisingly slow, but a final moment for her to turn away. 

She doesn’t. She wouldn’t. 

And his voice, dark and laced with triumph, whispers a final claim, his whispered promise. “You never have to again.”

He moves with purpose. No hesitation or doubt. He knows and he wants to devour her. His hands trace over he skin, slowly, as he places himself above her. Still afraid to take her eyes away, not wanting to disappoint him, she cannot look anywhere but right at him. 

It is like he is the first to ever touch her skin. He maps it all. He wishes to know everything. In that moment, he was the first. Nothing like this has occurred. This was different. 

His lips find the curve of her throat, the hollow beneath her collarbones, and the trembling pulse beneath her skin. She burns beneath him. He looks to her with concern, only for a second, then he knows. 

“Are you afraid?” he asks, breath hot against her skin. She shakes her head no, but can’t find any words. He stills her shaking body with his grasp, though each touch makes her want to lean into him. It amused him, somehow. “You want me.”

She hums. His hand that cups her chin and makes her look to him causes her to gasp. 

“Say it.”

“I want you.”

His hand reaches down, guiding his cock so the very tip sits at her entrance. She exhales sharply, her head tilting back, her body aching beneath his touch. She arches her back, expecting more, wanting more, but he was the one in control here. He was the one that would give her what she wanted. 

“Who do you belong to?”

She barely whispers her answer. “You.”

He would not need to hear it twice. 

A gasp leaves her lips as he pushes his length into her. His head falls to her, pressing into her shoulder and neck as his hips fall flush against her. He doesn’t move. Just for a moment, just until he thinks she’s settled. 

He raises his head. His eyes search for hers, seemingly wrecked when he finds her. He lets his forehead rest against hers. It was so plain. So ordinary. Yet it meant everything. 

He pulls out from her, slowly as before, a knowing smile on his lips. Her hands find his bicep, nails catching his skin, digging in further as he ruts into her, then again, the again. He had conquered the stars, and now he had conquered her. 

She moans his name. He must like it. Every time the sound leaves her lips she speeds up. He well and truly ends up fucking her. Devouring her. And Maevela? She can barely breathe. She forgets anything other than him. His love for her. His body. Him. 

He brings his lips to hers, feverishly kissing her as his legs begin to stutter. He would not last long – yet neither was she. Masterful with his hands, equally so with his body. He waited for her, a small sign as her whines, moans, whatever they could be called, become louder, harder to conceal behind a veil. Her body shakes, closer to coming undone. 

He does not let her breathe. He does not let her think. His hand, large, wraps around her own, entwining their fingers as he starts to falter. Just one look in the eyes, the rope finally snapping, every part of her coming undone. It gets him, too. He holds her, fills her with his warmth, and stays even longer until he knows he is fully spent. 

But his body was not done, she knew that – he knew that. 

He pressed another kiss to her lips. Whispered her name as dark as the midnight sky. He had waited so long. This was not ending so soon. 

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Ahriman watches the room around him, the runes around him calculated with meticulous precision. His thoughts were frayed with worry that he would fail again, he’d waste his precious time on another disappointment that he couldn’t afford. In his search for answers, for more depth to his understanding, he had tried everything. 

Now, he turned to ancient intelligence, desperate for a chance to grasp something beyond his mastery. A carefully constructed web of sigils, ancient glyphs that he had constructed from his knowledge, sat frozen in the air, shimmering in the light of the candles lining the walls. He waits, anticipating a response, an answer to his call through the echoes of darkness. 

He can feel the shift in the air as someone answers. He had not been specific. He felt desperate in his efforts to find a solution to his impossible problem. He had summoned so many beings to try and answer his questions that he wasn’t even sure if there was anyone who could help him. 

So he’d summoned whatever he could, and this was the first thing that showed up. 

A fragile-looking thing. Something he can’t quite describe. Their face looked like something he had seen a thousand times before, yet they were entirely new at the same time. He feels something strange in his chest as he peers over them, observing closely to see if he can recall just why he recognised them. 

“Ahzek Ahriman?” They ask, catching him mid-thought. 

His gaze averts back to their eyes, his mind settling on a thought that he must have known them because he had seen so many in his time. He chose to ignore the way the shadows around them flickered as if reality itself couldn’t understand. He stands up straighter, looking away before he can get too lost in his thoughts. 

“Yes,” he replies, feigning his interest in something to his side. He ponders over his next words for a moment, then turns back to them with an expressionless face. “I am who you serve.”

“Of course, Ahzek,” they reply. His fingers tense at the sound of his name. It was different when spoken alone. Personal. He didn’t like it from the moment the word left their lips. The same lips which curl into a smile at his obvious disgust, and for a moment, it seems the glow of the candles dims. “I already do.”

“Do not call me that.”

“Ahzek?”

“Call me master.” He turns back to his table and rests his palms flat on top. He doubts their use, given their swift response was unusual, to say the least. He watches them only from the corner of his eye, somewhat distracted by the way the pages in his book rustle in an absent wind. “I will dismiss you by morning.”

He expected them to argue, but they only smiled again, hands held together in front of them. “Of course.”

They stand idly waiting for instruction. Ahriman hesitates, just for a moment, as he tries to avert his gaze. They are… different. Not a monstrous creature from the warp, deformed by chaos and corruption seeping through their veins. They have an essence he couldn’t quite place his finger on. Something ethereal. It reminded him of the Angel, beautiful in a way he couldn’t fully comprehend. 

But what did Ahriman know of a person’s beauty outside their knowledge? 

Each time he looked back, each time he dared to blink, their appearance seemed to change so slightly. The slop of their nose, the pink hue of their lips, the height of their cheekbones. The universe had not yet decided what they should look like, or what they were supposed to be. 

“What will master have me do?” They ask, still not approaching him. 

He gestures to the chair across from him, focusing on the book laid out in front of him. “Sit.”

“Yes, master.” Their reply is followed by their appearance across from him. Again, Ahriman doesn’t look up. He traces his finger over the passage he is reading, but their voice distracts him. “And… now what?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. “Tell me what you know of the Ynnari.”

“Nothing,” they answer, the echoes of a giggle at the tip of their tongue as they shuffle in the chair. 

Ahriman did not share their amusement. Another deep breath, not quite a sigh, as both his palms are laid flat on the table. He closes his eyes for a moment, as though managing the feelings they brought him so unexpectedly. “Do not lie to me, thrall.”

“Thrall?” Their amusement only increases. A smile, wide and full of life, is shot back at him. “Are you sure of that, master?”

“Talk.” His command is delivered with an air of ice colder than the depths of Fenris. He wasn’t requesting it, nor demanding it. Their answer was inevitable to him. Another breath, another hopeful moment to deal with them.  “Now.”

“The Ynnari are very interesting, aren’t they? Awakening a god, saving an entire race.”

Ahriman hums. He had expected something else, maybe a hint of lost knowledge. He tries to sneak a glance to see if they have the traditional characteristics of an Eldar but he’s unable to even look near them without a suffocating look. 

They must have noticed his disinterest as his head started to hang a little, focus shifted to his books again. Their words creep out, like a secret that should never have been shared as if they were standing right beside him. “They can reverse the rubric.”

His head snaps up. “Tell me more.”

“I was merely stating known facts.”

“You find this amusing?” He accuses, more than questions. “I will dismiss you, and you will not see reality again.”

“I’m not lying,” they protest. Ahriman can’t ignore the smirk resting on the corners of their lips. Even as they hold their hands together, almost begging him silently to keep them, they don’t bother offering anything else. “I do sincerely apologise, master. Do banish me, if you must.”

Ahriman doesn’t sigh. He doesn’t even react. It merely takes the thought in his mind to have their presence beside him revoked, and they disappear with little trace. He’d try again tomorrow.

.⋆༺☾༻⋆. 

Ahriman’s eyes are focused on a parchment, ripped and covered with dirt that seemed as old as him. He can’t help the sigh that leaves his lip as another question is left unanswered, another riddle hidden within the ancient works that he so desperately tried to understand. 

