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• [CATO SICARIUS/F!AMBASSADOR]

CHAPTERS ↓

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (6.5)

• [SQUAD DAMOCLES/F!SERF]

SERIES ↓

(1) (2)* (3)**

*(demetrian titus/f!serf) **(valorem gadriel/f!serf)

• [KONRAD CURZE/F!READER]

PARTS ↓

(1) (2)

• [JAGO SEVATARION/F!OFFICER]

CHAPTERS ↓

(1) (2) (3)

By day eight, you'd decided to start trying to break open the locked crate in the far corner.

By day eleven, you cracked the mechanism and promptly began to mow through the trove of nutrient bars you discovered he'd stashed away.

By day fifteen, you started to drive hastily made shivs into the primary doorway's control panel.

Six days after that blundering attempt, you gave up and tried to chisel at the mechanism of the armoury-ensuite. Your efforts there were rewarded with complete failure, too. You really should've paid more attention to the technicians who fixed your cabin entry once.

At long last, the present... day twenty-four. No more nutrient bars. No more satisfaction in reorganising the cage of his quarters. No more easy distractions. You are forced into idle suffering and have long since begun to try to conserve energy. The only notable things you've done today are blitz through your single, bland meal, and then lie back down. You're tired with lingering hunger and yet somehow itching from inaction, which is only made worse by the low rumble of the vessel abruptly growing in sound. It almost sounds like torpedoes. You swear it does... but you aren't sure if it's in your head. You aren't really sure of anything your mind is telling you, actually. Your brain is just as starved as you are, and fuck knows if you're finally going crazy at last. It is an unsurprising struggle to rest, even though you know it is a better option than giving in to the urge to start pacing desperately—you need to keep as much proverbial fuel in the tank, rather than waste it on futile madness.

You spend void-knows-how-long cot-rotting. Every inaction becomes unbearable; there are only so many patches of discoloured steel on the ceiling you can stare at.

Your body shivers as you drag yourself out from under the thin sheet and make your way to the fresher, tugging the busted sliding door mechanism shut behind you—or, well—you try, but it only gets halfway there thanks to the dent from a huge fist distorting its path.

The water you'd previously plugged and left stagnant in the sink is as cold as the rest of his quarters. The temperature helps stir you a little when you splash it on your own face, but it's deeply unpleasant to even think about using the filthy rag hanging on the wall to pat it off.

Rather, you shake your head in an attempt to dry yourself—canid-like, degrading—but you refuse to have a nose-full of whatever unknown horrors have seeped into the fabric.

Your attempt fails. Just like the rest. Nothing works. Nothing will. You can't help but grumble out a sigh, sinking onto your haunches on the floor and drawing your knees up to your chest.

Begrudgingly, you daub at your face with the front of your ratty tunic instead. The wetness that stains it in turn is far colder than it has any right to be as it settles back on your skin. Admittedly, it's worse than just a soggy face, but hindsight is a real bitter cunt of a thing.

You sit there a while, staring up at the pitiful lumen strip barely alive above you.

That is, until a creak outside makes you start. Shock sends the small hairs at the nape of your neck rising like the hackles of an animal. You're innately aware of the change in the room without even knowing what it is. Such is the paranoia of a caged thing. Your brain thinks it sees a blur pass the fresher doorway in your periphery, and it sends a fresh rush of panic racing up the line of your spine as an instinctive afterthought. Even after all the time you've been stuck with him, there is still something horrible in the way the Night Lord moves. It is a preternatural horror. The suggestion of something in the dark. A mere shadow given real mass. Unnatural shifting of muscles that are somehow—impossibly—both lithe and hulking.

You stand so fast the adrenaline in your veins only barely stops you from passing out at the quick ascent, and you peer around the corner.

Sevatarion's broad, tunic'd back is hard to see but easily distinguished as familiar in the dimness of the room. Thankfully, it means he's not facing you, but it doesn't mean he's not going to.

You watch and wait—even as his shape disappears completely into the nothingness.

The holotable activates via of his gene-print, and the room's darkness is replaced by a jarring green. Sevatarion is standing in front of it, leaning with his palms flat on the rim, before he reaches across and fusses with the calibrations. A new plane of information flashes over the projection, in a language you can't decipher. His tongue. His legion's. That abominable sunless world.

You dare to take a step out of the fresher while he's apparently distracted.

Sevatarion's head lifts ever so slightly, and you know at once you're well enough accounted for in his sharp trans-human perception.

He growls, "Took you long enough."

But the display of ill-temper doesn't cause the same leg-locking hesitation it once did.

Pointedly, you clear your throat and say much more than ask, "You're not dead."

"Could say the same for you," he grumbles lowly, glancing over his shoulder. "Thought you'd finally suffocated trying to wriggle up the fresher fan... again."

You realise three things simultaneously. Firstly, he's in those silly fucking leather pants, as usual. Secondly, he's found himself an even smaller, tighter shirt than last time you saw him, which you thought wasn't possible. And, finally, Sevatarion's hair is loose. It is a lot longer than it looks. The way he usually greases it flat to his skull in an almost anal backward swipe—with what you can only assume is boot polish—makes it look far shorter than mid-neck length. It looks strange seeing it out like this. He looks younger. Almost boyish. That is... for an ugly, scar-covered man-eater.

The holo-display backlights his sun-starved face a mottled, almost emetic colour, and once more you're reminded of how utterly inhuman he still looks despite hints towards the contrary.

You frown harshly. "One try was enough."

"At least you're learning," he muses.

Relinquishing any further thought on the notion, you pad toward the table and ask, "What are you doing?"

"Not even fifteen seconds in and already sticking your nose into matters that don't concern you," he nags with his face scrunched up, looking at you over his huge deltoid.

Your answer to that comes out of you like a whip-crack: "You don't know what concerns me."

"Looks like it's got something to do with redecorating," Sevatarion admits unenthusiastically, and a long gust of air leaves him by way of a sigh as he turns to look at his crate, then the scratched-up armoury-chamber panel. You didn't even really try to hide the ransacking, nor the attempts you made at breaking mechanisms. You had assumed he would pick up on them rather quickly regardless. What, with what you've discovered about Astartes—or rather, just this traitorous one—and their hyper-vigilant anal-retentive streaks. You'd hoped it'd piss him off, and it didn't as much as you thought it would. Still, he is right about before. You have learned a lot since your capture, and what you've learned is that there's one sure thing that gets under his skin far quicker than any other slight. If lashing out at his things didn't work, there's always another way—and it's disgustingly simple.

You've learned that he hates when you say his first name, and you'd paid the price of that discovery in blood.

It's but a knee-jerk reaction to use what little ammunition you have before you even think to stop yourself, "Much appreciated, Jago."

A long, slow blink over the shoulder of the aforementioned killer makes you hold off on a breath, realising yourself. Perhaps... that was a little too heavy-handed a stab to start with.

"Already itching for an insensitivity check-up?" He rasps slowly, pretending to be copacetic while watching you like a slavering beast. Surely imagining some ruthless torment—some new, savvy way to breed and bear hurt from a body that can scarcely feel it. You don't doubt he would find one. But there's only so much tongue-biting you can manage before he gets a scream.

"No," You say as you grit your teeth, throwing your gaze downward to the metal beneath you. You're tempted to spit out the foul taste of the reality-check that lingers in your saliva on that floor. But you don't. Because, despite it going against your more stubborn instincts, you're well aware you're not going to get a clearer line in the sand than the one he's drawn now.

So you suck it up and stay silent.

A frisson of words unsaid, but not unheard, isF surely noticed by him.

It's a wound quickly worried at, with Sevatarion piping back up to openly taunt you, ever unable to find simple satisfaction in a single victory.

"See?" Sevatarion drawls, a cruel smile tugging the mutilated half of his maw into a rictus grin. "You really are learning. Seems the regular panelbeating worked."

Hate simmers in your chest, and you grind your teeth again. Struggling not to walk into the very obvious trap, no matter how golden the light of a successful, momentary retort may be. Instead, a hiss that might've been much sooner considered a frustrated whine leaves you.

He turns away to reach out and pinch the projection, enlarging it over a sprawling cityscape.

There are red target dots a short distance away from the clusters of white—the red ones are tagged in a language you cannot divine any meaning of—aside from the suggestion of a foe.

You step closer, cautiously. Boredom driving you to curiosity, overriding survival instincts. It has you stopping only a few paces away to his right, and leaves you watching Sevatarion as he spreads his hand wide and swipes at the schematics, panning them left, then right; grumbling all the while.

Under the warped light of the hololithic display, your eyes snag on those huge hands. They are bathed in green, and his palms look as time-worn as a ship's mess-hall floors, calloused from handling weapons. Digits tense with a strong spring-lock of ligaments, likely broken numerous times and set back again and again. Dozens of thick scars mar each. Likely the slip-ups in a swing of his grip, probably early mistakes: those of a novice to be learnt from.

And only then do you realise yourself abruptly, gaze tearing back from the holo-display and meeting a set of horrible, blacked-out eyes. Pressure builds, habit clots your mind—you have been in this situation a million times. You have been above a teeming city, a hollowed moon, a planet vast as the auspecs can map, standing between a holotable and a superior. It makes words form before you can stop yourself. You know it is but a groomed reaction drilled into you. The want to offer your mind in the presence of a schematic, the want to aid your Shipmaster, as you ought, First Officer.

But he is not Marmeladov. He is her killer. He is her butcher, this man-thing abomination... and yet—and yet—the urge seizes you just as it would if he were her.

"You outnumber them threefold," you mumble as your brows furrow.

Sevatarion seems so surprised by your outburst of opinion that he has to snort before he answers, "It's not my fault you Loyalists like playing hard to get."

The red dots are Loyalists?

A cold surge of horror singes your nerves, but you refuse to show any signs of weakness. You can use his reply to your advantage, but first you need to maintain unified disinterest; let him think you are impassive, declawed—rendered conversational by your imprisonment.

You take the opportunity to speak while he's roiling in his own thoughts, "And you'd risk sending anything living over the west slope while they've an elevation advantage?"

Sevatarion frowns, reaching out over the indicated junction, depicted slightly awry of a deep passage on the floating projected diagram.

"They're not yet so far gone as to rig traps to spite us in the gully. Still, it seems the canals are unprotected, which could mean two things..." he tapers off, being typically unhelpful, even in this.

"Either they know doing so is needless when there is no entry from them, or they have failed to consider the possibility," you fill, rounding the holo-table's far side to peer curiously at the green geometry; watching him scowl at the city's detailing as you continue, "Regardless, those passages are surely designed to lead to a greater causeway," you point at the path of a route linking to the canals from the cistern, though still worrying your lip between your teeth in unbidden frustration, "How old are these underlay schematics?"

Sevatarion stays quiet for a moment before he starts up again in a flat mien, "Fifty-ish."

"Days?" You ask, moving around to his left—confused as to why he's suddenly playing coy, "Months?"

"Years," he corrects at last with a sigh, as if it truly pains him to not be difficult for once.

"Fifty years is a long time," you huff egregiously. "Healthy hives get a dozen new spires by the season."

Sevatarion raises a scarred brow. "I'm more than double that."

"It shows," you spit, unable to help yourself, and glance him up and down.

A sour look scours his face alongside a quirked brow, and for a moment it looks as if he's about to genuinely try to argue the point. You imagine he's going to say something to the effect of him being in his prime despite the ravages of his service; like some washed-up prostitute on the docks of a stellar-port haggling with you for a go at her syphilitic cunt.

But, unfortunately, he doesn't rise to the occasion and bicker over his vanity, which is surprising given the stuck-up, auto-fellating aura he radiates.

Proud of his fat cock but not his mangled face, apparently.

Instead, he exhales harshly and rolls—or at least, it appears so—his pitched-out eyes and says, "You're still overestimating the passage of time."

"Well, you don't know the current state of the underground passages after the bombardment," you grunt, surely carrying the habitual reticence of an officer prattling to dimwitted conscripts about concepts glaringly beyond them in your speech for a moment. "So in the end, they simply may not care to defend collapsed tunnels."

"How do you know we bombarded the city?" Sevatarion harrumphs, and you can see him glaring at you from the corner of your eye as you stare at the projection.

"You think I wouldn't know the feeling of orbital cannons rattling out of a vessel?"

There's a wheezed, "Oh, of course... how could I forget," as he fully turns to look down at you. He is a lot closer than you had intended to let him get. "I am in the mighty presence of a seasoned void-warfare failure."

You fight against the ire rising in your chest, struggling to keep your head forward while his focus is on you. You try to disassociate by looking at the green lines of the cityscape. The streets, the ramparts, the hab-blocks that were now probably steaming rubble. You stare until you're not staring at it at all; just idling while you seethe—hesitating in place—waiting for him to make a move you know he can't help himself from making.

For some reason, you get the impression he's going to say something more. Instead, a long, tepid silence draws out.

You stand there beside him, growing increasingly more uncomfortable as he maintains his watch over you.

"Is this the part where you tell me what it is you want?" He asks with that typical, flat, gravely hum, and you exhale a strained breath that you weren't aware was struggling to stay in your lungs.

You finally turn, craning your neck up and trying to match his eyes rather than stare at his crooked mouth.

"I don't know what you're talking about," you spit.

Sevatarion grits out, "Right..." then doesn't say anything for a while. He just lets the silence hang again like a guillotine's blade above your neck.

Then, finally, he does speak.

"Have you any other useless insight to offer? Or did you exhaust your tiny baseline brain for today?"

Your lip curls. "I was First Officer; my insight isn't useless, and my presence was—"

"Yes, yes... you were so very useful to your shipmaster in your tight little uniform; having you standing around all cycle in it must've been invaluable to your peers," he cuts you off with a strange weight to his words. It's most definitely sarcasm. But then again, it's hard to tell when he is trying to be sarcastic and when he is not. His throaty accent makes everything that leaves his mouth seem like a joke at your expense. Acting as if he's perpetually nonchalant, when in reality you've noticed he is rarely ever not tensing. "It was such a shame that pretty number came off you in strips," he adds almost like an afterthought, almost pouting—if not for the mangled lip situation he has going on, turning it into an awkward-looking snarl, "But tugging you around with your tits out was a bonus for morale, at the very least."

"Your brothers were flaying my crewmen alive," you dare to say. "I don't think my tits were the main focus of the day."

"Remember that, do you?"

You don't. It's an educated guess as to what followed after you were out like a light, but he doesn't need to know that. Still, you almost tell him to screw himself then and there, and ruin your hard work of painstakingly maintaining conversation—so, instead you say, "You gave me a head injury, not an eye injury."

"As if the latter wouldn't make a difference," he snorts.

"That's beside the point," you scowl up at him. "I don't think my rack hanging out mattered much. You abominations had baser tasks to busy yourselves in."

"Your rack?" He parrots, apparently disbelieving.

You're confused as to why he's fixed on it, and double down, "Yes, my rack."

Sevatarion starts bobbing his head like a big daft animal, apparently amused.

"So that's what that word's used for... I was wondering why I kept hearing it," he drawls absentmindedly. "I think I'll be taking that off of you."

"I'm glad that there's enough space behind that huge forehead for more Gothic," you sneer.

Sevatarion squints at you for a moment, then grumbles: "Careful, little officer."

You immediately look away from him, but the sneer on your face never falters.

In your periphery, you watch Sevatarion reach over and minimise the long-since idling holo to a weak green glow before he sighs, "What were we talking about again? Ah, that's right, your rack and it mattering."

"Which it didn't," you agonise to say.

"Oh, it did."

You are truly loath to feed into his groxshit—and yet, still you take the bait—looking back up at him with your teeth bared.

"For who?"

"For me," he says with a shrug.

"You've skinned women before, I'm sure my chest is one of thousands you've ogled at like a beast."

"Not really something that comes to my mind in those moments, actually. Orders to follow. There's always so many baselines to turn into coats, you know. But what can you do, it's all standard proceedings of the Midnight Clad..." he rambles flatly, then quirks that mangled brow of his again before he adds, "Never been a fan of stale blubber, unlike some of my brothers."

"Don't pretend like you've got morals," you cringe as a long sigh escapes you. "You're all sick."

"If you'd like to try your luck with the others, be my guest," Sevatarion shrugs. "Give them my regards."

"At least I wouldn't have to live through it," it's at this point you'd very much like to exit the conversation, but alas, the gaoler and the matter of your gaoling are right in front of you.

"You say that now," he states matter-of-factly, "But you should really call yourself lucky that I like you warm."

It's such a drain having to talk with him. You honestly think you'd take the torture over it. "If this legion is so depraved, wouldn't there be whores onboard? Can't you leave me in peace and go bother one of them?"

"See, that's just the problem," Sevatarion shakes his head for a heartbeat before wagging his huge pointer finger at you. "There's no whores onboard, there's only serfs and slaves—the latter being exactly what you are, now."

"I'm not a slave," you snarl at him.

"Says the slave," he nips quickly and leans forward enough that his fingertip presses directly into your chest.

"You're more a slave than I am," you bark back like a daft dog, and make no effort to pull away. Refusing to cower, no matter how much it surely makes him over-eager to torment you further.

"Sounds like common ground," he notes, and his finger moves up, up, up—until he's cradling you under the chin in one great, calloused palm.

"I'm nothing like you."

"Maybe not physically," those digits press insistently now. Not enough to choke, but enough to hint at the threat of it. "My skin doesn't peel away like gossamer as it does for you baselines."

"You were human," you fume. "I know that much."

"And how would you know?"

"You wouldn't have a belly button if you were made in a tube," is all you have to offer as evidence to support your claim. "I've seen vat-growns."

"This body was made," Sevatarion gripes with a cutting snort. "Not in a vat, but in a lab all the same."

"So, the only thing that sets you apart is thanks to someone else's wasted hard work," you offer smartly, trying to sound clever despite growing increasingly uncomfortable as he leans even closer in—contorting his looming size into your space with a slow bend.

"And what sets you apart, then?" You can smell his breath this near. It's metallic, of all things. Like hard-working engine vents and a broken refrigeration room mixed into one. You can see just how deep his scars go, and his long lashes; and the dark, fathomless pits of his void-black eyes—the tiny sliver of white around the edges of them—the shape of yourself in the reflection—the smallness in such deep, dark wells. "What makes you what you are, little officer? Isn't that thanks to someone else?"

"Here we go," you finally, finally pull away and out of his grip with a shaky step backwards. "Let's discuss nature versus nurture, shall we? Let's devise galactic peace. Let's all hold hands and skip through an agri-world's grain fields, singing."

"Obviously you weren't groomed to be an Imperial diplomat," his voice is a long, slow breath from his oversized chest.

"Between us both, at least I've bothered with diplomacy," you sneer. "Unlike you, murderer."

"Oh, little officer, surely you'd dealt with noncompliance during your illustrious career..." he coos, all accusatory like he's got even half a leg to stand on.

"There's a difference between skinning people alive and having them shot," you throw back at him. "But I doubt you would understand that."

"You are a little shithead, aren't you?" Sevatarion says, frowning like he's eaten something bitter. "I know what you're doing."

You scoff, "And what's that?"

"Trying to goad me into killing you," he says with a snort.

"I'm just telling you what I think," you frown back, harder.

"I don't keep you for thinking."

"I don't even think you know why you keep me," you point at him now, just like he'd pointed at you not long ago.

"You're not going to like the reason."

"Let me guess, you were enamoured by the dozens of las-rounds I'd let off at your head?" You mirror him, crossing your arms all the same to throw it in his face.

"Charming as it was," he says, with a suddenly serious expression, "The truth is, I know an entertaining pet when I see one."

Disgust clutters into your thoughts immediately. If it's true... if he intended to find a toy from the very start, you suddenly don't regret a single second of your repeated attempts to get him to just kill you outright. You suppose your continued living is proof enough that he's really not lying, for once.

"I'm not going to listen to this," you snarl, uncrossing your arms and turning your back on him in favour of stomping to the other side of the room.

"It's not like you can leave," Sevatarion sing-songs gravely.

"I could try," you shoot back.

"No, you couldn't," he contends. "I'd break your legs."

"Still wouldn't stop me," is your immediate rebuttal as you look over your shoulder. "You know I can't bloody feel it."

He doesn't immediately know what to say to that, apparently.

"Doesn't matter if you can or can't feel it in the end," he says after a moment, vying for the last word just like you'd guessed he would. "I'd like to see you manage a step out that blast-door with a femur cracked in two."

He has you there... and he knows it, the bastard.

"That's what I thought," he smiles, satisfied with himself and his pathetic threats. "Not so quick when I can see right through you, hm?"

"See what? The ground-breaking concept that legs don't work when they're shattered?" You sneer, leaning harshly against the shut door, "Aren't you a real seer."

Sevatarion stares at you for a moment, then looks you up and down before snorting. It's like he's seen something stuck on your face and won't say anything about it—once again, he is a bastard.

"I'm almost enjoying this witty back and forth," he notes with a humourless laugh.

"I'd wager it's the imagined violence that you're actually enjoying," you answer back.

"No, actually. The stupidity of you testing my patience is endearing. A bit like watching a little dog barking in a little cage," Sevatarion says with the same dreamy tone he reserves for reciting tales of especially ruthless victories. "I can't wait to watch you regret it."

"I'm not trying to be cute," is your quick retort to that profane point, wherein you show your metaphorical deck. "I'm trying to see how far you'll go for the last word."

"Really like to bicker, don't you?" He asks as he takes a step towards you. "It betrays a lot about you, you know... makes you predictable. Easy to bait."

"I don't care," you hiss.

"You should," Sevatarion raises his hands to gesture at you as he decides to continue his insufferable prattling, "It shows your brain is so hardwired by your service you strive for just two little things: control and success," he pauses, scowling at you across the room, "That knock to the head might've numbed a decent part of you, but it hasn't undone that urge," he pauses only to study your expression while the notion settles, "The truth is, you could live off those standard rations; letting me empty my balls in your mouth for an extra meal's just another weak attempt at winning a losing game," he adds at last, and a wretched smile grows on his face. "I'll let you in on a little secret... you won't get the reins back, no matter what you do."

The words, though cutting almost to the point of conjecture, are imbued with such menace that it makes you feel as flayed as your long-dead crewmen.

"Nothing to say now, hm?" Sevatarion says softly and tilts his beady-eyed head, "Did you get the fight you wanted? Are you finally going to tell me what your tantrum was for, now?"

You clench your fists at your side and grind your teeth.

He continues to let you suffer in silence until you grow enough nerve to overcome your stubbornness against speaking plainly.

"I'm hungry," you eventually let out with a grumble, glaring at his huge form.

Sevatarion straightens up ever so slightly, and you feel like you've played a charlatan's last gambit, truly.

"There it is—of-course you are," he starts angrily, "Fortunately, even after all your whining," and yet his tone suddenly changes to more amused than mad; "I'm feeling nice."

You scowl at the impossibility of him feeling nice before you can really stop yourself.

"And, tempting as the usual is," he rasps while he takes slow, menacing steps closer, "The rate's gone up since our last agreement."

Your blood freezes in your veins. He's coming right for you. There's nowhere to run. You're up against the wall, literally and metaphorically. You have to move. You have to put something between you and him. The bed is your immediate instinct. It's a worthless blockade, but to get to you he'd still have to get over it, and that will buy you some more worthless time to think of something else just as stupid.

With that reckless hope alone, you rush leftward and set yourself stiff on the far side of his cot.

He keeps moving towards you, even then.

And yet—and yet... he doesn't lunge across the mattress. He stops right at the other side, facing you, and stares.

You should've known.

You can't hide the shrill of panic in your voice as you ask, "W-Why?"

"You could say it's because of diplomatic pressure," there's an arch to his brow that's all smug self-satisfaction and little else. He really does throw everything back in your face. While you're reeling at that, he takes the opportunity to continue running his trap: "See, when you strain relations, naturally the supply becomes less valuable to the demand... but I doubt you understand that."

This is the real punishment for your mouthing off, then. Not a beating. Not a cutting. The line in the sand simply shifts. The target is dragged another trench-length away.

"W-what's the..." you mumble, but lose your will to speak as he steadily starts to pad around the cot towards you.

"What's the new benchmark?" Sevatarion finishes in your stead, pausing his advance for a moment while he answers himself in the same breath. "I get to fuck you bloody, of course."

"Can't I just... suck you off, again?" You blanch—he can't be serious—the size disparity, weight, strength, and a dozen other variables all make the proposition madness.

"Nope," he chuffs, "See, all that bickering has me wanting to bury a bone," and starts moving again. He's being slow on purpose. He's dawdling. He's toying with you. "Shouldn't have acted so smart with me, little officer."

"You're insane," you hiss as you clamber up onto the cot on your haunches as he nears, trying to keep some meagre, pointless distance.

"Do you know how many times I hear that in a cycle?" Sevatarion asks, but it's not really a question. Much rather, it's a proof of concept that you're not the only one—you're not alone in thinking he's mad. There are others who agree with you. Yet the vindication is worth nothing. It earns you nothing. It does nothing. It surely doesn't stop him mounting a knee up on the thin mattress and pulling the rest of himself up.

Your breathing comes to you in sharp gulps as the hulking form of the Night Lord casts a weakly green-rimmed shadow over you, "So what's the verdict?"

A shiver seizes you as you begin to say, "W-Well, I don't really have a choice except yes, do I?"

"Finally," he rasps.

You don't expect the heft of his calloused palm dragging across your ankle, or his sudden advance. Some animal instict urges you to scramble blindly in an instant. You're weak and hungry, and you can't get away as fast as you wish you could. But even impaired, fear turns to fight surprisingly fast, and you thrash as soon as you're tugged under him.

Sevatarion tries, albeit lazily, to gather up both your hands with one of his own that's not supporting his weight. Probably in an attempt to pin you, but your rabid squirming and swatting apparently rob him of any patience.

Instead, he moves his free hand down and engulfs one of your breasts, thumb prodding your nipple through your tunic. Frantic, you can't even think to form words in protest. All you can do is try to rake your fingers against his sharp-toothed mug—but all it really does is anger him.

Out of spite, the hand groping you fists your tunic and tugs. It's not surprising that the flimsy material tears off you like a tablecloth under his grip, but the sudden show of force still frenzies you.

Yet there's not enough time to really think on it any longer, seeing as he's abruptly curling down at just the right angle to stuff your tit in his mouth.

He sucks noisily, indulging himself, but you thankfully can hardly even feel his maw.

The pressure of his tongue against the skin is there, sure, but any sensation beyond that is null and void to your nerve pathways. Down the centre of your chest, the scarred threshold line of feeling acts as a marker of his own making. One that he's disregarded, in his horrible haste.

With your free hand, you repeatedly drive the bottom of your clenched fist into the top of his head—still fighting to get him off of you.

He doesn't seem to care about that, though. Seeing as he's far too busy snagging your nipple between his teeth, tilting away, and releasing it again and again. He's slobbering like a cheap whore as he torments the flesh until it looks painfully swollen. At least, you think it's painfully swollen—because honestly, fucked-if-you-knew-what-was-what, given the whole neuropathy situation.

Sevatarion seemingly breaks from his trance when he finally realises himself.

"Oh, my mouth's on the wrong spot, isn't it?" He croons—and that's definitely a sarcastic tone edging his voice, there—only to tilt his head up and let his dark, scar-mangled brow arch high, "Forgot to check my margins."

You're about to scream and tell him the right spot to have his mouth wrapped around is the barrel of a loaded bolter; but before you can, he's back to slobbering on one of your breasts again, his tongue dragging over it.

Namely, it's the breast you can feel.

"I-I want—" terms. You want terms. But you can't get the word out as you sputter and keen at the sensation of his lapping. He's a creature of tenets, deep down. You've learnt this, now. He is bred as any military thing. He has rules. He likes to know you're buckling to his law. He doesn't like his first-name being used. He likes to contort things to agree with him. He... He doesn't like—you forget your train of thought as your spine arches off the bed, vile pleasure rushing through you.

Sevatarion pulls away to eye your more visceral reaction, slobber covering his maw.

"For someone with one numb tit," he says, with painful casualness, "It's funny the other's this sensitive."

Both your words and your fist are uncooperative to work with you at this point; especially not as Sevatarion resumes flicking his tongue over the rounded bud of one tit.

You manage the latter part of your endeavour with no shortage of effort, clonking the brute's head again repeatedly, even though you're not quite able to put the force you'd like into it. However, your strength dissolves to nothing when he's teething at your nipple like he had the other.

Your hips buck involuntarily as sharp, tingling bliss melds together with stinging, only for his lob-sided mouth to open wide and close around the entire areola. His teeth. His teeth are around your boob, and he's not one to plod around half-measures. The nibbling was only a warning shot. You're half-insensible with panic, now—breathing hard, trying to ignore pleasure you can't squirm away from.

He sucks, roils his tongue, and groans so hard the vibration has you seeing speckles in your vision.

Your fist loses shape, and you dig your fingers into his jet-black hair and yank blindly.

Sevatarion moans and bites down.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—

He pulls away, leaving dark, dark bruises.

"Well, if you want it like that, sure," he tuts, licking his bottom lip tauntingly, "If you insist."

You're astonished he hasn't broken the skin, but more so astonished he abstained from cruelty; he's gladly bruised you black and blue, he's gladly lacerated you, he's gladly licked your blood off his knives... and then it occurs to you that he's—he's probably far keener on keeping your tits unmarred so he can save doing it for later.

You feel sick.

Your stomach aches just like your tit does, and even through the queasiness... you know it wants for food. But there's only one way to get it now. You'll be damned if he wins like this.

You lash out wildly—clawing at his face again—and earn a grumpy, rumbling sound from his huge, pallid throat in annoyance as he leers away, "Would you stop with the theatrics?"

Theatrics? He thinks this is an act?

You're so flabbergasted by his comment you go completely still and just stare up at him with an open abhorrence, still hyperventilating in horror.

"What?" Sevatarion snarls, "You said yes. I thought you wanted your meal?"

"No, I-I didn't! Get off of me, I-I'm not—" you heave, barely stopping yourself from falling back to your mantra of not-a-slave-not-a-slave, before you decide instead to stammer, "I'm n-not agreeing without terms."

Sevatarion pauses.

You were right. The habits of war die hard, even among traitors.

He lets loose a long huff before he says, "Let's hear them, then."

You only get one shot at this, and you intend on making it count. He underestimates you, which is strategically just; but all you have is a groxshit plan, and you are vastly without manpower to win anything but a Pyrrhic victory... still, biding ones time is ever an effective weapon, in the end—that's a pearl of wisdom in a trashheap. It's almost worth the years of military drills before your enstatement on deck. "I-If I let you do this," you swallow dryly, finally managing to steady your fear-stricken breathing back to a reasonable pace, "Can I get better meals?"

"Define: better meals," he grumbles.

You swallow harshly, "Whatever I decide on the day."

"Best I can get you is red meat," Sevatarion offers as an option unnervingly fast.

"Fine," you huff.

"Fine," Sevatarion huffs back, "Now, for my terms."

He goes quiet for a moment, apparently thinking.

"Get on with it," you jeer with bated breath, knowing he's only playing with suspense to make it even more obscene.

"You don't play dead," he starts, before looming in, "And... I get to finish in you."

He wants to cum in you? The fucking degenerate. A perfectly fine situation he had for himself before, a perfectly fine mouth whenever he wanted it, and now he demands more. Is this what your life has become? You have to let the beast that butchered through your vessel—your peers—your shipmaster—empty himself inside like you're a cheap whore. Is he clean, at the very least? Yes, he's of the Legiones Astartes, and they seem immune to most things, but he has the air of the hive jet-bike about him... so who knows where he's been.

And while you know it's a shit deal, ultimately your own gluttony wins out over your pride.

You bob your head, agreeing begrudgingly.

And as soon as you do, you're being moved.

It's all a blur, a glimpse of thin sheets, his sickly-hued oversized form—and then you're held down and stilled. He's sitting on the cot with you bent over his knee. Which leaves you half-smothered against his other thigh while he slowly pulls down the band of your scrappy trousers.

Sevatarion wastes no time as he tugs them right off you. You hear the fabric protest, and a few seams shriek open, but they slide down your legs, regardless. Your ass is bared, and you at once feel painfully vulnerable. All you can think about is that your cunt's untenable against whatever sick plot he has in store.

The only benefit to leaning against him like this is the lack of sharp corners. Even through his leathers, dense muscle cushions you no matter how hated it is. He's warm. Very, very warm—and that fact always catches you by surprise. He looks like a cadaver, and yet his flesh burns. His rough palm glides over your rear before coming to a stop. It may be that a majority of your lower half is numb to agony, but he's well aware of where those patches start and end. Well, mostly. Feigning total desensitisation in some spots that could very much feel was a hard effort, but the fact it took the fun out of torturing you for him meant the restraint was worth it.