He brings his fingers to the bridge of his nose, exhaling deeply as he pinches the skin. There must be another way. There must be something he can do to fully understand…

The sound of humming across from him stops his thoughts. He looks up, glancing through his lashes expecting something far too mundane for his day, but the familiar face of the being across from him, their chin resting on their hands, elbows on the table, is not what he expected to see. They’d somehow made their way to his chambers, were sitting at his table, in his chair. His fury burned within. 

Their smile, wide and untamed, jabs him in a way he can’t explain. He places his hands down on the table with a less than impressed expression. “You?”

They hum, nodding swiftly in response. “Hello, master.”

“No.” His voice is unexpectedly commanding. He’d expected the apparition, thrall, to disappear as soon as his mind disposed of them. Yet he couldn’t deny their existence right there. His fingers clench ever so slightly on the table. “You should not exist.”

“And yet, I do.” Their smile is too bright for him. He can barely look their way as they lean forward, seemingly interested. “You must have recalled me.”

Ahriman nearly chokes on his own words before he can reply. He certainly would not have recalled them, not with their little use to his cause. All he can manage is one word. “No.”

“Yes,” they reiterate, sitting higher on the chair. 

He looks down to the parchment once more, seeking solace in its plain words. His eyes flicker to the faintly drawn glyphs in the corner of the page, scribbled in a way that he recognised yet refused. “No.”

“Yes!” They exclaim. He blinks as his body jumps from their outburst. As he raises his gaze to meet them one more time, he wonders how someone could have so much joy in a time like this. They lean forward in the chair, as though decreasing the distance between the pair would somehow make it more comfortable. “As my master, you must have summoned me for me to be here.”

Ahriman hums. Their games were not of interest to him if they would not return the favour and answer his questions. “Then I will banish you again.”

“If you must.” They say. Ahriman watches them disappear with his very eyes. A puff of purple and blue dust, almost teasing him, and he thought he could finally return to his work. Just as he starts to roll the parchment back to its original state, he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns, eyes widened, a spell on the very tip of his tongue when he sees their smiling, enthusiastic face again. “But are you sure it would work?”

He stares at them for a moment. He isn’t even sure what emotion he feels. Anger? Annoyance? Something so human he can’t even comprehend it? 

He shrugs their hand off his shoulder and turns from them completely, walking around the table to escape their presence. “Leave me, daemon.”

“I am no daemon,” they answer, a scoff accompanying their obvious disdain for his words. They follow him, though keep a few steps in his trail. Ahriman thinks about summoning a blade to slit their throat. He stops himself at the last second, though moments later wishes he would have gone through with it. “The Arch-Sorcerer summoned a thrall. How would a daemon have appeared?”

Ahriman seethed. He turned back to them, eyes a burning red like that of his father, and near banished them to the plains of oblivion for testing him. But, again, as they get closer to him, he can’t bring himself to see them end. Perhaps a last mortal inkling of sympathy and kindness remained. Perhaps, something worse. 

Their hands are held behind their back as they stop again, not getting too close to him, and tilt their head to the side playfully. “Unless… The Arch-Sorcerer was wrong?”

“Begone,” he tells them. He waves his hand dismissively and walks to his bookshelf against the far wall. He begins picking books out, ones which he thinks may help distract him, but hearing the small patter of their feet makes him sigh once more. “I am busy.”

“You do not wish to know my secrets?” they ask, innocence dripping in each syllable. 

Ahriman doesn’t look away from a book on ancient runes. “You have none that entertain me.”

They hum. Ahriman thinks that maybe, with just a few moments of peace, they may have left. He turns to check, and is unsurprised to see them still standing, their silken robes gently flowing in the breeze from his open windows, admiring a shelf containing several different artefacts. They raise their hand to touch one, fingertips flowing over the bright blue glow of a cracked and energetic stone. Though they never touch it, the static line that’s created at their fingertip intrigues Ahriman just long enough for him to hear their words without any doubt.  

“Not even one of your brother?”

The book is immediately closed, falling to his side in his hand as he narrows his eyes. They are still more interested in the artefact to spare him a glance. 

“Is that a no?” they ask, finally turning to him. They are either oblivious to his obvious irritation or choosing to ignore it for their gain. Either way, Ahriman’s fists ball at his side. They offer another smile before they continue. “Or are you just worried?”

He refuses to answer. 

They take a slow, warming step forward to him. “I could tell you many secrets, master.”

Ahriman doesn’t react. His hand reaches for the inferno bolter at his hip, keeping his hand over the hilt. He meets their gaze with blazing eyes. How dare they speak of his brother. How dare they come here and try to encourage him to play their games. 

But then again, they dare one more time. “You just have to ask.”

He spares no further chances. 

It’s not the bolter he reaches for, but the sheer will of his mind. A curse, words in his mind vanishing them back to wherever they came from. He turns before he has the chance to check it worked. He believes himself stronger than whatever they are, more powerful, not challenged by such a chaotic and pointless shade. 

As he finally gets peace, their voice no longer ringing in his ears, he finds himself alone. He replaces the book, he walks to the door, he looms around to see if there is anything to keep his amusement. 

For the first time in a very long time, Ahriman did not want to find himself alone. 

.⋆༺☾༻⋆. 

Ahriman’s finger taps against the table. He’d thought about his work for a while, he had troubled himself with countless hours of questions he wouldn’t find the answers to for some time, and then foolishly let his mind wander for just a moment. 

At first, it went back to his brother, the time they had spent together, trained together, and then when his brother had died. He’d thought of his father, the betrayal of the Emperor, his faith in Tzeentch and whatever prevented them from achieving what they wanted. 

Then he remembered the thrall he had summoned. Shade. Daemon by many accounts. 

He’d not wanted to give into his curiosity, but their words played on his mind. I could tell you many secrets. You just have to ask. He had thought over it a thousand times. They likely had nothing to give him, pointless speckles of information he already knew. Yet, the chance, the small probability that they could know something drew him in. 

He never said the words out loud. He didn’t need to. His thoughts lingered on them for far too long. They were not his thrall, no longer a puppet controlled by their master. They were his equal, and his thoughts were enough.

He feels them before he sees them. The faint shimmer in the air as they appear before him, body bending into existence as time itself is fractured for a moment. 

Ahriman holds his breath. Their expression is full of anticipation. 

“This is a surprise,” they murmur, voice tainted with something unknown. “Did you miss me?”

“Do not talk,” Ahriman replies. His monotonous voice stops their movements, halting them on the tips of their toes. They lower themselves down slowly, allowing him to finish without interruption.  “Do… Do not speak for a moment.”

Ahriman watches as they still. Only a nod is given back to him, a silent obey of his command. For once, he is thankful. He looks away momentarily, almost ashamed of his thoughts. His somewhat trembling hand is placed into his lap as he invites them to sit across from him - which they happily oblige to. 

“Why did you bring up my brother?” He asks. 

“He was a good man who cared for you very much so,” they answer. Their eyes carry a look he cannot distinguish, one of knowing and understanding. Ahriman brushes it aside as another trick of the shade before him, believing himself senseless for bringing them back. Nevertheless, they continue their answer, “such a talented warrior, a gifted leader, taken too early from you to revel in your victories. If your gene-father would have met him, he would have loved him too.”

His heart beats faster in his chest. He had not spoken with many about his brother, he had barely uttered a word in then thousand years about his brother. This is not something anyone would know, not unless they knew him. 

“Of course, your father loved you far more than you think. And, I am naturally jealous that your brother spent every day with you,” they continue. Ahriman only pays half attention to the true value of her words. All he understands is that the daemon knew his brother somehow, and the reason for that he did not know. He listens more intently as their voice carries on lingering in the air. “When he spoke with you, you laughed or maybe smiled. But when I spoke to you…”

“You knew him?” Ahriman interrupts, thoughts overwhelming him. 

“I knew you both,” they confirm. 

“How?”

“From a distance.” They offer sympathy with a solemn smile. Ahriman’s thoughts cloud his judgement, memories of his brother that he had not recalled for some time returning. They lean forward as they speak now. “So often you look to the great ocean for answers. But so little have you ever seen who looks back.”

Ahriman pulls his thoughts from his brother. This was not what he had expected. “And your secret?”

“Oh.” Their brows pull together as they lean on the table. Their hair is tossed back, eyes wandering the room as though they obviously wanted him to be further intrigued. Ahriman saw through it. “I thought you did not care for it.”

“Tell me it.”

His demand falls short of expectations. They smile in response. “It will not entertain.”

“Speak daemon,” he snaps, hands slamming down to the table, breath heavy and nostrils flared, “or so help me, your soulwill be destroyed.”

They don’t answer immediately. Ahriman observes them closely, looking for any signs of lies or treachery, but he can’t find it. They have nothing in terms of emotion for him to read. Even their aura doesn’t shine. He’s close to banishing them again, only until they speak softly, one last time. 

“He still calls for you,” they say. Ahriman believes his ears deceive him. They don’t need to lie to him, though. “He walks the plains of oblivion wondering where you may be.”

Ahriman doesn’t answer. 

He simply stares at the table ahead of him, noting each mark and stain in the grains of the wood that he can find. Not a thought enters or leaves his mind. His brother. Him. Them. Whatever they are. Whoever they are. 

Then, at some point, his eyes drift back to them. Unintentionally, of course, but their eyes were so inviting it was near impossible to resist. Like a moth to a flame, he was dragged right back to them, their shining eyes and enchanting smile. 

He begins tapping his finger against the desk, something they picked up on immediately. Reaching over the table, they try to steady his hand by placing their own over the top, but Ahriman is quick to pull it away the moment he feels their… skinon his.

“You should not be here,” Ahriman finally speaks, holding the hand they had touched in his lap.

He momentarily glances at his hand, the same blue and purple shimmer lingering around him. If his mind wasn’t numb, he’d have studied it more, tried to understand. 

“Then tell me to leave,” they reply, standing from the chair. They cross their arm over their chest, lips pressed into a line. He could finally see the flittering of a deep red aura around them, almost turning to black closest to their body. They huff without his reply. “Tell me I must go.”

Ahriman should answer. 

He really should. 

He should tell them to leave and never return so he can begone of these thoughts, feelings, and wonder. 

He should feel them rip away from him with the smallest of thoughts from him; their banishment final and absolute. He feels nothing. He hears no answer from the chaos he pulled them from. 

His voice betrays him, his thoughts betray him, and his body then follows suit. No words are answered, only the sharing a gaze that he shyly looks away from, his cheeks prickling with heat. He felt his heart pounding a little heavier, his chest tightening and breathing quicker. Another day spent experiencing emotions he hadn’t felt since a long time ago, all because of them. 

All of this… worry, anxiety even, over someone who he couldn’t distinguish from a normal thrall. 

He almost hates himself for it, more than he already did. 

They step around the table carefully. Not a movement was misplaced or a sound made that wasn’t necessary. They looked at him like he was a mouse, small and fragile, so prone to running away. 

Even as they speak, their voice is so soft it feels like a fine cashmere. “Should I really go, Ahzek?”

His breath catches in his throat, finger stopping mid-tap. Their use of his name, so simple yet so… different. Ahriman had been called it thousands of times before, much less so now, but it felt different. It felt natural. Like he had heard it said before, like it was wrapped in the comfort of familiarity. 

Their hand reaches over to his once more, fingers ghosting over him until they wrap around the edges of his hands. This time he doesn’t panic, he doesn’t pull his hand away. He lets them hold him, even if it is only in a small way, and when he looks into their eyes he feels something more. 

“Should I leave once more and spend an eternity searching for you again?” they ask, “should I join your brother in his search for you?”

He sees their truth. He saw the anonymous spectator who stood to the sides when he would train with his brother on Terra before they had ever met their new father. He saw the citizen of Prospero who would wait every time to see his face when he returned from war. He saw the soul in the great ocean that he longed for when he felt truly lonely and desperate. 

He saw every version of them. 

And he realised that they did not lie. 

They had always been connected to him. Always watching, always at a distance to observe him - shadow him, even. He should feel fear, like he did only moments ago, he should feel anger at his privacy being violated by such a being that he should have the power to control. 

But he felt none of it. 

He felt a bed of roses that he was laid down gently on. He felt a warming hand that meant him no ill. He felt a love that a man like him should never experience. 

“Ahzek,” they say again, still so softly he barely catches it. He hesitantly looks up to them, their eyes offering an invitation to so much more. They don’t smile, they don’t do anything, but just the sound of his name is enough. In that moment, he is everything; their entire world, their entire purpose for being. “I do not need to leave.”

He would agree, but his tongue is tied and his mind is empty.  

Instead, his silence partially suffices. 

They do not move away, nor approach him any further. They do not speak again, nor do they try to hide. They wait for him, to see what he would do, to see how he perceived it all. 

Ahriman takes a step towards them. They seem surprised, pleasantly so, intrigued again by his changing attitude. He was surprised himself - though who would ever truly understand his mind? He swallows, hard, breaths deep as he takes a step forward. The hand that rested under theirs is gently taken away, instead following Ahriman’s gaze, reaching gently for the curve of their jaw. 

He presses the tips of his fingers to their skin, almost testing to see if they are real. He fully expected his fingers to disappear through them, providing him right about them being an apparition. However, as his fingers graze them, he only feels what seems human, yet looks like a creation even his patron would struggle to comprehend. Purple and blue, flecks of silver and pink, he would think he was going crazy if he couldn’t feel the warmth of human blood beneath his touch. 

Ahriman’s touch falters, though their hand on his regenerates some of his confidence. They place their hand on his, fingers laced between his own, just to hold him there a little longer. 

Then they step forward. Ahriman doesn’t step back. 

He watches. Waits. Anticipates.

They draw so close, their skin radiating against his, their hand entwining with his and taking it from their cheek and down to the side of them. He sees the universe in their eyes, just for a moment, and then feels the explosion of a star as their lips press against his. 

He’s frozen, not sure how to move. 

They don’t push further. 

Just one, simple, soft kiss. 

And though they lingered, pulling back with reluctance and hope that maybe he would return the favour, he just can’t.

Ahriman didn’t know this feeling, nor what to do about it.    

After a few moments, he finally finds the words. A life dedicated to knowledge and understanding, millennia dedicated to undoing his mistakes and strengthening his brothers, yet he struggled with the very concept of a kiss. 

“You should…” Ahriman’s words trail off as he finds himself lost in their eyes once more. He pulls himself away, forcing his gaze towards the floor so he can get his words out. “You should go.”

They don’t argue. They don’t even retaliate with witty words and a sharp tongue. He knows they dither, their presence consuming all his energy the longer they remain.

But then they go, and he’s left to face the reality of his feelings. 

.⋆༺☾༻⋆. 

The room was icy cold. He’d spent evenings wondering whether he could ever dispel the heat that came from them, his daemon, whatever they were. He’d left every door and window around him open in the hopes it would prove that it was in his head. However, as they stood beside him and watched him with eyes of gold, he had started to doubt that - especially given the burning behind his ribs and flush brought to his cheeks.

“Ahzek,” they whisper, arms wrapping around him. He can feel their head resting on his back as they squeeze him gently. “You look tired.”

They were useful. That’s what he told himself every time he thought of them. A source of knowledge, a means to an end, part of his cause for fixing his problems. 

He resists the sigh, still trying to push aside his feelings to assess the truth. It wasn’t working. “I am.”

“Then stop,” they tell him. He feels their hands move to his arms, snaking their way down until their fingers intercepted the book in his hands. He doesn’t fight them, letting them push the book from his hands to the table below. He breathes in deeply as the book hits the table with an audible smack, though their chuckle from behind him brings the slightest hint of a smile to his lips. “Let yourself unwind for just a moment.”

“I must finish my work,” Ahriman replies. He looks over his shoulder, just catching a glimpse of their face.  

They make themselves more present by creeping around him, loosely tugging his body so he starts to move away from the table. He can see the look in their eyes again, one of curiosity, intrigue, and exhilaration. He finds his joy, though it’s much harder to express, especially as they take his hand in their own and force him away from his work. 

“It can wait until tomorrow.” 