When he squeezes one of your glutes, you barely rein back the shiver that wracks your body. Just to add insult to injury with his point, the wretched bastard traces your cunt. That, you can feel. Largely blind to pain, yes; but not to this. If the galaxy had any mercy, it would have just left you fully dull and insensate... but no. No, you have to remain acutely aware of feeling there, of all places. A big pointer finger presses into you, then—not pumping, not toying—just prying you open to the side.

Worse yet is the wistful sigh that leaves him as he leers, making sure you know he's elated seeing your insides, "Not a bat in this cave... for now, at least."

What does he mean by that?

Is he... is he threatening what you think he is?

"I-I take it back! I don't want food!" You find your voice and yell suddenly, horrified by the insidious thought he's taken out your standard Imperial Navy protocol implant. He could've. Maybe when you were delirious mid-torture? Is this what he really intends of you? Not just a toy, but a tool? "I-I'm not hungry anymore! I'm not—"

Sevatarion groans and pulls away from your spread hole, "What now, damn it?"

"I'm n-not going to be made breeding stock," you're shouting again, nearly hysterical with panic for the umpteenth time today. "I don't... I don't want any extra food, if that's the price."

"You've got to be joking, aren't you chipped?" Sevatarion snaps with an abrupt menace, "Why are you squealing?"

The Night Lord hasn't meddled, then.

Your mind chills off as you wheeze out a shaky breath, relief flooding you, "I'm chipped, I'm chipped."

"Then shut your mouth," he warns, tugging his finger up and higher, dragging closer, towards... "Whine about it again, and I'll take the other avenue which avoids those complications."

The thought and touch makes panic simmer back to life as he starts tracing around it, prodding slightly.

"You're not doing that, you're too..."

"Too, what?"

Big.

You swallow, "Too disgusting."

Sevatarion scoffs.

"You've complained about the taste of my cum, you've complained about your food, and now you've complain about a compromise to a non-existent issue. It's all you do—you complain, and complain, and complain," he supplies sourly, blessedly stopping before he tries to get knuckle-deep in your ass. "Even as a slave, you're a demanding little bitch. I shudder to imagine what kind of superior you were on deck."

You may be a bitch, but he is a sadistic, cunted standover-man. Figures, that the first Astartes you ever meet in the flesh is this beast and his Legion brothers. In Sevatarion, you can hardly even see a glimmer of the lionised transhuman knights sold to you and your crewmen in myth. Surely it's all the work of propagandists battling their guts out to write some airy-fairy piece of fantasy over the top of one another. You wonder why the hell Astartes were even allowed to exist to begin with. You're pissed that for all your warring effort against xenos and rebels in the name of the Emperor, it's some truant genehanced militant that brings you low instead of an enemy fleet.

You suddenly want to icepick the spine of every Night Lord on this ship, and make paraplegics of the lot of them.

"Go f-fuck—" you start to say, before being cut off. Silenced by his free hand reaching over to press your face down into the meat of his thigh.

"Go fuck... what? I didn't quite catch that," his other huge hand is still palming at your ass, only to pull away and come down on the muscle with a clap of force.

You hardly even notice the loud slap beyond glancing back with your peripheral vision at your own rear, blind to the would-be pain. You're well aware the flesh will still react, though; probably hot and angry from the blow of his big palm.

He's spreading your labia open again the next second, and you can hear it in his voice that he's grinning crookedly to himself as he asks: "Can you even feel this?"

The finger's suddenly back in your cunt, damn him.

And worse yet, it's moving in and out—still, not entirely uncomfortable. You're no stranger to something inside you like this, and there's some nicety in the sensation of him plunging to the webbing. It's filling, and so, so thick. You try to remind yourself of the blood that's covered those hands, but it doesn't help the fact you're tingling with every crook of his finger inside you; and even while you hesitate to lie—because half the time the indecent, oversized butcher can practically smell it—you do it anyway.

"No," you lie, pressed against his leg. "Not even a little."

"That's surprising," he cuts in quickly. His voice is a cloistered thing, and his weird accent does him no favours as ever. "You're squeezing like you can."

You know, and you're not trying to.

You can tell he's not just feeling, but listening extra intently for reactions, too. Which gives you the thought of making a nice segue into telling him to go drink promethium while you've got his absolute focus.

You try to do as much, attempting to lift your head despite the heavy paw atop the crown; but are ultimately sabotaged by his finger drawing out and dragging over your clit.

The sensation is acute, but works wonders on your temper rather annoyingly.

Your hindbrain shorts, content as Sevatarion rolls your nub in nice, slow circles—making impossible not to twitch—you press your knees together, shoulders slumping. The calloused pad of his finger gives you exactly what you need.

He's good.

He's very good, which is surprising.

It's always the worst ones that do it best, you suppose.

But he stops before it gets any better.

His hand pulls away just to slap your cunt, and you yelp at the contact, keening with a pinched scowl—and so the fucking monster makes it well and clear he knows you can feel it.

"Sloppy liar," he rasps.

You grit your teeth and spit, "Mouth breather."

For some reason, that makes him growl and pull his hand off your head. You expect another blow shortly thereafter, and yet it does not come. Rather, his fingers return, applying pressure to your sore clit with slow, tentative circles again. You're about to start enjoying it like before—but then the fingers are gone and in their place comes another slap.

"F-f-fuck!" You yelp again at the pain that rings through your partially-destitute nervous system. Your cunt twitches as the sting subsides. It lessens to a tingling afterwards. You can feel yourself throb angrily in both residual hurt and growing want, probably as flared up as your numb ass cheek.

"You've got such a foul little mouth on you," he chides, and leans away and back; riffling around at the gap where his cot's sheets meet the steel-plated wall. "I'd say you swear like a sailor... but that's fruit too low hanging, even for me."

He quickly leans back in, however, and he brings with him a terrible, terrible sight.

The Night Lord First-Captain has procured a knife, and has decided to gleefully wave it in front of you like it's supposed to be welcomed as some twisted boon. You call it a knife in his hands, but it's a short-sword to any normal person. It's more than a half-foot of serrated steel with a wicked drop-point edge. But more importantly, you didn't know it was so close by. When? How? You checked everything—how could he have hidden it? Or did he bring it with him when he returned?

Sevatarion twirls it in his grip with a practiced, graceful flourish. You think with some random burst of madness, that it would've been quite an eye-catching display, if not for the implication.

That likely being, he's hankering for blood, and you're in for another long, long night.

Suddenly, he tosses the weapon into to air and catches it, ham-fisting the flat-edge spine, miraculously not lacerating the shit out of his fingers.

That pitch-black gaze roves over you again, clearly enjoying seeing you fretting.

"Keep your ass up," he states flatly.

You don't.

Instead, your spine curls in and you try to scramble away, panting wildly. You want out of this agreement now. But you know there's nowhere to go, realistically. His quarters are still as sealed as they were before, and even if you did escape them—there's a ship-full of his insane, murderous kind. Still, you try, even if it's all animal spooking instinct as you wriggle free from his hold.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work well, and you're lazily seized by the ankle for the second time in this fiasco.

He tugs, manhandles, and pins you on his lap again with a single free hand.

"Ass up," he says again, and begrudgingly you obey.

The weight of his palm on your back lifts away, only to slide under your belly and grab your thigh—he's holding you still like a cut of meat on a chopping board, you realise. His other hand is on your ass, squeezing like he's appraising a cut of meat. Where's—where's the knife? He'd had the knife in his other hand. Where is it, where is it, where—

In a reckless flash of panic, your arm jolts up and back, trying to elbow him across the chin.

You miss—you miss, because what hope in the endless void of space do you have to land a proper punch against an Astartes? It was worth a try. Even if you're treated to the unique horror of watching a deeply unsettling blankness flash across his features the very next instant.

"My turn," he says, and pulls his palm off your arse only to crack it back down on the feeling side like lightning.

Your vision flashes white as blinding agony takes you for a second. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes as the mark boils. Your hip sears in pain. The saliva in your mouth turns to froth, and a shaky, strung-out scream leaves your suddenly dry throat.

But then it's gone, fading with the thud-thud-thud of your heart as you hiss a loud curse. All thanks to the fact he's groping and kneading the spot his strike met.

It's apparently all the reaction he needs to smack your rump again—pulling the strength of it compared to the previous belting blow—and it's no surprise you can't stifle a cry. Agony flares in your mutilated senses once more, and the wail your brain desperately wants to let out vents from your nose as a pained groan instead.

"I knew it," he manages through the asphyxiated barking he calls a chuckle. "I had a feeling there were spots you'd faked numbness."

It takes everything in you not to squirm again, "Is t-that what you waste your vile time thinking of?"

"You exist to me only when I'm in the same room," he nips back sharply.

Two fingers circle your entrance, and you guess it's his pointer and middle. You know what's coming; you just don't expect him to throw the chance to torment you away so hastily. You expect him to draw it out and paw at your ass, pinch a few more times, maybe even slap—but no—he stuffs his digits all the way in your cunt, and slowly pulls them out again, and again, and again, with zero preamble.

Your mind hazes at the edges, sweet pleasure scissoring at your insides; the big thigh under you lifting a little to hoist your rear up higher as the pad of his thumb turns and rolls slow circles on your clit. He's putting some conscious effort into making this pleasant, strangely. You're not going to look a gift-grox in the mouth. At least, not at the moment. You let him have his fun, let him work soft breaths from you as the pleasure warms through your body. But something else warms you, suddenly. Hot, and puffing and on the cheek of your rear you can feel it, then—then there's teeth.

Your entire body jerks sharply; and in a flurry, you twist in his hold, managing to shove at his head in an attempt to disengage him to no avail. The fingers fucking into you slam down to the webbing and wiggle. It's exceedingly difficult not to squeal at the sensation, especially when he bites your ass again.

Your hand falls away from his cheek, rendered limp with disbelieving pleasure. You're stunned it's not agony. There's no tearing flesh, or chunks of meat torn asunder from your flesh. Just... nipping, like he's trying to play nice, of all things—it's unsettling—it's... hard to even manage to do anything but keen when his jaws come down on you once more.

A confused whine leaves you, and he groans.

You're not really sure what his reaction's about, but his fingers withdrawing and leaving you empty snatches your attention. You're blessedly unfilled for a moment. That is, before something solid and cold presses against your entrance.

Realising exactly what's happening, you actively try to scramble away; but it's no use, the hand on your thigh is unyielding.

Aside from the pommel, the handle is all ergonomic grooves moulded for an Astartes' hulking mitt—and you're wet enough it slides in with no issue. It's an abnormally dense pressure in your clenching heat. There is no give to it like flesh, no slip layer of warm skin like a cock or fingers; just consistent, unerring solidity that makes the stretch far too certain. Still, it soothes an animal ache in your belly, whether you want that emptiness soothed or not.

How many people have died screaming under the edge of this thing?

Did he use it when he slaughtered his way through the corridors of your ship?

He presses the blade's handle in until the cross-guard's hilt lies flat to your cunt, one prong of the quillon resting insufferably atop your clit. The cold, flared pommel sits flush against your cervix, and it's a deeply unsettling feeling a chill so deep inside yourself.

"Now do what you do best, little officer." Sevatarion chuffs, spreading his legs enough that your balance fails and you have to manoeuvre onto your hands between his widened legs, lower half still perched up on his other thigh.

He undoes his own catches with a single practiced hand. Fat and a pallid, purplish-grey; the cock you'd been pointedly ignoring springs free, stiff and leaning back, weeping clear slime across his hip.

You try avoid staring down at it, struggling not to remember how it feels spilling on your tongue.

"I thought you only wanted—" you rush to say, but are quickly cut off.

"You want me to take you dry?"

A snarl crawls up your throat, "No."

"Didn't think so," he grumbles. "I suggest using that tongue less for whining, and more using it for licking."

It takes every ounce of self control you have to fight against the instinct of scrambling away for the millionth time.

"Move, come on."

You don't move, don't even dare—unsure and uneasy at the dagger's positioning. Is it angled up or down? You can't tell, and you can't gauge if a movement will slice something of yours. You figure at least it's not twisted sideways, or else the damn guard wouldn't be rubbing against your clit.

"Have it your way," your hair is pulled, and your face is suddenly pressed against his groin—cheek buried against a thatch of dark hair. It's an even worse position than before, quite frankly. You have to settle your ass up by way of your knees on the cot rather than his leg, his thick thigh is under your stomach like a log all the while.

You try to pull back, but his cock jabs you in the cheek, making you fumble to grab around the base to stop it taking your eye out next.

A thick bead of precum drips down the side of him, coating your fingers.

Regrettably, you tilt your head to lick over it.

"That's more like it," Sevatarion crows, but it's hardly praise. "Knew you'd behave better with something in you."

The knife's handle draws out and jerks back inside you under his guidance. The density is still a jarring contrast to your soft insides, but what's worse is how the pommel nudges your cervix again like before. It's a battering ram, thud-thud-thudding in time with your racing heartbeat. You're painfully lucid for a moment. Your whole body is pounding with shame, and you feel so, so heavy.

Void, you can hear Sevatarion breathing like a Thunderhawk's engine. His cock's against your face now, and it's heavy with blood, and warm, and—

You groan as your eyes roll back into the grey matter of your skull, and the Night Lord's immediate response is to pump the weapon's handle into you with renewed vigour. Going faster, and faster, and faster; then slowly pressing it down to the guard to start grinding it there. There's no give, nothing to soften the clench. The quillion rubs against your clit, and it's practically a death sentence. Your insides writhe, squeezing—cramping, in long waves. Aching bliss surges up your spine in a sharp crest as heat thuds in your cheeks, one side plastered against the side of his twitching cock; still, even damned, you try vainly to stave it off by digging your nails into the immovable meat of his hip and biting your tongue.

Whatever broken sounds leave you as you fail to fight the tide makes Sevatarion hum appreciatively.

Your thighs are shaking, air has become some gaseous liquid burning your lungs, and the knife... that abominable bloody knife is still being rocked into you.

"That looked like it was good," he says with that typical lifeless mien, his hand petting your rear while your residual tremors die back.

"N-ngh—no," you groan, strung-out and aching, "Get it—g-get it out—"

With his hand still on the dagger's edge, he grinds it in again, "What are you blubbering about now?"

"F-fuh—cking... 's t-too h-hard—" you wheeze as another aching cinch of your walls around the handle hits.

"Too hard?"

"G-Get it—out..." you're stammering, breathing hard, suffering.

For once, the bastard listens and yanks the handle free of your twitching insides, making you blubber a sob while his free hand has the audacity to pat down your straining back.

"Caterwauling's no way for an Officer of the Navis Imperialis to act, you know," he drawls with a wry, deadpan tone, "You're not getting out of this agreement with tears."

He's disgusting.

Disgusting in more ways than just words too, seeing as he also decides it's a brilliant time to suddenly shove you off himself. It's so abrupt you lay there on your back in a sprawled heap for a moment, too stunned to realise you're free and try to worm away.

When you do start to, you're much too late to get far, as expected. A fact proven by the scar-etched plane of chest looming over the top of you. You're confused for a moment, until you realise he's stripping at break-neck speed. You glimpse his big rear somehow sliding out of those tight leathers, and you're baffled how he managed to even fit in them to begin with. They practically peal off his thighs like glue. But just as you mentally right yourself and realise he's bare, he lunges and props your thighs up on his hips, practically folding you beneath him.

He's not drawing this out in torment like you thought he would. He's being surprisingly efficient, seeing as you're actually rather late to realise you have a Night Lord's dick jutting at your cunt... and by the time you do, there's a blunt force pressing forward like a voidship's ram.

You don't even have time to react to that, either. You can only keen as the head of him popping in hurts for a moment, then it doesn't.

"Oh, thank the stars—" you exhale harshly, thoroughly surprised. It's a genuine shock you're not in horrific agony. He is by no means small. Maybe his earlier antics with the knife were a boon at stretching you. Maybe he is being nice, for once. Or... rather, he was being nice, for just a brief instance. Truthfully, hindsight isn't exactly foresight, so there's no indication he's going to keep being fair; but, a win is a win.

Fate promptly pisses in your chalice at that hubris, because it really is too-soon a celebration.

"Don't thank them yet," Sevatarion rocks forward, and your cunt abruptly stings. You half-expect him to stop again, wait a moment and keep edging himself into you in torment, but you're wrong about that, as well.

Because, no—no, Sevatarion decides it's a far better idea to slam forward to the hilt.