He doesn’t argue. He gladly accepts to follow their path as they tug at his hand, offering something different, though inducing the lie he kept telling himself that this was only because they were useful to his quest for knowledge. 

He had buried himself in work, but only because he didn’t see another way out. 

Every moment they weren’t here he thought of them. Every moment they were here, he wanted them. He called them back each time he didn’t see them around, he whispered to himself the incantation that brought them here in the softest tones to see if they wouldn’t hear his call. They always did. They always came back. 

He had stopped summoning them days ago. Or possibly weeks. He had lost track. He expected to see them each morning, he expected to have them around him as he read through books and scrolls, making conversations he knew little of but cared so much about. 

They led him to the chaise he had at the corner of the room, far away from the books and important documents, a corner he had not touched in a very long time. He doesn’t protest, though, interested himself to see why they may have brought him over here. 

They sit him down at the side where he can rest his arm, though never take a seat with him. Instead, they kneel on the floor in front of him, chest almost touching his knees. He watches, unsure of their intentions and position, but still stays silent. 

They lean forward ever so slightly so their chest does touch him, obscured by their fine robes and his thick attire, yet still enough for his body to jolt ever so slightly at the touch. He notices their smirk, the one they try to hide. He shouldn’t care. He should know it was a distraction, a way to manipulate his emotions further, yet he did not pull away. His cheeks feel hot, as does his chest. 

They don’t mention it though. Instead, they ask a question he had been asking himself recently. “Why do you keep me?”

Ahriman’s cheeks burn. He surely blushes now, even behind the tan of his skin. His lie is thwarted by his hesitation. “I do not.”

“Your spells are much more convincing than your lies.” Their words are somewhat teasing, but still feel serious. Ahriman knew he was lying, but admitting it to himself meant accepting feelings he didn’t believe could exist for him. He keeps up the lie just a bit longer, even as they catch him directly in the act.  “You could ask for me to leave for good, but you never do. You always call me back.”

“You are useful,” Ahriman returns. 

“So is a grimoire. Yet you touch us very differently.”

His fingers twitch at their response. Oh, they were very right. 

Because he didn’t often touch them. 

Rarely, even. 

But on the times he did, he would treat them like the most delicate crystal, something he was so afraid to break and never have again. 

He thought it was subtle. 

He sighs as he replies, trying to find amusement in the hemline of his garments. “You are not even real.”

“Some would say your sorcery is not real.” They reach for his hand, diverting his gaze back to them. He could see the edges of blue sitting in their aura, as though his words truly hurt. He didn’t believe that they would. His chest feels heavy, for longer than he expected. They let it go just as quickly. “It is all in perspective, Ahzek.”

He hums. They are not wrong. “What would you say?”

“That you believe yourself to be a master,” they tell him, “that you will not dismiss me.”

Ahriman’s gaze is stuck on them for a moment. Their effortless posture as they kneel before him, as though made to serve him directly. Well, he did summon them and made them the way he wanted. Though it felt like more. 

Sometimes he doesn’t think they breathe. Or blink. Or do anything remotely human. He had dismissed it before but now they kneeled before him, so perfect, it didn’t even feel real. 

But then they did breathe, and they did blink, and he’s stuck in his own thoughts again that don’t make sense. 

Why didn’t he want to accept that someone may just want him? 

Why was it so hard to believe that this being was not a daemon, was not a shade, but someone he was destined to meet who came to him at the right time?

He leans forward, hands on the edge of the chaise. He grips the surface harder than he needs to, controlling his breathing as much as possible as the burning behind his ribs returned. 

“Do you want to be dismissed?” He asks, voice barely breaking a murmur.

They tilt their head slightly to the side, eyebrows raised yet pulled together. They lean forward too, bridging the gap between them, as they lean their forearms across his knees. His thighs tense beneath their touch, something even more fascinating to them. The tips of their fingers brush his covered thighs, but never taking it too far. 

They make him wait an agonising few moments for their answer, even if it wasn’t surprising. 

“Never.”

.⋆༺☾༻⋆. 

Ahriman holds the page of a book between his fingers. He’d read the same passage a few times now, the words never quite reaching him, its meaning never being quite clear enough. 

He steals glances where they sit across from him as he reaches the final paragraph. He thinks he’s subtle, but when their eyes meet his he realises that maybe he needs to work on his abilities. He had cleared his throat the first time, shuffling in his chair until the moment had passed squarely enough. The second time, he was not so lucky to escape. 

“Ahzek.” Their voice breaks the silence as if thousands of voices called for him at once. “There is a question you desire to ask me, but you keep it to yourself.”

He did keep his question. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want them to know his thoughts. He would have shared if they asked - of course, only if they asked exactly what they needed to in order for him to divulge his deepest and darkest secrets. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the thought of them knowing, it was simply that he didn’t like not understanding it for himself. 

It made him more angry than when he didn’t understand how they even came to be. 

“Just because I do not speak does not mean I am keeping things from you,” Ahriman replies. He gestures down at the book in his hands and tries with the passage again. “I have much to read.”

They hum. “Much to distract yourself with.”

Ahriman takes a moment. He looks up at them again, their smile so off-putting yet enticing, eyes filled with every colour imaginable, ethereal presence hanging in the air around them. He closes the book, knowing it’s impossible, and sighs deeply. 

He silently agrees. 

They spare no moment in pouncing on him the moment they can. No book in his hands meant they could hold them, no distractions in his mind meant they could fill it. Perfectly executed. Perfectly played. 

They dance around the table, figuratively, tiny steps like that of a ballet dancer, precise and accurate, nothing unplanned. They’d walked that path a thousand times before it felt like, and it was no different this time. 

Except for Ahriman and his dastardly feelings. 

“Say it,” they murmur, words lingering in the air. Their eyes are intense, falling on a burning red, aura clear of anything he could read. They step closer, resting a hand on his arm as they try to convince him. “Say what you will not allow yourself to think.”

Ahriman can’t do it. 

He cannot tell them the words he thought because they made him feel less than what he was. They made him feel worried. They made him feel scared. They made him feel like everything in his life was meaningless until the moment he summoned them. He couldn’t explain it to anyone, let alone himself. He just couldn’t. 

So he looks away, ashamed, but their fingers grace his chin to have him look back at them. 

“Are you worried?” They ask. 

Ahriman doesn’t react. 

“Are you scared?”

Ahriman wonders if they read his mind.  

“Do you love me, Ahzek?”

Ahriman heart skips a beat. 

They must know his mind. 

He did not consider just what it would mean to hear that said out loud. 

“You do not wish to say?” They ask, letting go of his chin. Their fingers trace so gently over his neck, then his shoulder, before they fully pull away.  “Then I will not tell you something in return.”

“Tell me.” Ahriman’s voice sounded desperate. It almost cracked with his quickly when he made the request. Love and knowledge, they were the same to him nonetheless. “Tell me, and I will tell you.”

They show little reaction. “I asked first.”

“Fine.” 

Ahriman turns away from them, just for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He had led men to war, he had faced daemons with power beyond his own, and this somehow felt like he was approaching a god in their own realm. 

He closes his eyes, taking two deep breaths before he turns back. Their eyes search for his before he can say anything. It almost intimidates him out of speaking. 

But the idea of not knowing something was too much. 

Especially if it was whether they loved him, too.  

His voice is quiet as he stutters over his words. “I… I do.”

“Do what?” They question, a smirk twisting onto the ends of their lips. 

Ahriman pauses again. 

He could mean it. He could show it.

But to speak something’s name is to bring something far worse into existence. 

Every logical part of him said to not admit anything. He cursed himself for acting like he was guilty due to having feelings. He hated what this did to him so easily, when simple words were an honest struggle to him. 

He finally says the words when he feels their hands wrap around his. “I do love you.”

“Oh.”

Oh? 

He had not anticipated that reaction. 

He did not want that reaction. 

His hands tense, body stiffening as he feels his own personal defeat. “Tell me something in return, then.”

He couldn’t explain his feelings. He wanted to hear the words back to him, he wanted them to share something he so desperately wanted to hear, and they didn’t give it to him. The anxiety that rippled through him was indescribable. 