"Why!?" Flees your throat as a wail, too-full much too fast, burning around the over-sized intrusion.

All you can do is hyperventilate and stare, horrified, at the unseen but well-known amount of him inside of you. Hip to pelvis, so far seated the hair of your groin is brushing against his own. He's so deep you swear you can almost taste him. He doesn't move. Just stays buried, using you as a sheath.

He's huge. He really is. Maybe not in length, but Void—it feels thick as a fist. You're nigh delirious with pain. You swear you can feel it rearranging your organs even when stationary. How could he have possibly stuffed this into anything before?

"It's easier all at once," he groans, eye half-lidded, breathing hard through his bared teeth as his cicatrix-marred face scrunches up in some twisted mix of bliss and strain. It's half-formed, like a jester's visage with smudged paint. "Besides, the way I see it, this is an improvement in status for you—you're right below a Legion First-Captain, now."

Your brain is all static from the hurt in your core as you stutter, "You're n-not funny."

"I'm not trying to be funny," he sneers, the scars on his face drawing tight and harsh with his expression of annoyance. "Don't you know what an observation is?"

"Here's an observation f-fuh-for you," you snipe, aching where the fat tip of him rests. "Sh-uh-ut the fuck up."

"Why would I? A slave ought to know their master's opinions."

"N-ngh–not your slave," you groan.

"Oh, of course, little officer," he goads, only pausing to lick his bottom lip. "Not my slave. Not my toy. Not full of my cock, either."

Anger makes tears well in your eyes. Hot, and oily. It makes you reckless. Pushed far enough by the sudden rush of him grinding against you, you swipe at his face blindly and miss as per the apparent usual.

He still doesn't move.

You swing up at him again, and are actually shocked to find you manage to catch him across the cheek.

But you're left horrified a second later when he moans.

"Hit me again," a grin spreads across that abominable half-scarred rictus, "Come on, do it."

Your whole body feels like it's barely able to breathe with so much inside you, let alone aim for his face again; but when the impulse flashes, you swing for his chin one more time. The blow glances off his crooked mouth, instead. Sevatarion doesn't feign, doesn't flinch. He just moans again, and grinds a tiny bit forward. Your insides clenches at that. The pain's gone, and in it's place a throb of bliss hits you. You almost wish the hurt stayed. It made hating him easier. Just keeping him inside feels unnaturally good—he's not even moving, why are you so high strung? You want to hit him again because of it, but you can't keep it up; exhaustion makes your whole body ache—at least, in the places you can feel. You're burned out of adrenaline. Lactic acid sears through muscle that'll soon lock and grind to a halt, despite your wishes to keep throwing punches at him.

Eventually, your arms do fail you as you try one more pathetic time, and the burden of a strain you can't even feel makes them shake instead of move. Stopped so utterly by your body juddering, you resolve to grab at him instead of hitting.

You scratch his cheek, claw at his nape, scrape across his left pectoral—try to dig your fingers into one of the many silver ports littering him—and only earn a ragged, throaty groan for all your hateful effort.

Then, he starts to thrust.

It's worse than the conversations; it's worse than the torture; you can't manage a mask to cover the pleasure each hot slide earns. Can't fall into martial habit. Can't outmanoeuvre the way your clit rams against his pelvis when he buries himself to the base, or the heavy balls plastering themselves to your rear.

You throw your head to the side and keen through a particularly rabid swell of pleasure.

And then you see it.

The knife.

His knife, resting on the other side of the cot.

Your body is still a juddering wreck, burnt-out and bliss-weary; and yet you try with all your heart to reach towards it. Your fingers graze against the handle that'd been in you not long ago—but your attempt only nudges it even further away.

"Oh, you're so close," he pants, apparently well aware of your struggle. You don't even need to look away from the blade to know his beady black eyes are on you like a pair of crosshairs. "You're almost there."

His words echo in your mind in a never-ending loop of: so-close, so-close, so-close, almost-there, almost-there, almost-there; parroted by your brain into your own voice. They do more than just eat at you and make you strain harder. They send you spiralling—they make you shiver and rage and twitch—they chant in time with each long thrust, each time the head of his cock jars into your cervix and makes your head spin. You're so close to the dagger, though. Almost there. The base, animal part of your brain still chews on his words. Warps them and taints them into perverted delusions. Makes them filthy, makes you boil. All you need to do is get it right into his neck, just like how he'd said Ferrus Manus had fallen—push it deep into the cartilage, just like how he'd gloated those Astartes fell to so easily, all the same. But just like them, you're losing. You can't close the distance, can't accommodate the variables. You dig your fingers into the thin sheet and start to sob in earnest, being pounded into all the while.

"What's got you fussing now?"

"C–C—ah—an't reach," you whine in answer, hating that you even reply in the first place. You can't help it. You can't hide the desperate intent laid bare by your own mouth. The failure stings. It was futile, and rash, and already horribly telegraphed from the start, but it was a fleeting glimpse at exacting revenge.

"Don't cry about it," he chides, and his rancid, guttural accent is all spoiled, false coddling. "Here, let me give you a better reason for tears."

Sevatarion leans back, resting on his knees, and grabs you by the hips, pulling you even further away from the blade. Giving you a full view of him pumping in and out while he drags you into each motion, forcing you to claw at the cot instead of him.

You blink back angry tears as a grating chuckle slides from his gullet. It makes you look up, higher. Only to find his beady black eyes on yours. There's an almost mauve-coloured flush upon his unnaturally pallid coloured skin. He's smiling. It's only hastening your spiral. Everything in your perception narrows to skin on skin, muscle on muscle—and his stupid, smug scar-face.

Fuck, it's like he's in your head, not just your cunt; making a mess of both places.

"You're going to finish like this?" Sevatarion ribs, nearly cooing at you. "After trying so hard to kill me, little officer?"

You are—you are, and you hate him—and—and you scream. Your abdomen cinches sharply as your body wrings itself out on him, and he sighs in satisfaction. Your hatred becomes a smear of pleasure and tingling warmth that grows to a higher peak, anchoring right down on the thick cock ramming inside you. The heat is unbearable. It's throbbing between your legs, deep behind the sinew of your navel. Wet and hot and thick, in every little bit of space you have to spare. Vision flecked with stars and being ploughed into by an immovable pelvis, you bite your lip hard—your ears start to sting with a tinnitus shrill as you clench your jaw to stave off the waves.

"Too easy," he scoffs, "I wasn't even trying."

You're unable to think. Your head is full of fog, your insides are tingling, and Sevatarion's still stuffed in you to the brim. Even then, you're seething. Bathed in after-glow and pissed-the-fuck-off, with as much hate as you can muster, you meet his eyes and wheeze, "D-Die."

He blinks at you lazily.

"Don't worry—I will," Sevatarion deadpans. "Just not today, though."

With that, he abruptly manhandles you onto your front with unnecessary force, as expected, despite the shock. You collide into the stiff mattress with a wheezed yelp as it steals the wind from you, leaving you gasping and groaning.

The Night Lord's palm levels down over your spine, holding you down. And, with the hand not pressing on your back, he grabs you bruisingly by the hips; hiking them up until you're on your knees with your ass in the air.

"Pretty arch, but not quite what I had in mind," he remarks offhandedly, and shuffles forward on his own knees to bracket the outside of yours.

You're almost glad he hoists you up even higher suddenly, if only because it robs you of the responsibility of thinking up a biting reply. Instead, your only real responsibility is panicking as the raised position leaves you half-off the bed. Your legs kick frantically for purchase, but he easily keeps you held up. The position is mortifyingly dependent on his whims, and you can't stand the idea of having no fulcrum to fight his thrusts. It's degrading beyond belief being stuck in a bent-legged tip-toe, like some demented sprinter's starting posture.

Not as if he cares. He's lining up and nudging himself at your slick cunt, then sliding in—inch by heavy inch—before bottoming out, in a steady, drawn-out thrust forward.

Your eyes roll back, and a whine leaves you; lost in the filling stretch for a moment. Something about the shape of the insufferable murderer's cock takes up a good portion of your brain's language and reasoning sector in this position. His balls are pressed right up to your vulva, and when he jerkily ruts into you again, they slap against your clit. It's mind-numbing; you can't believe how hollow your head gets abruptly; you can't even do much more than let him fuck winded, little half-gasp-half-moans out of you. You're drooling against the sheets, eyes open but not really seeing much of anything besides stars glimmering in your vision.

"After this," he starts, "I think I'll fuck you again."

"N-No, no..." a broken, jaded groan leaves your mouth before you have any thought to restrain it.

"Think about it," Sevatarion rocks you back and forth in earnest now, sawing in and out—using you like a toy—groaning to himself every time your rear connects to his pelvis with a wet plap. "A nice, hot meal in your stomach, and another nice, hot load in your cunt... sounds like a fair deal. Better than you'd get whoring. Trust me, I'd know."

"Don't want i-i-it—" you blubber.

"Two," he says, "Two creampies, that's all."

"Had a... a–ah d-deal..."

"I'll give you more rations," comes the murderer's counter-offer, "I'll give you triple even, if you just let me fill your cunt again after this."

"N-ngh—no," you whine.

"I'm going to fill you anyway, what would another load matter?"

"No," it's hard to talk while fighting for every breath in, "J-juh—just one."

"But doesn't this feel good, little officer?" He adjusts his angling slightly, a few millimetres forward, and much the same higher. It makes your spine curve harder, until your pitched sounds turn ragged and desperate. It's a leviathan task to twist your torso just enough to get a proper look at him. There's a good portion of his hair in his face. He's also shut his eyes. And, even more obnoxiously, he's got his tongue lolled out like some Arbites' mutt.

"I h-huh—hate you," you sputter while grimacing up at him.

"You hate me?" Sevatarion cracks his blacked-out gaze open and down on you. "But I've been so nice to you," he licks his top lip, tonguing at the scarred gap—the gap that leads to the mangled crack in the grey marble of his features, the proof even his abominable kind can be wounded. "How many times have I let you finish, now?"

Let you?

Like you've had a choice?

He's—he's dragged every single orgasm out of you kicking and screaming, and he thinks it's a nicety.

You want to chew the healed-over wound open, just to see him squirm. Make him hurt, like he's made you hurt in the little left of your flesh that can; then spit his own blood into his face. You want to, but you have the sneaking suspicion the abomination would enjoy it.

"You let m-mmh-me?" You bite out smartly, grimacing. "You let me, b-because you're... Jago t-the merciful, h-huh?"

You almost instantly regret saying his first name, once again. Seeing as, immediately afterwards, the full weight of an Astartes comes down against your back. You can't even manage an agonised shriek, because he's so bloody heavy all the air is practically squashed out of you. The feeling of your ribs creaking like dry branches, your pulse pounding in your ears—you can't breathe—you can't breathe—you can't breathe.

"Y-You fat cu-uh-nt!" Yet just as quickly as the strangled words leave you, the suffocating, unyielding press lifts and lessens to an immovable prison.

"Had a feeling you'd be one for pinning," he taunts wryly, resting up on forearms planted either side of you. "The ones who strive for control always like being without it."

"Stop talking, just... ngh, sto-oh–p—" you wheeze, struggling to steal back in the breaths his immense bulk wrung out of you.

Panicked by the fact he could drop himself down again at any moment, you attempt to move. Then, you realise you can't move; you can barely even squirm when he thrusts. It shouldn't make your head swim, and your toes curl, and your cunt twitch—but it does. His front is hot against your back like a heated sheet of steel, and it's the warmest you've been in weeks. You're basking in the warmth whether you like it or not, shaking the whole while.

"No," he tuts, "I think you like it."

"Fuck o-oh-ff, Sev–ah-tar... ion," you try to snarl, but it sounds more like a whiny keen than anything as your heaving maw stumbles over the words.

"Say that again," he says hurriedly.

"Fu-uh—ck off," you repeat hoarsely, punctuated by a gasp at a particularly hard roll of his hips forward.

"Try again, gutter-mouth," comes his immediate reprimand, "Say Sevatar."

"Mm... 'm not—" you gasp, "Not d-doing that."

"You just said it."

"D-Don't care," you stammer, "Won't."

"Is that right?"

"Y—yeah," you fight not to moan; he's going faster, now, in and out, in and out. You can hear the wet slide of him, the slick slap-slap-slap of his pelvis meeting your ass.

"Really?"

Stuffed to the hilt, he grinds, and you deflate for a moment; stupid and unguarded against the rush that assails you. "Ye–ah..."

"Yeah~" he yowls in some airy, over-sexed mockery of your own voice; then cuts back to his own horribly accented timbre to snipe, "Can't keep up the seething bitch act when you're loving every second of this, huh?"

"Ha—" you start but have a moan abruptly fucked out of you midway through as he starts thrusting again, "Hate it, 'n h-hate you."

"I can get that knife again, if you'd prefer."

You don't bother to answer. You simply grit your teeth and scream your anger into the cot's thin mattress in frustration for a second, before coming back up for a breath.

"I appreciate the honesty," he rumbles in response to your pointed reaction, and rolls his hips. The head of him kisses something inside you that makes your legs jolt. Every thrust is better than the last, in the most horribly good way you've ever felt, "Knives don't bite your ear while they fuck you, or anything else fun, I know."

"I-It w-wuh–was... ah—" you swallow dryly around a moan, "T–t-terrible, just l-like you are."

Abruptly, his hand reaches under you, sliding down your navel until his fingers are fondling around just above where he's buried. You expect him to rub you, to roll the pad of his huge pointer over your nub and send you reeling with slow, molten circles—not catch it between that finger and his middle in a pincer.

The squeal that rips out of your half-muffled mouth is a wobbly, pleasure-soaked yelp.

"Oh, no... not my swollen little clit—Sevatar—no, don't pinch that," he mocks you again in a poor impersonation of your voice; all the while you twitch, and squirm, and suffer underneath his immovable form. "Oh, but this is terrible. It's so terrible—I'm not going to again cum at all, Sev."

You make that sound again, and that's apparently enough entertainment for him to let go.

Your poor clit throbs, aching, and he slaps it just to be a prick. Because worst of all, your brain doesn't take it as a slap. It takes every ounce of the sting as pure, unfettered bliss. Your hips unlock in delight, and with that, you gain enough room with his change of angle to arch yourself into meeting his next thrust entirely by accident.

The Night Lord's punched out moan over the top of yours comes as a shock even to him, it seems.

"Ngh... got me there," he says breathlessly, but something foreboding paints his voice as he adds: "Unfortunately, I can trade blows for hours."

Abruptly, Sevatarion's head ducks down to the crook of your neck, and you'd be surprised that someone of his size could manage the manoeuvre if not for the fact you've seen him bend in stranger, sharper angles with little complaint.

A wet, unnaturally hot mouth slides up from your shoulder. Teeth drag with a vile promise across your skin—he nips, sucks, presses down with sharp canines—just enough the thought of your throat getting torn out from the side overrides the ecstasy of him still keeping pace fucking you.

"N-Not fair, 's not f-fair..." you stammer through a snarl, face thudding with heat as his scar-crooked lip grazes over your ear.

"Oh, poor little officer," he chides, all bass this close, "I know it's not, I know, but you'll live..." his words are a honeyed thing, absolutely sopping with faux-coddling as he nips the cartilage just like he had your neck.

The press of teeth there makes you shudder, then tense.

"Zarre, zahmi shirallia?" [What, clever girl?] Sevatarion rasps, and for a second you're so dazed you think you've misheard Gothic. But it's not. It's Nostraman. It's his indecipherable sunless shit-hole speak right against your skin. "Zarre te'nisha? Ashilla yoshi o'vey nereossesha te'o?" [What's wrong? Does it feel too big when I'm on top of you?] He rumbles next without missing a beat, slamming into you now; the solid weight of his hips meeting your own with lewd, slippery noises that ring in your head like the foghorn shrill of brace-alarms.

"Stop—stop i-it, s-shut up—" you push to say, squirming underneath him with what little energy you have left.

"Don't clench so hard when I talk and I just might," he breathes, then drags his tongue across your ear.

A shiver cloisters up your back as wet friction partially deafens you for a moment, and your spine arches in spite of yourself. The sound makes something rattle around inside the pink, wrinkled matter of your skull. Something worms right into the stem of your thoughts—it vibrates in the same pitch as the moan he lets rumble against your temple—it aches in the same slavering fever as his pleasure. He's doing this because he knows. He knows you're spiralling again. He's in you in more ways than one, you swear.

"Ah, ashilla ray?" [Ah, how's that?] He all but purrs, and his tongue glazes over the inner curl of skin at your ear again. And just like before, all you can hear is the saliva pooling in his mouth as the heat of his huge breaths mix with your own choppy panting, "Jasca?" [Good?]

Keening and convinced he's going to chew your ear off, you try to tilt your head away; but a hard thrust stupefies you into crying out rather than saving your hearing. You can't gather the strength to pull away again, after that—you can't even tilt slightly from him slobbering on your ear—you can only bear the torment, and fray at the edges.

"Just f-fuh-fuckin... f-finish alrea-ah-dy—" you slur through a set jaw.

He doesn't even bother replying.

Instead, his mouth at your ear moves, licking a trail back to where he started at your nape; before teeth come down hard on your shoulder.

"No–n—no-ngh!" You wail hoarsely, dazed by him still thrusting and his ever-so sharp teeth; trying to at least manage some self-preservation as agony mixing with bliss sends your mind into overdrive. Whether it's pain or pleasure matters little in the end, because it's sure as hell one of them that completely damns you.

Sevatarion makes a horrible, longing groan around the mouthful of flesh he's given himself to gnaw, and his hips stutter forward in short, hard bursts. Even while the rush of him continuing to fuck you half-distracts from the agony, it doesn't negate the fact. You cannot fight back the sharp cries that leave you, desperate to not cum like this; yet having no way to stop it now it's started. It's too much, and you're too sore, and he's too everywhere for you to fend it off. There's nothing you can do. Your cunt throbs. Your brain melts into slurry. All that's left is the thought that Sevatarion's so warm, even like this—even mauling you—you want to stay like this forever–no, please—no, no—you can't. You wheeze out another garbled sob as your thighs shake in exertion, and in answer, there's a low, husky moan. He's pressed so close you might as well be glued hip to pelvis. Keeping you so thoroughly under his bulk and bite you can't do anything but be filled. All that you can do is take, and take, and take. You can feel it in you. You can feel it out of you, too—excess spend that can't find a place in your cunt drips between you both, sticky and wet and so, so hot; and it's pretty clear he's not worried about it staying in or out, really. So long as he gets to do it, he doesn't seem to give a fuck about anything other than his balls emptying.

Hiccuping through your tears, your body tenses sharply as his teeth withdraw, leaving blood running down your shoulder.

You're limp with shock and orgasm, stretched far too thin by the twitching cock still in you to do anything about it but lay there, panting shallowly like some small, dying animal. All the while, Sevatarion fixates on licking the wound he's garnished you with, glutting himself. He's blessedly silent as he does so, at least. But the fact is of no real lingering solace. It's menacing enough without words. His actions make your hazing brain swim with the thought of a carrion bird growing impatient, peck-peck-peck-ing at a soon-to-be cadaver.

"I think..." he starts blandly, and you can smell the coppery reek of your own blood on his lips as he tucks his head beside your ear again. "...that was the best fuck I've ever had."

You were First Officer to the Shipmaster, the lady Marmeladov. She was an aged woman, yes, but not dulled, or made any less a sight to behold by her many, many years. In her infinite wisdom, she commanded an egress from the oncoming assault via the command dais; a raised platform of polished metal and stone. An impossible, unachievable egress—or at very least, enough of one to bank starboard, attempting to round on the vessel and give a clear fire pathway.

She was not quick enough to cripple the enemy Cruiser, even if the hits had landed.

The punishment followed immediately thereafter, streaks of artillery racing across the void, lighting up the holo-display's threat recognition.

The Sword-class Frigate escorting your ship tried to intercept the barrage, valiantly taking the Gloriana's attack—you watched through the huge, armoured viewport windows as her void-shields burned back in waves like gossamer, and saw the flash of her reactor collapsing—the air within the vessel causing a rare combustion within the void. It birthed a new star in the endless dark for a fathom of a second, as fire tore through her in her death throes.

Marmeladov seized the opportunity given by a thousand, thousand lives thrown to the nothing and sent a lance at the approaching enemy Cruiser. Only for your ship to be jolted by a hulking laser-battery stampeding across the port side, as the Gloriana took another pot-shot over the ghastly distance it was quickly reducing.

High on the command deck, elevated above the crew on a vaulted loft, you had the perfect view of the slurry of internal dialogue recounting how the void shield seethed at the blow, still standing.

Servitors twitched at their stations on the platform below, some freezing mid-task, others repeating the same motion over and over as if caught in a loop—then, you watched them drop dead under the strain of the machine spirit's protests.

A return volley of lance-fire jetted from your ship, but the angle was wrong; your crews could not account for the enemy Cruiser's steep approaching angle.

Still, the hit caught an accidental mark against the looming Gloriana, even if it only glanced off her immense shielding.

Nigh in tandem, a ghastly lurch rattled your vessel again, sending the void shields to breaking. But the blow upon your ship was not from the assailing Cruiser. It was, instead, the Gloriana's immense artillery that decisively crippled your protective cocoon, slowing you down while the massive vessel charged closer. Marmeladov nearly fried the ship's thruster vectors desperately trying to outmanoeuvre the incoming Gloriana's hulking ram—causing the carcass of your escorting Frigate to be devoured in place of you.

Then, everything got even worse.

Scrawled in plating the size of hive-spires across the Gloriana's bow, the wretched signage of the VIIIth Legion came into view. Just as the traitor Cruiser jammed its snout into the side of the launch bay, bearing with it turned-heretic, skin-wearing abominations.

In response, your vessel's machine spirit screeched. The cogitator interfaces, wired directly into the ship’s systems, sparked up with her anger.

Some fool in the gantry barked a prayer to the Emperor of Mankind. It redoubled among other staff, murmured here and there—not officially, never officially—but often enough that it became a background hum beneath the battle. Wasting time on faith in a situation like this never even occurred to you. There was only action, only following through on your Shipmaster's rapid contingency response. Only her commands to seal as many bulkheads between the bay and everything else as quickly as possible.

There was no decisive reason to board, not when a meagre display of broadside firepower—let alone a few laser-batteries—from the Gloriana could've killed everyone on the ship anyway.

You realised what Marmeladov already knew. Nothing could stop what worse death was coming. No amount of coordination or codifying logistics could stand against the tide hellbent on crashing.

Even then, Shipmaster Marmeladov tried to do something—detonate the artillery stores, have the soldiery collapse as many bridging walkways as possible—but the Night Lords buried their claws in, regardless.

It was simply sport for them.

Howls began to rattle up from the deck plates. Horror running rabid and rife in the innards, still far away enough to maintain proper process, but near enough that the itch of terror had begun to creep up everyone's backs.

The intership vox cut in, then cut out, and finally vaulted across a channel in a flurry of crackles, from one station to another. One section of the ship reported boarders. Another reported nothing at all; then stopped responding entirely. Internal pict-feeds were brought up on the secondary hololithic displays, but instead of clarity, they showed disjointed, flickering scenes: a corridor empty one second, then filled with something tall and jagged the next.

Attempts to hail the Astropathic choirmaster fell dead as the hundred separate vox-links quickly became an overlapping cacophony of gunfire, las-discharge, wet tearing, and screaming. It all blended together as the other officers coordinated sabotage efforts; as much as they could when their proxies were faced with trans-human man-flensers. The orchestra of communications grew louder and louder until each line cut to static, one by one.

They all went out the same way: wet crunching, the scrape of armour against the plated floors, until finally, came the fizzing of dying vox.

Then, at last, silence reigned supreme.

Your Shipmaster insisted upon a last stand, as she was wont to.

First, a remote tripping of the actions. She tried—and tried—and tried, again and again, to override the Ship-spirit's prerogative, but the old girl would not abide the risk of taking her master down with her. Too many years spent with a single person at her helm had made the great vessel fussy over how she died. Ever a stubborn thing. Too spiteful to perish as anyone commanded, itching for a confrontation rather than a gutting, but the great ship would get no say in a matter already decided by the armoured parasites crawling about in her guts.

And so, another contingency was enacted.

In a command deck full of fear-frozen fellow officers and elite staff, it was you who volunteered to manually engage the detonations of the bridge.

No one protested, even knowing it was suicide for you. Namely, because it was suicide for everyone on the deck. The entire structure would crumple in on itself—and yet the task had to be done. Deny the traitors their spoils. Deny them access to the records. Deny them their man-flesh pelts. Take them all down with you.

Your peers opened the blast-doors enough for you to slide through the middle parting, detonator in hand.

The very instant you were out, you were doused in amber warning lights flashing in swirling arcs, warning of a reactor meltdown. Shadows festered in the hallway at the end of the long, open gantry as the lumens flickered in and out of life, painting the cavernous passageway, broad enough to march a whole human regiment through, in strobing confusion.

The ship groaning was no anomaly. It would do that constantly, regardless of whether she was hurt or not: ever a deep, metallic chorus of creaking machinery, thundering engines, and the distant roar of her reactors.

Truthfully, that noise never stopped.

Now, though, it was overpowered—by agony.

There was no sense to the way screams travelled up from the depths below as you crossed the overpass. It had only worsened as you stepped over the threshold into the familiar halls and stopped in your tracks. Somehow, the clamour chased up the pipes, down the vents, and back from the command deck. Sobbing. Wailing. It grew louder and louder, until it all sounded, for a moment, like laughter. Wild, braying laughter. The ship's many veins and capillaries of hollowed steel warped the echoes of panic into every variable of emotion, disfiguring the torture of the lives onboard into senseless racket. Even the ship's architecture made it worse. The arched buttresses, ribbed vaults, and walls covered in worn reliefs allowed for echoes to carry into infinity.

The sound stopped so suddenly you didn't realise it at first.

It wasn't until you noticed just how quickly quiet had swallowed your surroundings, that you swung your gaze back ahead.

Then came the most gutting sight of all.

A ways down, where the winding corridor bent to a junction, you first saw them: saturated in glistening crimson, and tall enough for the strange, back-swept, wing-like protrusions of their helmets to almost scrape the wide passageway's roofing.

The foremost one with the tallest crest had a halberd ending in a grizzly, meat-wet chain-blade rested upon its pauldron.

The lumens flickered for a moment, then returned. It gave the abominable illusion of halos, as plume after plume of heavy condensation vented from their helm grills; accompanied by the chittering, khch-khch-khch of inter-vox-communications bouncing off the walls towards you.

Seeing them, even so far away, had laced you with such a complete and utter wave of mortification that taking a blind step backwards had felt more akin to falling off a canopy deck—as if the ship's artificial gravity had jolted to a sharp corner axis momentarily, before the stabilisation gimbal evened out.

The lumens flickered out again, and when they came back, the midnight-clad monsters were looking directly at you.

Again, the lights seized, leaving you in the dark longer than before. Power armour was by no means a silent thing. It was a sarcophagus of loud metal and hissing servos—which left little room for misinterpreting it growing closer—especially as the racket of sabatons scraping against the decking in a forward rush echoed near.

You ran back toward the command deck, pushing yourself past the burning in your lungs and managing to reach the far side of the gantry.

It was good that you had, because they had quickly approached the rigged section of corridor threshold. One stopped right beside the spot where a steel-wall plate hid the payload's receiver.

You saw now that it had hands nailed to its pauldrons. And Skulls. Skull helms—helms strung to its hips.

What fresh hell must it have crawled out of?

It stopped, and it stared.

Then, it looked right at where a fat swathe of thermoplastic explosives sat, albeit hidden behind clusters of wires and sheets of metal. Regardless, you took the opportunity handed to you with a hale and whole certainty. The destruction would boil the entire corridor, along with those abominable things. It'd send you flying no matter how far you got to the command deck.

But the detonator in your hand did not respond. No matter how many times you mashed at it with your thumb. The mechanism was dead.

And with it, the terms of your fellow crew's deaths were no longer self-made.

Failure was a bitter draught, but there was still one option. Even if it was no longer a complete denial. You only had the thought of escaping beyond the reach of the monsters.

A wave of nausea clawed at your gullet, and you swayed; stumbling but staying on your feet.

You drew your las-pistol from the holster at your hip.

The skull-faced abominations grew closer down the long bridge. They were eager, hunched like predators, and hastening their paces.

You raised the barrel to the soft flesh beneath your chin, and the one at the front with red-tinted mitts tilted its helm at you.

But in that eternal hesitation, the realisation that your crewmen would not know the plan had failed—not until the traitors were on the deck with them—wormed its way into the forefront of your thoughts.

It took little more than that to send you turning your aim from yourself, and to the things ahead instead.

One, two, three bursts of las, bathing the free fall into the ship's guts around you in hellish flashes of molten after-burn. The wretch at the front took the brunt of the marks, but the heavy armour around its torso practically ate the hits.

You aimed higher, going for the head, taking step after back-pedalling step, keeping your reticule straight.

Each successive strike boiled a strip of paint off the brute's helm.

It broke into a sprint, then.

You kept firing, still trying.

Round after round raced at the thing coming for you, striking it, but not slowing it. Your weapon glowed, raging with the rapid fire; but you tried again—again—again—until the power-cell shrieked.

Through your gloves, you could feel the boiling core raging into death. White-hot plasma foamed at the barrel's mouth, leaving you without any means to keep up the act.

You turned.

And ran.

The clang-clang-clang-clang of heavy, plated feet landing and pushing off the grated bridge behind you, triggering some latent memory of an auspecs lock-on warning. Especially with how it grew faster, and faster—closing in, almost on target. Almost on you.

But the thing had too much distance to cover.

You threw yourself into the tiny crack left open of the blast-door, and screamed for Marmeladov to let the great metal wall slam. Shut it—shut it—shut it—make the monsters claw at a meter of steel in their faces.

In a flurry, you ran to your Shipmaster's side, heaving in great gulps of air as panic filled your heart.

You had scarcely got a word out, but in the end, that didn't matter in the slightest.

The blast-door screeched as warning klaxons flashed across the overhead hololith displays, turning the once-disciplined chamber into a raucous hellhole.

Your head had whipped around so fast it stung for a second, and you watched as gauntlets ferreted into a gap in the middle.

For a moment, the sheer insanity of the situation made you wheeze in disbelief.

You glanced to the floor of the threshold, and wedged in the closing panels was a single ceramite boot.

One man rushed to the doorway, holding a las-gun, firing wildly at the opening; clever, and yet mad.

The revving tip of a monstrous glaive came down on him like a guillotine in an instant—sending a deluge of insides spraying outwards on the fall. Then it withdrew, clutched in the red-plated hand of the one you'd shot at. The beast really had been right on your ass as the doors had shut—or hadn't shut—evidently.

You stumbled back in horror, clutching your fried las-pistol as the man crumbled to his knees in a slough of blood.

The rest of the chain-glaive wielder's armoured forearm managed to fit in the steadily widening gap.

A smoke-bomb was tossed from behind it. Everything was swallowed by the haze absurdly fast. In a panic, you pelted your fried las-gun at whatever horrible shadow you thought was moving closer in the smog. The empty weapon pinged off ceramite with a ringing chime. Ceramite, inside the command deck, could only mean one thing. They had made it inside, and they had come for you all.

You forced yourself to swallow a scream.

But the others hadn't swallowed theirs.

That screaming was suddenly everywhere.

Marmeladov had risen from her throne beside you, but could not get far with the ports plugged into her temples. She was yelling for you to find cover, to run—frantically reminding you of the distance to the escape pods. She strained on her leash to the vessel, and you had to resist the urge to unfasten her from the interface. If she were wrested from the cables of the dying spirit, the ship would kill her on the disconnect out of one last show of possessive spite.

She shoved you to flee from the dais, and it pained you to take the step back from her.

But your Shipmaster's orders were law.

You ceded, even if it was agony to uphold her command.

In the carnage, you barely managed to catch yourself from falling off the steps.

You steadied and turned just in time to see one of the hulking, armoured monsters barrel straight toward Marmeladov's junior lieutenant, Dmitri. It seized him by the throat and lifted him effortlessly, his boots kicking above the floor. For a heartbeat, he was still alive—eyes wide, trying to speak—before the gauntlet'd grip tightened. Bone gave way with a crack so wet your guts twisted. His body was discarded, limp, across a far console that shorted out in a cascade of sparks.

The killers were too busy toying with the others to notice you run.

But that proved no easy feat when their bolters started to roar.

Each bullet was a contained detonation, tearing bodies apart from the inside. It hardly even looked like they were aiming; like they were just firing for the fun of it. A man heroically scaling the loft ladder with a rifle in hand was hit mid-rise over the cusp of the floor; his torso ruptured out behind him, ribs and armour fragments surely raining onto the terrified serfs and menials below. Another round floundered across the deck, ricocheted, and exploded at knee height, dropping three crewmen in a spray of bone and shredded uniforms.