How was Ahzek Ahriman, the Arch Sorcerer of Tzeentch, worried about whether someone cared for him? 

He felt small. Worthless. Like his life depended on their affection. 

He felt judged in the eyes of god, just until the blue and purple shimmer of the air returned, their eyes changed to a baby pink hue, and the smile returned to their lips. 

His heart is practically beating out his chest as he waits for those words he was so desperate for. 

“I have loved you for an eternity,” they tell him. Spoken like a god to their servants. An honour, devotion even. Ahriman’s heart swells, though his mind screams, even as they whisper more sweet words to him, “And now you love me too.”

His world, just for a moment, feels complete. 

The rubric is forgotten. How he wished to return to Prospero, his hatred of his cousins, even the doubts at the back of his mind when he saw his legion - all gone in an instant. 

A momentary respite that he would chase for the rest of his time breathing. 

Sealed, quietly, without any hesitation, as his hands find their waist and pull them to him, his lips pressed to theirs as the room falls silent. All of his mistakes, all of his worries, any moments of insecurity all melt away with just one more kiss. It was not like before, even if he felt magic fluttering between their every touch. He felt… more. 

Their hand moves to the back of his neck to stop him from pulling away. He’s not sure where his own hands roam, somewhere they had not been before, but not somewhere new. But the moment air replaces their touch, the moment falling to an end, the silence no longer exists, and he remembers everything. 

But throne he would do anything to feel that again. 

“You wish for us to exist together?” they ask, quiet voice reaching him with specs of curiosity. Their hand is still at the back of his neck, gently rolling the tip of their finger in small circles. They step closer, and Ahriman holds on tighter. “You wish… to be mine?”

An answer is at the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t wish to say it. The moment he spoke it, it became the truth, a fact he could no longer deny. “I do.”

“Then say it.”

“I…” He pauses. An unexpected hesitation. A moment where it feels like, somewhere within the depths of his mind, someone pulls him back. A god he devoted himself to already, one that had started to fade and had only just found out. He signs his life away so easily. He itches to feel love one more time. 

He knew, deep within his mind, that this was not the love he wanted. It was submission. It was accession. He knew not to speak the words they wanted, yet he could not remember ever saying them, only hearing out loud the irreversible confession. “I am yours.”

He blinks, the air feeling heavy. His admission, irrevocable beyond all reason, was made. Where he had felt uneasiness twisting through his veins, he was surrounded by truth. The invisible vines tighten around his wrists, his chest, even his throat. They had always been there, waiting. It was never a choice he was making, never a surrender to forces he could not control. 

He had always belonged to them. 

Hadn’t he?

They smile. Not happiness. Not joy. It was not something a mortal could form. He sees the darkness of their aura and plays it off as their aura. Their hand falls from his neck, down to his chest, but pull away so easily. 

It wasn’t a smile; it was something older than language, even older than time. His thought tells him to resist but vanishes before he can do anything more, leaving him alone with the maniacal sneer of a dying god that finally found a follower.  

“Ahzek,” they mouth, so sweetly, “you were always mine.”

He felt the weight of the tether beginning to form, a quiet, unspoken vow that he did not want to fight. His fingers twitched, instinct wanting him to break free, but he did not move. He did not want to move. He no longer felt alone. He no longer felt free.

He felt like he had heard it before. The same voice, the same words, the same confession. A half-formed memory in the depths of his memory. They offer nothing more. “You were simply waiting to remember.”

.⋆༺☾༻⋆. 

The air is freezing. 

It was usually cold in rooms plagued with heresy and abominations, but this was something different. This was frozen and heartless, the souls of thousands of innocents dragged around to follow their killer. Even with the smoke of the incense, the quiet hymns of the God Emperor dragged through the otherwise silent room, it was undoubtable that this man was evil. 

She’d read his file. She’d heard the stories, watched the tapes closely. Heard his words of praise for his long-dead primarch’s dream. Every single note made on him was in her possession, yet she could not have prepared herself for the man before her. 

He cannot see her. Not yet. He stands against the wall, gravity chains preventing him from moving, his psychic presence dimmed to a near non-existent level. She had watched the men go in before her. She’d not grimaced as they beat him, used every trick they knew to try and get him to speak, not even as they flayed him. Each time another blow hit him, he laughed, never showing an ounce of regret or pain. She’d ordered it to be worse each time they returned. Revenge, she saw it, for everything his legion had done. 

Her jaw tightens as he looks towards the glass she stands behind. To him, it should have appeared black, though she could feel his eyes directly on her. He makes no movements. Blood drips down his body, his skin a mix of its usually pale shade and blue and purple, but he doesn’t even look angry. There is… nothing. 

She crosses her hands behind her back, letting her eyes fall to his file once again. She believed she was in his head, though what really was there to think about when he was little more than a rabid dog? Feral, unwanted, evil. To others, he was a prophet of darkness from a time long before. To her, he was another monster to be used, catechised, and discarded. 

She hears his laugh as the door opens, another set of servitors returning from receiving nothing. He mocked them, even without words. It was a futile effort. It was her turn. 

She closes his file. Her approach to the door is silent, until she curls her fingers around the steel handle of the door, when a quiet voice behind her speaks up. “Will you require us with you, Mistress-Inquisitor?”

“No,” she answers. She pauses for a moment, catching the gaze of the monster through the small viewing port. “It is not effective. You are dismissed.”

They obey her command and leave her in the room, though she knows they reside behind the next locked door. He had been given the most security they could afford. One locked door with the chains and every other precaution was never enough. A silent prayer leaves her lips.

He doesn’t react at first. He watches, silently, as she closes the door behind her. The long dark robes that cover her sway against the floor, her golden jewellery shining against the dim candles that offered just a touch of light. When she stops before him, they watch each other. She feels sick with just the sight of a man like this. Her lips curl downward as she looks down at him. 

He laughs. 

He’s been forced on his knees, stripped of any armour or protection that remained, laid bare before strangers, and taken further than most others could bear. 

Yet he laughs. 

She doesn’t speak, expecting him to stop. He tries to double over, but the chains stop him from moving so far. She hears the hiss in his laugh as his wounds pull and snap, but it doesn’t deter him – not until his laugh turns to a cough, which he tries to ignore. He coughs blood to the ground below him. A drop, no bigger than a coin, decorates her right black boot. 

She doesn’t take her eyes away from his. She moves her foot forward, using his own tortured flesh to wipe the blood away. His thighs are visibly tense. He smiles, blood covering his teeth. 

“Come to play?” he jests, amusement in his tone interrupted by more coughing. She takes a step back to avoid his slaver this time. “What could you possibly have to threaten me with, Mistress-Inquisitor?”

She watches his dark eyes, almost as black as the night sky, look over her. “Everyone has a limit. Everyone has something they want.”

“You’d assume so much of me?”

“Of everyone,” she tells him, “but you would know what it’s like to break people. You have spent far more time than I ever have looking into the eyes of the innocent and watching as they realise you never meant mercy. What is it your father said? No justice without fear, no fear without suffering.”

His laughter falls flat. His movements still. “You believe your beloved Imperial truth does not cause millions to suffer each day?”

“It is the will of the God-Emperor.”

“It is the will of the False Emperor.” He pulls against the chains once more. She does not react. “You see me as a monster. A tyrant seeking death and destruction for every moment of hate we have received. Yet you would turn a blind eye to all the death and destruction your empire makes, shielded by the gold lies you all worship. Do you think we are any different?”

She breathes, her response slow. “I would not kill a child.”

“But if your corpse-god commanded it?” he asks. 

“I would not make that decision of my own will. I could not say the same for you.”

He hums. He leans back in his chains and, for a moment, lets his body relax. He breathes a heavy sigh, his head falling back, eyes falling shut. “Should I be ashamed?”

“I would be.”

For a moment, there are no words. He recovers. His scarred and bloody skin is given time to rest. She does not interrupt him. She could, but there is no need. It would be harder later. She would not prevent the servitors from returning to flay him, to beat him, to torture him until she returned. 

“We are no different, Inquisitor.” He finds her eyes again. “We both use fear to control others. We both commit hideous acts in the name of the truth we believe. But I can admit my failures, Inquisitor. Can you?”