The shooting made the lingering blooms of smoke churn, swathing the deck in heavy belted plumes around you. Your mind had stuck on the reek of it: the stink of phisolene, and hot gunpowder—acrid and vile, enmeshed with the smell of burnt flesh—thick on the tepid air like a disease.

It took everything in you to gather your bearings through the chaos and find the vague shape of an enclave, in the form of an auspecs console not far behind you, silhouetted by the haze.

The Second Officer, Rodion Razumikhin, was already there when you weaselled behind the cover.

He had a sidearm clutched to his chest, and he stunk of piss, which was not entirely unexpected. He was never a man of great brawn, nor a good marksman. His mind was his most valuable asset, that, and his ability to appropriately delegate actions among the lesser officers.

He looked at you through filthy, ash-covered hair with eyes bloodshot with tears.

You understood that too, truly.

The only thing that had kept you from that very same hysteria had been adrenaline and anger at it all.

Marmeladov had always cautioned you for your temper; and she was right, being the smarter, wiser woman she was.

You peeked over the cover you and Rodion had both ducked behind, only to see a giant beast standing before Marmeladov's throne.

Impulsively, you'd lunged for Rodion's las-gun, tore it from his fear-clammy grip and stood from behind the console, aiming for that high-crested monster's head.

It hit dead-on enough to make the thing's helm jolt from the blow.

Which made it stop and take a step back from the command dais.

You saw it had both taken out one of Marmeladov's eyes, and shattered her leg. A single, simple kick from one of its huge boots, just to cripple her in her throne even more, no doubt.

Seething at what the beast had done to her, you kept firing; and yet it did nothing, just like before.

It stood there and watched you, as the rest of its abominable comrades continued flensing your colleagues—your friends.

You loosed volleys until the weapon steamed, another las-gun almost dead at your hands once again. All you had needed was one to pierce. Just one. If any of them were to fall, just that one monster's death would have satisfied you for an eternity.

But it had turned to you now, attention hale and whole upon your form.

It lowered the halberd and pointed the huge weapon at Marmeladov.

You hesitated, then.

The beast tilted its head.

Behind the huge glaive tip obscuring her face, for a second, you glimpsed Marmeladov's gaze on you still; tears streaming out of her lone, surviving eye.

You choked back a sob, your aim on the monster faltering as your vision tunnelled and fixed on her.

In that momentary, fleeting lapse, you heard Rodion's death-scream far too late to realise the figure towering over you from behind. Huge gauntlets dug into the back of your heavy coat, and you shrieked at the sudden weightlessness that seized you—kicking, seething, cursing—caught like an animal by the scruff and held aloft.

The red-handed one approached, then, forgetting your Shipmaster for a blessed moment. Hoping to keep the attention off her, you increased your swearing and thrashing, clutched at lens-level with it.

Then a sickening trade occurred, wherein you passed between murderous hands, under more khch-khch-khch of their helm-voxes.

You could hear Marmeladov crying, pleading for mercy—but it was not for herself. She was pleading to the deaf ears of the butchers to at least make it quick for you. That act sent you clawing up at the Night Lord's gusset in a frenzied rage. The suit lining the inside of the ceramite had not looked much different from an imperial flight-suit—so you dug your nails in under the helm-seals and tugged.

A long, throaty hisssss came from both the power-armour and its' occupant.

Abruptly, it dropped you.

Air rushed out of your lungs in a heavy thud as you landed squarely on your back, wheezing hiccup after hiccup of torturous oxygen back in.

The red-gauntlet'd one you'd been clawing at looked down at you, twirling its halberd idly as you suffered—only to stop fast with the glaive in a backwards hold. The toothless end of the long handle pressed into your spasming chest, pinning you in place on the deck.

You snarled up at it, squirming wildly enough that your flailing arms knocked the grip of your fallen las-gun.

Palming blindly, you grasped it and brought it up—but not at the beast.

Instead, just as before, you cozied the hollowed barrel into the soft underside of your jaw.

The high-crested murderer apparently did not like that.

All notions of restraint were damned and gone as you pulled the trigger, a hateful sneer painted across your face.

At once, your head swam, whipped to black-speckled serenity for a moment. But not backwards in a warm, wet spray, like it should've when obliterated by a las-round at point-blank.

No, your head was strewn sidelong, looking out across the deck of the body-strewn deck. The entire left half of your skull blistered with acute agony, throbbing and flickering your vision.

You could hardly even feel the red gauntlet that reached down to grab you by the front of your uniform. You couldn't even hear the standard-issue, mass-produced attire buckle and tear almost immediately. The cold of the vessel did not seem to bite your flesh entirely, even as the monster adjusted to tug you airborne by your coat's lapel, instead.

You were up in the high-crested thing's grip, dangling like a little girl's doll. Bleeding, dazed—rendered inert. Distantly, you wondered if this was how servitors felt with their skulls emptied out—but your brain refused to render so much as a single, rockcrete thought beyond that as it throbbed, and throbbed, and throbbed. Grey began to blotch your sight, and it only grew harsher in severity. Those patchy wells of ash fluttered and flickered across your retinas, backgrounded by a quiet so absolute you could only distantly perceive that it cut in and out in long, swelling waves of far-off noise.

Your head rolled back, only vaguely catching shape of Marmeladov through the visual snow creeping in—before the monster's shadow blotted her from view and everything fell to serene, sunless nothing.

It was your hearing that returned first, although it granted only a constant ringing in your ears. Then came feeling, but the only immediate sensation you found yourself plagued by, surpisingly, was blotches of cold.

It was a strange way to discover there was no afterlife. Nor a bright glade, nor a shining palace filled with golden light.

But that was to be expected when death hadn't claimed you as it should've.

You remembered that you gave a pitiful attempt at inhaling, which led you to find that nothing seemed to fill your lungs for seconds. Seconds that felt like minutes—or hours—or years.

Finally, the air surged in with an aching strain, and a creaky, shallow exhale slipped free from you a moment thereafter.

You had tried for another, but began coughing. Blood clogged your nose, making you snort and splutter to clear it, but that decision was quickly regretted. Because, situationally, the stench you found was by far the most jarring one you had come to meet in all your years of Void-faring. Your nose was flooded with the smell of offal and disinfectant. It was beyond organic necrosis. It was more intrinsically terrifying. It was the rank odour of a Medicae chamber.

Against the very laws of nature, the chilled creak of your lungs surged against the pressure in your chest.

A lurch had seized your diaphragm, alongside a bitter rush of air, gasping in shock at the realisation you could breathe properly again.

You were alive.

Then, you were promptly unconscious once more.

When you dragged yourself out of that depthless nothing again, you were here—caged in a monster's quarters.

It has been some time since then.

So far, you had learned the red-handed beast's full name was Jago Sevatarion. But that was no chance uncovering. He had told it to you, in fact—just like he had told you he was the Legion's beloved First Captain; but all you really saw was some gestalt nightmare rendered incarnate.

For a time, that's all he was: a torturer, a gaoler, and a butcher. All pieces culminating to a big, mad, man-thing full of deranged loyalty toward a bigger, madder man-thing; one that Sevatarion couldn't help but boast about. The Night Haunter, the Primarch, Konrad Curze—father, father, father—the Night Haunter, the Primarch, Konrad Curze. A large portion of Sevatarion's traitorous, bootlicking rants orbited his name and his genius... or well, names, more accurately. You have discovered there seems to be many, many, many versions of the same turncoat son of the Emperor, and you were only privy to this due to Sevatarion, who never stopped painting a pict of an unending gamut of contradictions.

It is all, ultimately, a condensed reality you're told by force. Every story he spoke at you when you didn't flinch under his knife.

When it was not about his insane but allegedly genius gene-sire, he raved about a system well outside the Ultima Segmenta—a planet in a chain of numbers—about the killing he did on it—the cousins he butchered. The Primarch he watched die.

The Primarch your Shipmaster served.

The Primarch you had served through her.

You wondered if that was why they had chased your ship down. All that savagery just for meagre gratification, like a sick pervert fondling himself while peeping on someone's daily schedule.

Still, there was something truly horrible about the notion of these behemoths waging war on each other. Never mind the sick glee in Sevatarion's tone as he recounted a throat he had spent a minute sawing through with a stolen blade so dulled from endless killing it was practically a deck plate.

He complained, then, about how thin the skin was. How easy it was to slice open a helmet-less fool's trachea. But through those retellings of a carnage you can scarcely fathom, you took a mental note.

Astartes have vulnerable throats.

He prattled on even more after that, but you were no longer really listening.

Even his voice was horrible.

His accent was somehow nearly comedic with the level of menace it carried. Something about the lower register and the over-correction of sounds, especially his w's—which sounded closer to v's—to say nothing of the fact that he somehow made i's more like y's. Culminating in an accent alike the bow of a ship grating against the hull of another. You didn't get to cover your ears, though you wished you could; it was hard to manage that act of defiance belted down on a chopping block, after all.

Rather unfortunately for Sevatarion, when you're constantly stuck in the den of a rabid beast, the terror of him fondly reminiscing lost its lustre quickly. Especially when a majority of the physical torture doesn't stick, and he only has himself to curse for that miscalculation. All because of your brain damage. Having patches of complete neurological insensitivity across your body was exactly the blessing on a Night Lord's flagship one would think it was.

Still, Sevatarion got bored rather easily.

You're absolutely covered in bruises and long, thin cuts. They were scabbed now, but not all entirely painful when you'd earned them. Some had stung to ripe agony, some had not even registered beyond the press of a blade. He'd checked where your insensitivity extended to after you'd absentmindedly ripped a few fingernails out trying to claw his hand off your wrist.

Thanks to Sevatarion, you discovered your neuropathy was self-contained to extremities, largely.

Unfortunately, it hadn't stopped him from checking routinely these last few visits. He carved into you like a piece of steak to see if the blind spots were growing. As proof of a disgusting concept, he had cut deep horizontal lines at the threshold of each patch, giving himself markers as to where any effort of torment was rendered null and void.

Only then had he let you scamper off into the fresher to lick your numb wounds.

Well... the fresher, at first. But he'd ruined the door soon thereafter. Surely not because you'd impulsively believed it was Night Lord-proof and called him a very, very colourful rainbow of things. He'd bashed the panel in and dragged you out of the false hideaway by the scruff while you tried to bite off his nose. Then, he'd dislocated your fingers, leaving you to fumble around for a few hours; which led to the revelation that it's not easy to pick up a ration bowl with all your digits mangled.

He'd gloated that there were no more places to hide as he set them back. You'd barely managed to fight back the urge to tell him he was wrong. You could fit under his unused cot, or under the holo-projection table, or stow away in the armoury he kept locked, if you could get in.

Still, that didn't negate the fact that your world—which was once a great vessel in a greater woman's charge—was now reduced to the cubby hole of the very thing that stole you away.

You're in rags tied together by two pinwheels and some floss, and the smug bastard was in polished, high-laced boots. It made you miss your uniform dearly. The—for lack of a better word—uniformity of it. The heavy reinforced heel, the tight-fitting undershirt beneath your buttoned jacket and your nice, warm coat.

Honestly, the room was altogether not that bad. Certainly cold, yes, yet there was a surprising lack of human leather hanging around than expected. The only real vulgarity was the tray of knucklebones on the counter of the holo-projection table, which could, hypothetically, be a xeno-animal's.

You knew very well they weren't, though.

You had guessed as much from the first short glance you had at them twenty-three meals ago; and then four meals later, you'd spent a few hours sorting them into matching pairs.

You'd been keeping time, despite the monotony. Sevatarion returned maybe once or twice a standard Terran week, equaling out to seven meal cycles. Whenever he did, you endured those tortures that were quickly growing mundane... and, when he wasn't wielding a dagger and a hypothesis, he ran his mouth about anything and everything. You're not sure which was worse, anymore; truly, you can't really tell the physical agony from the mental. It was always an odd fusion of the two. The only good thing to come out of being forced to converse with him was that he made no call for honourifics, nor titles, like 'sir' or 'my lord' or 'master' although, even if he had made such a demand, you'd have never have stooped to such a level. All the better he hadn't then, ultimately. One less thing to be punished for, though he hardly needed a reason in the end.

He hit you when you didn't respond.

He hit you when you did but he didn't like the answer.

He hit you because he could.

And yet, as of right now, Sevatarion has been oddly quiet.

Currently, he is sitting cross-legged on his cot—the one you have never seen him sleep in even once during your captivity—attending to his disassembled bolter.

You glare while he works, shooting daggers at him in your imagination.

"Something on my face?" Sevatarion rumbles after a long time of saying nothing, yet it's strangely sans a typical baiting edge.

You stay silent at first, scowling.

He grumbles expectantly, and you know he wants a response.

"I'm hungry," leaves you at last.

"Hungry?" Sevatarion scoffs, his focus remaining steadfast on the barrel as he carefully slides a cloth-covered metal rod down it, "You're hungry?"

"Yes," you grunt.

"You've only just eaten," he hisses, pulling the rod out and discarding it mindlessly onto the floor behind him, before pointing toward the empty metal bowl sitting in a little tray-hatch mechanism by the entry blast-door.

"No," you bite out, "I haven't."

"I don't know what grand feasts your old station granted you," he raises a brow, and fixes the action back into place before eyeing down the iron sights, checking his work. "But you're going to keep eating that slop, and you're going to be thankful for it."

"It's not that it's gruel," you say bitterly, "It's that it's not enough."

"You want more?"

"I'm starving."

"...and you think that I ought to care?"

"You're clearly keeping me alive for something," you clench your fists by your sides impotently, "Or are you making this up as you go?"

"I'm only keeping you alive because I haven't decided what I want to make out of your skin, yet," there ought to be more malice to his tone, but it just sounds half-arsed and disinterested—like he's only saying what he thinks will scare you because he can't think of anything more creative.

It occurs to you that this is probably a game to him.

He is keeping a puzzle in his quarters, no different to the ones you once had in yours. Where they had been small, and metal, and made for the sole intention of fighting with, he has in you the same, only larger and made of flesh.

You are a toy to this monster.

"Need to piss," the aforementioned monster announces to thin air and, just like that, any continuity to your thoughts vanishes entirely.

He tosses his bolter heedlessly across the cot and is on his feet in less than the blink of an eye, making a beeline to the fresher. Thanks to the lack of functioning door, you hear—in horrible detail—the long, wet stream of him relieving himself into the vac-toilet.

You look at the fresher, and the shadow he casts under the dull lumen above him. Then, you look at the bolter. It's a sudden glimmer of hope on a string, and you take an ever-so cautious step toward the cot.

It's too easy.

It's too obvious a chance.

Unease hits you like a blow to the chest, acutely aware of how you feel your skin crawl innately.

Sevatarion is leaning against the arch of the fresher doorway when you whip your head around.

"Go on," he hums. "Fetch."

You take a step back, sneering as you say, "There's no rounds in it."

"There might be," he says with a huff, lying rather badly for once.

You frown and stand a little straighter.

He seems to realise you're not going to take the chance and strides back over to his cot, dropping his immense bulk down on it with a small grunt.

Sevatarion simply sits there for a while, doing nothing while he ignores you staring at him, until it apparently irks him enough to speak.

He sighs loudly, purposefully being dramatic, "Well, now I'm bored."

"Good."

"No, not good," he grumbles. "You were supposed to fall for that."

"And I didn't, so what now?"

"I suppose we are going to have a chat," he says, with a strangely bubbly lilt overriding his irritation.

It's a fight not to run across the room and claw madly at the blast-door like a trapped animal. You hate his 'chats' so, so much. It's an excuse for him to vomit up whatever inane stories he wants, and they're always abominable. They're hardly even stories. Every one of them is just some advanced form of psychological torment or violence-based circle-jerking. It's him gloating, and gloating, and gloating eternally; like a recaf-station pissing contest turned up to a quintillion.

Sevatarion says nothing for a while before he offers, "I'll make it interesting this time. Maybe even let you in on a little secret," his black eyes almost sparkle with the conspiracy he offers up, "You know, a bit of gossip—you officers love that stuff, don't you?"

You scowl at him and eye the shut door while thinking of how clawing blindly at the metal sounds like a perfectly good idea.

"Have you ever heard of Eight-Hundred-and-Nine Five, before?"

You're actively trying to stop listening.

"No?" He says for you, before you'd really have time to answer if you'd ever wanted to—which you didn't—even if he's right. "Lucky you, it's a shithole," he digresses quickly, gesticulating while he does so, "But that's besides the point... Naraka, the Captain of the thirteenth company, brought her to heel. Without a single drop of blood, which, for us, is very impressive. The lot of them wouldn't tell a soul how they did it," he tilts his head and raises a scarred brow, a sly, conspiratorial look mapping across his features as he offers, "Would you like to know how?"

"Do I have a choice?" You mutter to yourself, unsure of where exactly this tirade of his is going, but in no position to escape his yammering as per usual.

A slow, creeping smirk rises on Sevatarion's face, replacing the slyness with rabid glee as he leans forward. "Naraka fucked the Planetary-Governor insensible and plastered it live over every pict-feed you could imagine," he barks, grinning like a madman suddenly.

You blink, stunned almost immediately. The concept is impossible, the Legiones Astartes surely do not—

"Twelve Night Lords in one night," he adds dryly, still smiling, "Talk about a close proximity bombardment."

You're only distantly aware you're cringing at him, and then the reality that he's very likely talking out of his ass hits. He's probably spinning stories to discomfort you as a way of amusing himself as usual.

"You're vile—" you snarl, "—and a liar."

"For once," he shoots back, "I'm actually not lying."

"Firstly, that doesn't even make any sense," you hurriedly bite out, squinting at the giant black-eyed deceiver as he pouts crookedly at you. "How would that even work? You mean to tell me that the entire planet went: 'How lewd—everyone quickly—surrender,' and that was that?" You start flailing your hands around in an absurd pantomime to match your tone, then stop abruptly and cross them over your chest, "Secondly, since when do Astartes even—"

You remember exactly what the thing you're arguing with is just as the words leave your mouth, and promptly stop talking.

"Oh?" Sevatarion all but leers, "Do go on."

You glare at him, "No, no—I don't think I will."

"But you were posing such a clear, sensible argument," he tuts, clicking his tongue for effect. "Surely, you wouldn't want to lose."

You stand from where you'd been leaning, clenching your fists by your sides in impotent irritation once again. You move to walk aimlessly to the right—remembering a little late that there's only wall that way—and pivot on your heels leftward, toward the broken door of the fresher.

"I don't care," you call out from where you're standing, stubbornly facing the pulse-shower cubicle.

"Come on," he barks, letting the taunt drag out painfully. "Let's try breaking this discourse down to it's bare components. Simple principles. You remember those from bootcamp, don't you, little officer?"

Oh, he's an insipid bastard of a man-thing—he's got such a vile, condescending way with words. You hate that he calls you little. He knows you do, and he does it even more because of it. Everything he says is a sarcastic leer, a double-edged cheap-shot, a mouth-breathing snark. It makes you wish, on everything you've ever loved or owned or respected, that you had the great strength to beat him to death.

"I'm not dignifying this inane lie," you snap at the open doorway, knowing he's probably sitting there smirking like the smug, over-sized prick he is.

You hear him clicking his tongue again in that annoyingly chiding way he's all but perfected, "All I'm asking is if you really think we don't fuck?"

It's bait on an industrial lure, tied to an adamantium-reinforced rod resting in Sevatarion's greasy, bloodied mitts.

"That is to say... I have," he adds with a snort, and he pauses for a moment before he continues, "Plenty of times, actually."

He's completely delusional.

No one could handle an Astartes—you can't even imagine the proportions of their mass being factored in sexually. Maybe somewhere out there in the galaxy, at least one lunatic follower of the Lectitio Divinitatus might've barked up an Astartes' tree. You can rationalise someone going for the pretty, noble ones with long, flowing hair... but to bark up a Night Lord's?

Someone would dare risk a broom-closet jaunt with a mad son of a madder father?

No one would want to fuck one, except maybe a suicidal moron, let alone fuck him. If Sevatarion has fucked something—which you doubt—it was probably by rape. And they probably died afterwards. For their sake, you hope they were dead beforehand. Being in the same room with him is torment on its own, so the thought of being under him grants you a glimpse into an otherworldly agony. He'd be insufferable. He's even visually off-putting, just to top it all off. A good part of Sevatarion's face is a mess of scars. His mouth's crooked. He slouches like a hunchback. His hair looks like shit. There's enough bags around his big, mean-looking, beady eyes to fill an entire embarkation-deck. To say nothing of the fact he smells a bit like a woman's sanitary bin—sure, he's well-muscled enough to make a baseline dock-worker look like a lanky teenage girl in comparison, but that's where any objective attractiveness ends. Which, ultimately, means the only things remotely palatable about Sevatarion are his big arms and big arse.

And so, you swallow the proverbial hook and come storming out of the fresher, waggling your finger at him in a fury.

"Now, I know you're full of it—" you growl, taking hurried steps to get up in his face as your temper boils over against your better judgment, "—and I'm too hungry to go along with this groxshit."

"I'm not lying," he's still sitting, and yet he's at your standing eye-line. All pitch-black sclera and furrowed brows, an arm's reach from your own.

You roll your eyes and snap, "Yes, you are!"

"I know something that could resolve both those issues," he says, face flat and expressionless suddenly, "Give me your mouth."

"What?"

"You heard me," Sevatarion's face contorts from a statue's into a bared-teeth, cadaver grin, "I'll get you another ration if I get your tongue on my cock."

"You're joking," stunned, you blink repeatedly, hoping despite yourself, that it's another one of his daft games he's playing at, "This is one of your sick jokes."

"I don't joke around about proving others wrong," he says through his sharp jaws.

"So, so..." you start, flabbergasted, "...you want me to whore myself out to the butcher of my crew-mates? My Shipmaster?"

"It's not like their opinions matter," Sevatarion's smile finally falls away to a leering smirk, "They're dead."

Vitriol mangles your voice into a ragged hiss, "Yes, and you made sure of that, didn't you?"

"Not my fault your Cruiser didn't scamper away fast enough," he scoffs.

"You have no concept of integrity, do you?"

"Not even a scrap."

"There's something deeply wrong with you," comes your hissed reply.

"You can't even imagine," Sevatarion breathes out in a strangely tired manner.

You can imagine.

In fact, you'd love to tell him every little detail of how deplorable you think he is. How conniving, how utterly stupid and violent—how he's a slimy wretch that only exists to smirk at his own snide comments and skin babes in their cradles.

Irrationally, you fail to rein in the urge to spit at him, and it almost appears as if he wholly expects the saliva that flies in his direction.

He doesn't even flinch.

It lands well enough, right on the corner of his mouth; he grumbles, and—and licks the corner of his lips clean.

You recoil in disgusted disbelief, so unsettled enough by his behaviour that the words you wanted to yell in his face come out a decent bit quieter than you intended, "I'm... I'm not sucking you off."

"Then you'll be going hungry," he says, and pointedly spits on the floor.

It lands just shy of your foot and sizzles against the steel-plated floor, filling the room with the slightest reek of sulphur. A fresh wave of horror dawns upon you. His saliva isn't saliva. It's—it's acid—

"It's that simple," he states, at last.

It's a threat in and of itself, even as the liquid fizzles out impotently and leaves a pitted black stain on the metal.

You weigh your options: Claw at a chance to remain even slightly able to control your situation, but debase yourself wholly—or drag your heels the entire time and rely on his whims for nothing, but slowly start starving away. Both outcomes would bear fruit, both would be torment. There's no fork in the road that leads to a solid victory. It will be a fight the whole way, no matter which path you take.

At least with assenting to this, you keep some condition on your bones.

You sigh, and don't bother to keep the frown from your face as you drop to a kneel.

"Finally, you make a sensible choice," he rasps.

Up close, you realise belatedly that his pants are some sort of blackened leather. Human, perhaps, but for some reason you don't think so. It feels impossible to manage such a tedious stitching job with a person's skin. You think back on all the grazes and nicks you've had and how easy your flesh tears. How did they make anything with it, let alone pants? But you've never stitched anything beyond a patch in your life, let alone skin, so your assumptions fall to a moot point conclusion.

Loose leather draws tight around his huge thighs as he adjusts his seating, and interface ports—like the ones you'd seen on the Shipmaster's temples—distort the leather in solid, rounded mounds.

You completely disregard the distortion higher up his legs, leaning left and resting upward in a long, sweeping shine of distended black.

The pants are low and sit up on his middle-hip, which is largely out of place compared to Imperial standards. They are weirdly proportioned, too. They make his long legs look thicker than they actually are. It's nothing like standard officer uniform, which is high-waisted and cinched in. You suppose both would look absurd on a body so densely muscled.

You have no idea where to even start to undo the catches.

His terrible taste in attire actually explains a lot about the wretched tunic he's forced you to wear.

You're about to go on a mental tirade about the shortness of your tunic, before your attention snags on him undoing the latch of his pants.

They part disgustingly low, and disgustingly easy. It's sleazy—especially when your eyes trace down a coarse line of hair that's somehow darker than the leather.

A long, fat swell of erection flags out of the pants and up onto his navel along with it.

It is distressingly large.

Suddenly, every ounce of his behaviour makes complete and total sense. If you were his size, with a dick this big, you'd be a prick, too. But that realisation still doesn't even get close to remedying any of the deep-seated loathing you have for him, though.

He holds his cock by the base, tilts himself, and slaps the side of his fat shaft against your cheek.

"Open your mouth," he rasps.

Begrudgingly, you oblige—and he takes full use of the allowance, adjusting himself to rub the underside of his swollen glans across your tongue.

"Lick," he says next.

And you do.

It's vaguely salty, though that's not unusual. His isn't the first dick you've sucked, after all. Well, he's the first Astartes, at least... but he tastes pretty standard, if for the heavier smell of something distinctly earthy pervading your senses. It's almost reminiscent of a hot, chemical dampness, like an engine room when the sprinklers go off.

His hand comes to rest on the crown of your head abruptly, "Now, suck."

It's a unique sort of panic that suddenly chills your bones. You feel stuck, unable to breathe—like you're locked in the stuffy, muscled cage of his thighs rather than kneeling between them.

The stubborn part of your brain digs itself heel-deep in the dirt and refuses to budge.

You pull your tongue back and frown, "No, just tongue."

"You offered your mouth," Sevatarion notes flatly. "Stop being difficult and suck."

"You said tongue."

"You know what I meant," he snarls abruptly, jutting the tip of himself against your lips with a small buck.

Still frowning, you rear back and grit out, "I bite."

"You're going to bite the cock that feeds you?"

You scowl up at him, "You said—"

"You're not that stupid," he interrupts, glaring down at you with his eyes squinted into black slits, "You wanted more rations, I gave you a way to earn it, and you agreed to this."

"I bite," you say again, mulishly, trying to pull away even further, only to be reined back in by his fingers bunching up a handful of your hair.

"Just gives me an excuse to rip all your teeth out, I guess."

"Wouldn't undo what I'd do," you say with a heady defiance, frowning at him from your low spot with the fat heft of his member to your cheek.

"After your teeth go," he starts, talking as if you're not there and he's simply plotting aloud to a hidden audience. "I think I'll let the Atramentar use you as a chew-toy."

You're confused, "The... what?"

"My brothers," he clarifies, pausing his weird recounting of nonsense events as if he's cluing you in for your next lines of script. "You've met them already, little officer."

"Who?"

"You said you remembered the deck," he pouts, his tone almost like a sing-song for an absurd moment, "You said you remembered what happened to your friends."

For a moment, you're too bemused by his change of behaviour to even think straight. He only talks like this when there's a knife in his hand, and you're on his cutting board, and—oh, oh. He's being serious. He's not raving, he's genuinely plotting aloud like it's a torture session. An interrogation. Like he had the first time you were sliced bloody. He's fuming. Suppose it's expected of an entitled man-thing whose dick isn't being slobbered on after the promise of it happening.

You don't even bother replying at this point.

You know better, now.

"I imagine they'd love to see you again," he says with an airy huff, "Wonder what they would do to a stubborn little shithead like you—maybe they'll beat the twelve-in-a-night record..." The mask of impassive detachment drops on his face is a cold, cold statue, "Or maybe they'll just eat you alive."

You cringe.

"Don't like the sound of that, do you?" Sevatarion's mangled lip curls, breaking the straight-faced horror into a clear pict of irritation, "Play nice, and a sore jaw's the worst you'll be dealing with."

He jostles himself by the base, letting the thickness of his cock sit up straight in the webbing between his pointer and thumb.

"Now," Sevatarion spits, his voice a rough thing as he shifts his hips so that the tip of his length rests on your lips again. "Warm this up for me, would you?"

You begrudgingly open your mouth and close it around him, and Sevatarion is quick to take the ground offered. He starts rolling his hips, keeping you in place with a huge palm right across the back of your head.

There's too much of him to fit, and the grip you take around the lower half of his cock barely manages to keep him from sliding too deep. His cock's hot, too—it's unnatural, it's—it's as if his ambient temperature is five degrees higher than your own.

It's a struggle just to breathe steadily through your nose, to say nothing of the war you're waging against your own gag-reflex. It's almost impossible not to choke while he fucks your mouth. You try to steady yourself by placing a free hand on his leather-covered thigh, and garble out a curse when the spongy tip jars into your epiglottis.

You jerk, and your hand around his cock slips—covered by his—and then it's not. It's sliding up, and then a thumb slips into your mouth alongside his own cock; adjusting, hooking over your bottom teeth.

The manoeuvre locks you in place, with a mouth forced wide.

He's doing it to make a point, he's doing it for insurance, he's doing it to all but face-fuck you.

The entire situation is a mess.

He keeps pumping his hips, and you make awful, half-choked protests at each of his choppy thrusts forward.

His short-cut tunic hides a majority of his upper body away, but you catch glimpses of scar-mottled flesh with every rock of his hips forward.

Your jaw aches under the strain of Sevatarion's pace and his hold, and there's spit and pre-cum sloppily roping down your chin. It's not as if he cares, though. He's acting like no more than a rutting animal, taking every chance he can for himself.

You thrash backwards, and surprisingly, he lets you off him—the hand in your mouth withdraws, whereas the one on your head stays.

"A-At least... l-let me do it myself," you harrumph loudly, throat irritated by the numerous attempts to fuck into it.

"With no teeth?"

You nod sluggishly, beyond frustrated with the fact that you have to cede.

"Good," he says with a long, satisfied hum. "Let me back in."

You do, rather hatefully.

It takes every bit of composure you have to not go back on your promise and nip the fat, rounded end of his cock off out of spite. As if by some cruel irony, that thought arrives at the exact moment you accidentally allow too much to slide in.

Pointedly, you gag and try to drag your head back, despite the big mitt on your scalp. He, surprisingly, lets you cough up a stringing mess of bubbling saliva.

"I'm just too big for you," he tuts, with a heavy, faux sincerity, "Aren't I?"

You try to mentally talk yourself out of giving in to the urge of sticking him back in and chomping once again. Instead, you try to focus on getting him off. The sooner it's over, the better. You gather back enough willpower to lick over the tip of him, watching the pumping of your own hand around the middle. The salty flashes of pre-cum across your tongue aren't at all helping you disassociate, though, so you eye the rest of him.

He's lifted his tunic up to his stomach with his free hand, fully displaying the menagerie of brutal-looking old wounds he has. It's all solid, gene-forged muscle, but there are hints his underbelly is actually soft in places. You wonder where the skin's thinnest aside from his gullet, and where a blade could punch through best. You let your gaze drift, going from his belly button to the long, dark trail arrowing down from it to his groin.

"Your head's too small to fit me," he notes with a gravely chuff of amusement, "Too much space wasted on useless brain matter."

You try to sit up a little, letting his leaking cock lean against your cheek as you do.

The manoeuvre stings your ego almost immediately, because the wretched press of your own thighs as you adjust your angle feels horribly wet.

You can't be—you refuse—there's no way this is happening.

You wriggle again, just to be sure, and a dull, persistent throb makes itself known alongside a vile slickness. The realisation makes you freeze, and leaves you staring blankly at his navel as he keeps petting your hair.

"Oh, you're not talking back anymore?" Sevatarion ventures, purposefully nasty. "Am I not worth the words? Or are you just... too busy?"