Her jaw tenses. She lets her hands fall by her sides, burrowing them into the loose pockets of her robes to disguise the tremor in her fingers. Her heart rate increases, more than she would have liked until she can feel her pulse in her entire chest.

“I do not fail,” she tells him. 

“No.” He looks to where her hands would be in her pocket as a smirk creeps onto his features. Another slow, denigrating laugh that he drags out for longer than needed. “None of you ever do.”

She does not answer him. She can feel his eyes burning into her as she walks away, her steps vicious and strides long. She clenches her hands into fists in her pockets, her heart still racing. A nod to the servitors has them scurry back into him. 

She leaves his file on the desk, she closes the door without looking back at him. She moves on. She leaves him behind for the evening, working on everything else left to her. She doesn’t think of him again. Not until she closes her eyes to try and sleep, and she sees him staring right back at her. 

He would not be so easy to forget.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

She stands at the edge of the room. She does not look at him, she does not speak. 

She waits. 

For what? Time will tell. She had been here every day. She had asked questions of the future that he was fated to tell, bearing the gifts of his father given to him by the benevolent God-Emperor. She had queried what he knew, what he understood to be true, what he had seen of the future. He never told her. Every question was answered with a riddle, another question, a test of her faith. 

She did not fail. 

“You believe yourself to be the smartest person in this room.” His voice echoes over the silent music. It was not the first time he spoke, but it was the first time she decided to listen. Silently, not giving him the justification of a stare, but she was intrigued. “I don’t need you to answer me. You have to listen to me. Because I may give you what you need, hidden between words to hatred to your corpse-god. You have to hear everything I say.”

He rattles his chains. She pulls a book from her pocket, a small black journal with a golden trim. She reads her own words, forcing herself to not truly listen. 

“Your empire believes it must be cruel to survive, doesn’t it? You must sacrifice those who do not listen, who do not blindly trust the leaders, who lie to you each day about your god emperor that protects you all. You would have all burned in his eyes.”

She doesn’t look up. She rereads the last sentence she wrote over, and over, and over again. 

“Do you even know what your emperor wanted?” he asks. She stops reading. Her eyes just flicker above the page. “He never wanted to be a god. He despised it. Yet you all listen to it. The words you use each day, the teachings of his holiness? It was given to you by a traitor you would wish to burn. He never was a god. He used us all, and you use everyone in the exact same way.”

“It is as easy for you to lie to me as it is for me to have you killed,” she reminds him, keeping her focus on the book. 

“You believe that so?”

She hums. 

“I suppose I would also feel the same if I had killed millions claiming to protect them. I would be able to sleep soundly in my bed thinking my god emperor loved me for my dedication because I was the perfect specimen in his eyes, protecting the world from the powers each and every one of my seniors use behind closed doors.”

“Millions have not died.”

“No?” He laughs, amusement clear. “You have not heard how many planets have had their final order given by your very own Inquisition? To protect the life of others, who would never have even known that the planet existed?”

She looks up to him, nostrils flared. 

“Are you dense?” he questions, voice falling flat, “or are you just ignorant?”

“I have faith.”

“In a broken system that destroys itself?”

“In…” Her words are not finished. She looks up at him, placing her journal back in her pocket. She takes a silent, deep breath. “In the God-Emperor. In what my family and I have fought for our entire lives. You tell me this to make me doubt my faith, to turn me to a blackened faith like all traitors, in the name of your false gods. You spin tales and mock me as though I would have ever believed a word that left the mouth of a monster.”

He does not answer. Not immediately. Their gaze is locked, neither wanting to back away. She feels intimidated, so small before him, but knows she is protected. She would have him wish he had never spoken to her, she’d make him wish that he was never even born. 

“In the name of false gods?” he asks, as though curious. 

Her thoughts pause. The temptation to have the servitor’s return is high but stopped momentarily. Her hand grips the journal in her pocket. 

“I do not care for the gods,” he tells her, “I do not fight for any god or any being. Nothing I know is worth fighting for.”

“You lie.”

“I have no reason to lie to you.” His words send a chill down her spine. “I only have reason to make you see the truth you so easily ignore.”

She couldn’t even bring herself to deny it one last time.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

She had locked the servitors behind the third door. She had ordered them to leave him, days ago now. She had seen him slowly regain strength, rebuild his own body as she stayed chained to the imperial prison around him. 

“You know more of the Emperor than I ever will.”

Her thoughts are open. She does not look at him as she speaks, instead, her eyes are focused on the hem of her robes, curled against the floor where she sits. Her back is against the wall. Her jewellery was left behind. She no longer hid behind the Aquila of her faith. 

“I only knew that he hated us,” Talos tells her. He breathes deeply, not looking at her either. “Our father hated us. Our Emperor hated us. Who else could have been so lucky?”

She looks at him, lingering over his body for longer than she meant to. His eyes flickered in the candlelight, more brightly now she allowed more to be brought in, yet still darker than any others. “Why?”

“Did he hate us?” he finishes, finally meeting her gaze. He laughs, though it is not like before. It only mocks the life he had and what he knew. “We were not what he wanted.”

“Why did you continue to follow him?” 

Talos pauses. His gaze falters, and he looks to the floor for a moment. By the time he returned to look at her, she had sat up taller, finding herself interested in the answer. Not out of spite. Not because she wished to punish him. It was because she felt pity. 

“I did not want to be like the others,” he answers. He pulls on the chains once more, sighing when he cannot sit how he wished. “They would slaughter for fun. For thrill. For their own pleasure. But that was not the aim. Our Primarch did not want us to kill without meaning. I did not want to kill without meaning.”

“What meaning does your killing have now?”

He pauses one more time. “Vengeance. Vindication. So my brothers did not die in vain.”

 “They did not.” She pushes herself to her feet swiftly. He watches her, though his interest piques when she nears him. She stops before him, merely inches away from him, and sinks to her knees. She is still smaller than him, she still looks up to him. “You and I are different.”

He doesn’t answer her. 

She gently runs the tip of her finger across the scar that runs the length of his right thigh. She brushes over the new scars formed by the people around her. Her lashes flutter as she looks back at him. 

“You are stronger than I could ever be,” she admits to him. Her hands tremble ever so slightly. She feels him pull at his chains again. Instinctively, she reaches into her pocket. He follows her movements like a hawk. “You were not deceived by those around you, not led to believe every lie spoon-fed by those who wish for power.”

She stops moving her hand. His breathing catches, she only just hears it. “You will kill me?”

From her pocket, she pulls a chain of keys. Each is comically embezzled and extravagant in its purpose. She knows which one controls his chains, she had memorised it before he was placed with her. She pulls the key out, fingers running over the cold metal. After a moment, she reaches behind him, placing the key in its lock, turning it ever so slightly. 

Then, a click. 

She stops breathing. 

He doesn’t move. 

She reaches behind him to where his hands were chained to the wall. Her hands seem so small compared to his, yet she doesn’t hesitate. She knew that one movement and he could kill her with those hands. She unlocked their chains with one, swift movement. 

“Why should I decide who is to live and die?” she says, voice softer than a whisper. She sits back on her knees, looking down to the floor. He still doesn’t move, even with his hands freed. “The only person in my life that has not lied to me is you. How can I say who is right and who is wrong?”

She stands without looking at him. Her thoughts ran from her, any logic or sanity fleeing what remained. Had she intended to let him go? No. Did he deserve it? Perhaps not. But to live in a world that lied, to uphold the values she did without question… Not anymore. 

As she turns to leave, she feels his hand. It wraps around hers, and though he does not hurt her, he holds her tight enough she cannot walk away. “We haven’t finished.”

“What is there to say?” she asks. She turns back to him, eyes stopping on every scar she had caused on the way. When she reaches his eyes, she struggles to keep her lips still. “I will die at the hands of this empire, be it today or in the years to come. Take your freedom whilst you can.” 

“Your death is no more deserving than mine.”

He releases her hand. She feels it shaking and hides it in her pocket once more. She takes a deep breath and turns from him. Her steps are smaller, she feels the watchful eyes of sin around her, degrading her, but she cannot turn around again. 

There’s no sound of pulling on chains, there’s no vengeance for his torture. She grasps the handle of the door and expects to feel him behind her, but there’s nothing. She reaches for the keys once more and throws them to the ground below. As the door is pulled open, he tries again. 

“I will not be the one that signs your execution order.”

She nods once. Her head turns ever so slightly to the side, and she can see him still in the same position, still kneeling, still holding his arms at his side despite his freedom. She doesn’t reach for the keys. She doesn’t even bother to shut the door properly – no one would come here without her order. 

She leaves him with only a few words. “Then we shall see each other tomorrow, Talos.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

Neither speaks. 

It is not an uncomfortable silence, nor one brought on by the lack of conversation. It was a natural pause. A moment of reflection. 

It felt like he always had a question for her, always prepared with another truth to teach her. She did not idolise him, she wasn’t even sure how she felt, but she had found herself seeking answers as though the world was entirely new. She would sit beside him. She would have her fingers tracing the marks on his skin. She would not leave at night so she could sit beside him and hear the voice that haunted her dreams and lingering thoughts. 

And this was a night like the others before had been. 

“I will take you,” Talos says, dividing the peace between them momentarily. She raises her eyebrows, though lets him continue. “Wherever you want to go. I will show you the stars. I will show you everything.”

“You truly believe we would make it that far?”

“Would you trust me enough to try?”

She should hate herself for answering without question. “I’d trust you with everything.”

It had been 47 days. She’d spent every single one of those in his company, for hours on end at the very least, and now… she’d been with him for almost 84 hours straight. She only left the room to refill the jug of water afforded to him and share her rations. It wasn’t a lot, it wasn’t enough, but it would do. Just for now. 

“Then you would trust me to leave this place with you?” he asks. She looks at him with slightly widened eyes. His tone is flat, he did not laugh or smile. He doesn’t allow her to answer him yet. “I have seen my death, and it’s not in this room or by the hands of anyone here. I will leave this place and live for years to come.”

Her heart sinks just a touch. She stops tracing his scars just above a connection point. “Why haven’t you left?”

“I wouldn’t live with my decision to leave you behind.”

“You would not be responsible for my death if you did. I let you escape. That is my choice.”

“It is not for that reason, Inquisitor.” 

“Do not call me that.” She turns her body from his, just enough for him to notice, but his hand on her knee, lingering just up her thigh ever so slightly, prevents her from moving. She sighs. “Your power armour is kept in—”

“I will not leave without you.”

His words create another silence. This one is not natural, though not uncomfortable either. She doesn’t know how to answer him. She turns back to him, their bodies just touch, and she notices how his skin burns. He leans to her ever so slightly. His fingertips dig into her skin so she won’t move again. 

“I will not leave without you,” he repeats, momentarily glancing away. The keys that she dropped before were never touched. He hadn’t moved more than a few feet since she unchained him. “You trust me. Then let me take you from here. You will not have to work under the name of the false emperor again. I do not care what you believe in. But you will be free.”

Her heart thumps in her chest harder than ever before. She trusted him. She believed that he would give her the freedom she desired after learning the truth those around her hid from. 

Her breath is shaky, her voice quiet. “You could kill me.”

“I could have from the moment you met me,” he tells her. His admission does not surprise her. Not now she fully understood. Her life was meaningless to the system that held her. He places his hand over hers and holds it tight. To him though? She was significant. She mattered. “Though I don’t think I could ever harm you. Not now.”

The silence continues once more. She watches him, her eyes grazing each of his features, though her hand still sits beneath his. He must feel the way it trembles; she could barely control it – lest she control the way her heart hammers against her ribs. 

He wouldn’t leave without her. 

It was not doubt in him. It was not doubt in herself. It was doubt in the world around them. She felt her chest growing tighter, his stare, his presence, all of it becoming so suffocating. Her entire life had been her belief. Her parents told her stories of the evil that men like him committed. Her seniors told her stories of the evil that his legion brought with them. She followed every order, so blindly, so stupidly, and now given the choice…

“You are afraid.”

Her jaw tightens. She feels embarrassed for him to say it so easily. She can’t look him in the eyes, not without a denial. 

He takes his hand away from hers, though replaces it on her cheek. He’s so gentle. Not the monster everyone made him out to be. His fingers follow the curves of her cheek, softly lifting her face to his once more. “I trust you, too.”

“Why?” she asks, “I ordered your torture. I ordered all of this.”

“And you listened when I spoke. You stopped when you realised that it was wrong. You have slept on my shoulder, knowing at any time I could squeeze that pretty neck of yours and kill you in a matter of seconds. You branded me a monster and now you let me hold you.”

He exhales slowly. His hand feels so rough against her, the calloused and scarred skin leaving its trace on her, no matter how careful she is. Words fail her, just for a moment, but he does not care. He lowers his forehead until it rests against her own. He’s tense, he’s a natural-born killer, never meant to have an ounce of emotion leave him. Yet, for the smallest moment, she feels it all. 

“I’ve never known a life outside of this,” she admits to him. She tries to pull back from him, one final defence, but it’s futile. He moves with her. “This… it’s all I know.”

“You will learn.” His promise is met with lips that ghost over her own. “Just let me show you.”

His breath tickles her skin. Her hand moves to his cheek, mirroring his own actions. She believes him. She feels her eyes burn, relief washing over her, but she refuses to let herself cry. Not yet. Everything feels still. Everything outside of the room seems to disappear, just for a moment. 

But there’s a subtle click. 

They both hear it. A soft that would have been missed if either had spoken, but as fate would have it, the barest scrape of the metal door had threatened them. Her heart stops, neither of them breathes. Her fear is matched by his calculation. 

He doesn’t hesitate. He pulls back from her, standing to his feet as his gaze snaps towards the door. Without armour, without any weapons, he was limited, yet he was ready to kill. She stands behind him, her hands balled into fists. She knows. She has to choose. 

“Talos?”

He doesn’t look at her again. “Stay behind me.”

She silently accepts. His choice. His command. His promise to her. 

He would never leave without her. 

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

He taught her survival.

She had listened intently as he showed her how life worked outside of the protection her status once brought her. Her parents, devout and respected, never showed her the life that dwelled beneath them. They did not show her the hive city underbelly that crawled with crime, desperation, and hatred. But he did. 

He was obvious, stuck out like a raven among doves. No human looked like him, acted like him, or was built like him. A tool of war, an angel of the emperor – now nothing more than a fugitive hidden between spaces in a world of others wishing to remain invisible. 

“Trust no one,” he had told her one evening, using his own body to keep her warm. She’d had to ditch the gold-laden robes of expensive fabrics, hidden away with the power armour that made him all the more obvious. “Assume everyone lies. Assume everyone only cares for themselves. Assume you and I are alone for the rest of our lives.”

And would it have been so bad?

Would she have found it so troubling to be within the arms of a man she didn’t even know a year prior?

No. It wasn’t because she needed him – which she did, in many ways – but because she would have been lost without him, and he would have been worse without her. She remembers his bitter laugh the day they met. The mocking tone he used as he called out her beliefs. The sneer of disgust at what she was.

Now he looked at her as though his entire world would burn if she had disappeared. He stood in front of her at the slightest threat. He told her stories of a past she could have only dreamed to understand. He let the littlest snippets of his heart shine through, between the pain, the suffering, and the monster that resided below.

She had taught him hope. 

“Perhaps one day there will be peace,” she told him. Her head rested on his arm, and though his eyes were closed, he was not resting. Merely enjoying the small moment of reprise that the midnight hours brought. She leaves him to define where the peace would lay. “It wouldn’t matter to me, though.”

One of his eyes opened. “It wouldn’t?”

“I am already at peace,” she replies, “there are times when things could be easier of course, but I have made peace with the future I chose.”

He had not answered. His arm, slung loosely over her waist, tightens ever so slightly. He pulls her body into his, the concrete they sleep on forgotten for a moment. He mumbles something, incoherent on purpose. 

“I know they will find us one day.” She had guessed his words, but the way he stiffened beneath her meant she was somewhat on par with him. “I know they will kill me for what I have done.”

“I would not allow it.”

She hums, turning to him. She’s so close to him that their noses brush. “You cannot protect me from everything. I will die one day, as will you.”

“You will not die at the hands of the Imperium you once served,” he tells her, a quiet promise. He looks behind her, as though he can see her future as well. “And if they try, they will all burn.”

They hadn’t spoken of it again. 

The days passed, weeks, then months, and life moved on around them as though they had nothing to fear. She was never sure how he spent his days, manual labour she supposed, quiet work to ensure silence and somewhere to stay. She had done the same, working for rations and clothes or anything else essential. Nothing special. Nothing she would remember days later. 

She had felt her hope growing stronger. The longer her presence was kept a secret, the more likely it was that he would do everything he promised. He’d show her the stars. He’d take her to places he spoke of. He’d return to his warband, he’d keep her with them – with him.

He must have felt it, too. He spoke often of his brothers. The ones he respected, more so. The quiet tales of comradery and triumph they had once felt. He had shown her a memory for every one of the scars on his body. He’d explained every chink in his armour, every stained bit of paint. 

Talos had sworn to her when he kissed her softly, that there would never be a life without them together. 

Everything she thought she knew was challenged. He trusted her. He helped her. He may have even loved her, in his way. Astartes were not meant to do this, let alone from a traitor legion. He should never have wanted to kiss her, hold her, feel her in every way, but he initiated it each and every time. 

Everything she knew was a lie. 

And everything she was beginning to believe was short-lived. 

She should have paid attention to the eyes that followed her. She should have thought to say more to him when a figure followed her through the streets. She should have taken them somewhere else instead of revealing everything. But she was worried. She thought it was someone waiting to harm her. She thought, if anything happened, she would rather be with him. 

She led the end straight to them, and neither had realised. 

The rain poured outside. The midnight sky left only the candlelight available to them. She recorded her thoughts, those which related to the day and some of her more private thoughts, in her journal beside a candle. He sat behind her, meditating, away from the world for just a few moments. 

She’d looked back at him more than once. Admired him, silently with a smile, wondered how she had even managed all of this. She thought about what may have happened if they had stayed, if she’d been more careful when he was in his cell so could have just an ounce of extra freedom than they did now. She was lost in her thoughts of possibilities, daydreaming as she watched over him.

He had reacted before she did. His eyes opened; she frowned. 

“What?” she asked, noticing him looking around. His eyes tried to locate the source of whatever he had heard. He stopped on a crack in the wall that resembled a door, though it was not because someone was outside. “Talos, what is wrong?”

He doesn’t look at her. “They have come.”

“They?”

“For you,” he tells her. He finally looks at her, rising to his feet in one swift movement. He takes a step towards her, reaching his hand to cradle her cheek. “You must go.”

“Not without you.”

“You do not have a choice.”

“I do,” she insists, standing as well. He shakes his head, but she protests still. “We go together. I won’t leave here without you.”

He swallows, a momentary pause as he looks back to where he had heard whatever noise. “You won’t leave here at all unless you go.”

She reaches for his hand, dragging her attention back to him. Her lips are parted, though no indication of sound leaves them. She silently protests, wanting to tell him no, but knowing he is far better at this than her. 

“I will find you,” he tells her. He lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. She nods, though hesitant. “Do not look back. Do not trust anyone. Go.”

And she does. 

She runs, she never stops. 

She hears the screams from where she was before. She clutches the journal in her pocket as her tattered shoes wear against the stones and concrete of the streets. She feels her eyes burn, and she lets herself cry this time. 

But just when she finally stops to catch her breath, never to look behind, never to speak to another soul, she feels them all right behind her.   

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Her eyes burned. 

Not like the first time she trusted him. Not like when she ran. This was something else entirely. 

She had cried a thousand times, each tear shed for another lie told to her. They called her a sinner, a heretic, a traitor to their beliefs. They kept her in a room, maybe the one she had once sat in with him, but they did not ever send someone to beat her, to burn her, to flay her. They left her in darkness, in silence, on her own. 

She knew what it meant. She knew exactly what her fate was to be. 

They’d dragged her from her cell. They’d stripped her of all her clothes and dignity, paraded around her as they dowsed her body in sacred oils that she once held as well. They’d prayed, never for her, but for their beloved emperor, then draped her with symbols of what it meant to betray them in such a way. 

She was a display. She was a message. 

They’d strung her body to the pyre. She never had the will to fight it, allowing them to hold her in place as the ropes wrapped tighter and tighter around her skin and sunk into her flesh, causing an array of cuts and bruises. She’d let her head hang, the sky too bright for her to look up to, and wondered if maybe she’d see him again when her soul was freed. 

And the last thing on her lips as the priests started singing their chants, as the public was invited in to see in real-time what would happen to a traitor, as they held her lips to a drink meant to guarantee her death, was his name. 

Talos. 

She had missed it all. 

Her eyes barely opened as the screams started, as the shots were fired. They had misjudged him, they had expected him to run. In some way, she had thought he did too. She had forgotten that maybe, just maybe, he had been following along this whole time. One step behind them, until they stopped moving. 

No one had started the fire beneath her. Maybe their mistake. He’d have stopped if he saw her burning, knew that he had no chance to save her. He’d have hesitated for just long enough for them to kill him as well. She’d have known, if she saw him, standing in a room filled with bodies of those who would have watched her burn in the name of their corpse-god. 

It was his hands she felt first. She didn’t care for the blood that soaked her skin, it was no different to the oils she had been covered in already. She didn’t care how desperate he was as he pulled the ropes from around her, how he accidentally caught her in his swift and untamed movements. 

He held her in his arms, carried her like she still had a chance, not knowing her fate had been sealed. Like they knew. Like someone had seen him come here for her, and they knew it would be his ruin. Like they would allow everyone in this room to be killed just to prove a point. 

“You’re okay,” he whispers, so gently she almost misses it. 

Her eyes flutter open, slowly, still heavy and burning. She feels the smile that lines her lips when she’s able to make out his features, his body knelt beside her. She silently says his name, but her throat is full, her mouth tasting metallic. 

“I can help,” he tells her. He rests her body on the floor, away from the slaughter, careful to support her. As he lays her down, her body feels limp already. She wasn’t sure how long it had been. He must have realised that she was not spared. “I will find something and I… I’ll—"

She reaches for his hand. Though it takes some time to find it, she’s able to just curl her fingers around his own. It stops him, just long enough for her to croak out words in a low voice. “…you can’t.”

“I can.”

She grips his hand tighter, not allowing him to leave. “Don’t… leave me… to die for them.”

“You will not die.” There is hesitation in his voice. He’s unsure. He knows she is correct. “Not for them. Not now.”

“Don’t let it be them.”

Her eyes fall to his bolter. He follows her gaze but immediately shakes his head. “No.”

“Please,” she tells him. She chokes, turning to her side to cough some of the blood lining her teeth and mouth to the ground. She winces as her lungs are hard to fill, blood drenching their every fibre. “Please, Talos.”

He neglects her an answer. She struggles to keep her eyes open, instead leaning into the cold press of his armour as he carefully picks her up once more. She can feel the gravity around her as he sits on something, not the ground, resting her in his arms. Her head falls to his shoulder, just tilted enough so she can see his face. 

“My last breath,” she whispers, hand drifting over his armour, trying to find something she remembered, “it’s yours.”

She doesn’t cry. No more tears are lost, there wouldn’t have been many left anyway. 

She was certain of her fate and held no other wish. Her thoughts stilled, her body becoming numb as the seconds moved on. She saw the way his jaw clenched, how his eyes lost any hope that remained in them. She felt his breath on her face as she struggled to keep her eyes open. 

He whispers, knowing she may understand. “You were the only thing worth fighting for.”

She remembered the way he once held her like this as they watched the stars. She’d feigned an injury in the hopes he would carry her – in truth she wanted to watch the way the stars twinkled in his dark eyes, feel his warmth on her skin, and know that maybe he did care about her the way she did for him. He’d hesitated then, but picked her up without complaint. He’d never wanted her to leave his arms after that. 

She never heard the shot. She never felt the pain. It was over too quick. 

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