"Busy... tryin' t-tuh—get t-this over with," you sloppily manage, irritated—refusing to let his awful voice register, just pressing forward, pulling back—letting rigid heat fill your mouth to the brim and slide out. Trying to ignore the smell of sex pervading your nose, with the same nonplussed discipline you'd maintained hearing other cadets fucking in the barracks. Let him tire himself out with his rambling, and hopefully finish faster. It feels like it's been hours. How long do these overgrown fools last? It can't be for a lack of trying. You're trying to make it good, so he's done quicker, and you're fed sooner. Fuck, you're hungry. At this point you'd swallow the monster's load if only to rob him of an extra meal. It's vile and it makes your stomach twist in disgust, but it is ultimately for survival. You'd do just about anything to spite him and live a little less starved, at this point.

"Zec te jaesha yahsshan," ["I like how you look when you lick,"] he groans suddenly, and it breaks you from your reverie—you glance up with his cock still in your mouth as he says, "Juthica te vey athasavi darnitha na." ["Keep staring at me with those angry eyes."]

You furrow your brows, unsure if you'd misheard him and were simply hallucinating a string of gibberish. Then it clicks. He's yapping the lunacy he thinks passes for language. The one he'd had before he was elevated to sapience with Gothic. Nostraman. It's harsh in his mouth despite the flowing, almost smooth sounds some of the words make. As if they're mangled by his overgrown lungs and his sandpaper gullet. It might've been a lovely thing on a human's tongue, but it garners nothing but a feeling of discomfort on his. He's probably saying something vile, laden with threats and insults. It's probably another one of his disgusting stories. Hell, it's probably very creative slurs. They don't count if you can't make sense of them. You learned that very early in your career. But that fact never meant you couldn't retaliate as if you did understand.

You let his cock slide out and scowl up at him, baring your teeth, "S-Stop speaking that drivel or I'll—"

He doesn't react like you thought he would, he just pets you more and interrupts you, "Or you'll what? You'll stop?" He ruffles the top of your head, urging you to take him back inside your mouth with a long, heavy stroke through your hair. "You'll give up your meal just because you don't like my mother-tongue?"

You try to shake him off, and for a blessed instant the hand's gone. Until it isn't, it's—it's holding you by the chin, and his thumb is prodding at your lips. Sevatarion forces it in behind them, but you keep your jaw clenched, leaving him to trace against the front of your gums.

He huffs out an exaggerated sigh, "Fine, but you should know... I was close," and immediately, his taunt works. You loathe yourself for it, but still let your maw open just a little.

With that, his frown quickly evaporates into a lopsided smirk, and he starts pumping his thumb into your mouth like he's done with his cock for the past hour.

"Jus' fuggin geh i' ovah wif," you garble out, your words mangled around his probing.

"That's the spirit," he rasps, straight-faced.

Sevatarion traces your back molars, then doubles back and depresses the top of your tongue.

"Varre vel ar'sun yoshun ivi?" ["Who's my wild little slave?"] He says, and you parse out what sounds like a questioning inflection in his tone as he slides his thumb in down to the webbing and groans, "Jasca, jasca, te ashilla." ["Yes, yes, you are."]

You gag, about to give in to instinct and let your jaws close down hard on the invading digit, but it retreats rather abruptly—replaced by the tip of him nudging your lips, trying for an entrance again.

You don't let him in.

Instead, you sneer and pump your fist up the length of him with long jerks.

Gritting your teeth in anger, you hide the seething scowl painted across your face against the base of his cock. You start to lick—but pull back prematurely when the coarse black hair around it irritates your cheek.

So instead, you lap at the underside, veined but far less annoyingly textured as the base. The only issue is that the angle makes his cock sit up against your forehead, and you try to ignore the obscene proportion of it quite literally weighing on you.

He tugs you back, then growls, "Te niateyia'shia, jaeshai ma jarcu vel." [You're disobedient, but I like the fight.]

You're about to protest to whatever nonsense he's grumbling, but it's clear your stalling has gone on long enough. You hatefully allow him to line his cock back up to your mouth, before sliding himself back in.

Sevatarion makes the next few thrusts messy on purpose, punishing you for ignoring him earlier.

Soon, you're gurgling curses around the meat of him with each breath you manage to steal, while he rams into your mouth in earnest. It's hard to even think with him carrying on like this, let alone breathe properly, but watching his chest rise and fall manages to let you wander off mentally enough to bear it.

Huge lungs surely reside behind those big muscles, you've heard there's more than one set in there—thanks to a Medicae novice's idle ranting a few years ago. You try to remember any other curious facts about Astartes, but the only thing that comes to mind is that they have two hearts. You can't feel two heartbeats on your tongue. Maybe only one of his hearts pumps blood to his cock, then.

You glance up higher, seeking his face next.

And almost start crying tears of joy when you find he's started chewing on the collar of his tunic. It shuts him up, and you're finally free of the incessant filth he lets leave his lips. He's shut his eyes, too, and with them, the rest of his face relaxes in a completely new way that makes a majority of the lines smooth out with it.

He's... much easier to deal with like this. Much easier to look at, too. It's almost bearable, even if he's still bucking into your mouth and screwing up your rhythm.

Taking the risk, you rock a little against yourself again.

You're definitely wet, now. No need to check twice. It's far gone enough that you can even feel your clit in the mess where it's sandwiched between the tight press of your thighs.

It's impossible to veer away from the urge to roll your hips, especially when Sevatarion's heavy breathing covers your own.

The motion of you bobbing your head forward synchronises with your grinding with agonising perfection. It's a spark in your vision that glimmers with every wet slide of his cock into your mouth. The fat length of him jerks a little, appreciatively, when you let your tongue swipe the underside on the back-draw. If only he'd been this quiet from the start. You'd have given him a good reason to work with you on this.

He pets you like he had earlier, letting you pull your mouth off him with a slimy gasp and lap at the side. There's a thick, raised vein webbing across it, and he hums contentedly behind the fabric in his mouth with still-shut eyes when you let the flat of your tongue drag a wide lick across the surface. He tugs your hair a tad to give you the message he wants back in, and you grumble, but acquiesce and take the length of him into your mouth again.

Sevatarion's not being a prick, currently—and to prove a point, you actually allow him to fuck into your maw this time. It frees up your neck and lets you focus on much more important matters. Namely, the rush of bliss your heel grazing your cunt gives you—you're hyperaware of the pressure, fleeting as it is—and you wonder, in some mad desperation, if he'd notice your hand leaving his thigh and travelling south. Maybe he'd turn your distraction into some even more twisted debasement as punishment, or if he'd just let you. You suspect the foul butcher would take it as an invitation to get his cock really wet.

Strung out on both air and sense, the prospect doesn't send you into a rage as it should. Funnily, it's just like Sevatarion said: he's too big. From the sheer swell of meat in your mouth, you have a hunch he really, truly, wouldn't be able to fit, no matter how hard he pressed in—so maybe there's a victory in that. You imagine his face all screwed up with that sulking, sour look of his as he were to try.

It's a satisfying pict of the imagination, thinking of him suffering; one only made worse by your continued rocking. You hope it's agony for him, you hope he whines—his gnarled maw all twisted up, rutting his fat cock against you vainly—he'll let you steal a hiss out of his lungs when you fuck yourself down to the hilt...

Hold on, wait.

What?

The sinew behind your eyes aches as your mind backpedals, but the hand on your head tightens in your hair.

Wait, no—you... you don't want to fuck him. He's abominable and soaked in the blood of your peers. He's a beast. You don't know where these thoughts are coming from.

You swear you don't want to—you don't want him—bouncing you on his lap, holding you up in those huge arms and dropping you on him again, and again, and again.

Where is this coming from? Why are you...

You're not even aware of the fact that he's opened his eyes until you hear him moan, and you look up.

You see him digging his teeth into his bottom lip. Something is trailing down his philtrum in a thick, dark line.

Is.. is that blood?

He rolls his pelvis, and you gag, trying to snatch another look—before your attempt is thwarted by the hand dragging you forward.

The shock from the sudden amount of dick in your mouth makes your sight glue head-on.

Sevatarion's cock twitches abruptly, then starts pulsing hard as molten heat fills the meagre space of your maw. With it, a long, haggard groan slides from his gullet. The thigh you were using as a sure, stable fulcrum starts shaking alongside the sharp, upward stutter of his hips.

He holds your head there for a moment while you gurgle. His cock's in deep enough that tears start to well up involuntarily in the corners of your eyes, and your vision jerks with the reflex to convulse. Your taste-buds are covered in bitter tasting spend. It's gross, it's thick—it's hot like tar. It's too much to keep a mere mouthful of, and you choke loudly, and fuck does your entire postnasal cavity burn.

When he finally lets go of your head, you pull back violently.

Your mouth's still full of semen, your nose feels like it's full of bile, and you're two seconds away from retching. Any plotting you'd had regarding eating the mess of cum bloating your cheeks immediately evaporates.

"Mmm... now be good and swallow that, little officer," he moans, looking absolutely debauched. The collar of his tunic is covered in slobber, his face is flushed all the way up from his neck in some weird, mauve-tinged blotching; and he's showing off a crooked grin that makes him look even more like an rabid beast than usual. There's... nothing on his top lip, no proof of the blood you thought you saw— "Go on... swallow what didn't go up your nose."

You let the thick, milky slurry of cum drain straight out of your mouth and onto the floor with a deliberate disregard.

He raises a brow and grumbles as his finish paints the ground between his legs.

"Swallowing wa–ah—" you start, but cough, "W-Wusn't... part of the deal," and it's not easy to find a level voice as you focus on spitting out the leftovers.

"Next time you're going to be," Sevatarion shoots back smoothly.

"I w-won't."

"Yes, you will."

"N-Nuh... it tastes bad."

"I don't care," he suddenly detonates, his scar pulling taut as he sneers. "You'll gargle my load to the tune of the Iter Imperiale, if I fucking tell you to."

"I'll spew it b-back up on your lap," you snap in return, stand, and consciously try not to make any tell-tale changes in your walk—despite the warm-wet glaze of excitement slathered between your thighs.

"I really should just kill you," he sighs, finally.

You fight not to acknowledge the blacked-out eyes burning holes into your back, as you head to the fresher to rinse your tongue. Sure, not having a sightline on him that makes your skin itch, but you can't bear the taste of him any longer.

You harrumph loudly, turning the handle before leaning down to start lapping at the rusty-tasting water jetting out of the tap in erratic bursts of varied water pressure. After spitting a few times, you roll your tongue around and find it blessedly cum-free. So, you lean over to the vac-toilet, grab a handful of paper, and wipe your mouth dry.

Then you pause, and reach down to wipe between your thighs with the same crumpled tissues before tossing, and then actioning the venting of the bowl. It's the best you'll get for a destruction of proof. You smile triumphantly, swallowing down the distant spice of metallic water lingering in your maw, before you call out, "I want that extra ration, now."

Silence reigns for a good while, and you stand a little straighter—unsettled by the fact he does not answer.

Carefully, ever so carefully, you pad backwards and peer out from behind the dented door of the fresher.

Across the room, Sevatarion is sprawled on his back, still half off the cot with his softened cock hanging out of his leathers—his eyes are shut, and despite the crease between his brows, the rest of his face is slack as it'd been when he was not too far off from blowing a load.

You realise this is what an Astartes looks like asleep.

Titus' new cot is so big, you can lay down and not even touch him on the same mattress. You can stand in his armoury. Yes, he has an armoury, now—it's huge. It's so tall that even he can't touch the ceiling. He even gets a bathing chamber. You hadn't seen one of those in a very long time. You remember what the Chapter-master's rooms were like, how grand the interlinked apartments were—and somehow Titus' quarters feel about the same.

They're very beautiful.

But... a bit too big.

That sentiment goes for the rest of the vessel, too.

There's too much compared to the little world in and of itself you'd had on the Second Company's barge. You had forgotten just how packed in everyone was here. The Macragge's Honour is a hive city in all but name, listing and rising on the waves of vast, empty space. You could walk a whole cycle and never see anything but humans. You could do the same a kilometre up in the hallowed halls and see nothing but Astartes. Below their echelons, in the mid-depths, there are some nooks and crannies that are less peopled—but it is usually for a reason.

Most of the time, it's simply a matter of differing shift allocation.

Sometimes, at least.

Other, quieter moments are unexplainable.

Just like they are now.

The nigh endless corridor feels hollow as you stare down it. There's not even a peep of natural sound, aside from the great vessel around you seemingly breathing. The ship knows you're here, the ship knows where everyone is. She is very old. She probably knows you were born within her halls. But that fact doesn't change the disquieting way her dark veins echo around you. Even if you know, on a primitive level, you're not really alone—there are always people on the Flagship. There's always someone. So, really—there's no reason to worry. The creaking of the decking a ways behind you is probably just another serf or two doing their labours nearby. It's nothing. Everything is just fine.

The sheer size of the bundle of sheets in your arms slows you a little, and adding to that is Titus' heavy linen rest clothes, which weigh a pretty decent amount.

It's improper that you're doing this laundry rather than a lesser menial—or servitor, even.

But it feels right to do it after all your habit on the Battle-barge, and your Lord has voiced no complaints thus far.

You had felt the eyes of others on your back as you descended each echelon, and eventually the gazes thinned out to nothing.

And so you walk in the half-light, through long, dark passages below the high halls of the God-Emperor's Angels.

Fear prickles up your spine with the feeling of being watched, worsened yet by a source beyond view.

It's pointless stress to carry on in such a way in a ship full of Astartes, and even more so Primaris, and... the Primarch, he is here too. The Avenging Son, how you would die to even glimpse his face once in your lifetime like your parents have... no, no—enough of that ditziness—point of fact, the chances of danger are low, but it is little harm in being cautious.

There's something to be said about the mind crafting horrors that pale reality in comparison, and whether or not the animal unease plaguing your subconscious is mere baseless anxiety.

The truth remains that it's still there.

It still sets your hair on end; it still quickens your pace.

And yet, you arrive at your destination unharmed and unmolested by whatever monster your brain swore was going to gobble you up.

The washing-room is one of thousands.

It is a tall-ceilinged hall littered with candles and idling red lamps, tiered into a lower chamber and a loft that sits at rim level to the huge, open vats of sloshing water, churning in slow, whirling efficiency. There are dozens upon dozens of them, their transparent panels revealing churning currents of fabric suspended in luminous fluid. Soft blue light pulses up at you from within them, signalling cycles of decontamination, stain dissolution, and readiness. The system wastes nothing, converting residue into energy or base compounds for other ship functions. Every part of the routine is utterly tireless, each attended to by... oh. No, they are... not being attended to. Where are the servitors? Where are the junior Mechanicus agents? Who is monitoring readouts on floating displays?

Ah, probably the shift change you were hypothesising earlier coming into effect. A correct guess, that—for a moment—makes you chuffed at your good intuition.

Then, the notion pointedly curdles in your mind.

You are alone in this dim, unpeopled place.

The air is somehow both cold and humid, with the faint metallic scent of recycled water and sterilising agents.

You look up and shiver nervously.

Overhead, articulated rails that ought to be operated by faceless Adeptus Mechanicus labourers are empty. There should be at least one of them, but where each cart is tagged and tracked and eventually taken to vast dryers—ensuring that an Astartes' robe and an officer's dress uniform are never confused—there is no one.

You wander to the far end of the chamber and find an entirely empty vat. There's nothing to be afraid of. If there's no one here, isn't that a good thing? Better that than just one other person. It's safer to be by yourself than lack the safety of a crowd against an individual.

It calms you just that little bit more as you remind yourself of your duty. which is as easy as a quick drag of your palm across a scanner propped up at the edge of the platform, and a green light flash to commence loading. There's complex machinery surrounding it; along with a broad, flat surface littered with lit-up cogitators. How the system within that huge countertop logs and informs the workers whose clothing is whose is certainly beyond you. All that matters is that the unclean fabric comes back clean.

Which it does, eventually.

You carefully lower Titus' tunic over the ledge into the water, and then one of your own, and you carry on your task until you start to tire and begin to lose all pretence of grace. You toss a towel, fling a fresher-cloth, and punt a pair of pants.

You send one of your dirty linens flying and huff at the splash it makes.

Then comes the bedding, which starts out easy enough.

Pillow cases go soaring into the swirling tide, and a bundled fitted sheet briefly unfurls in the air before it's quickly sucked into the vortex.

It's rather fun.

You usually don't get the opportunity to indulge in a bit of ruckus like this, obedient as you are. Not that Titus really minds. He's very forgiving, and you don't ever act out to begin with—but still, out of propriety, you try to keep most of your more... impulsive actions rather subdued.

But with no one around, and the luck of having the Captain of the Second Company as your master likely deterring any menial from raising a complaint, you decide this tiny amount of hooning around is an acceptable minor lapse of judgment.

Clumsily, your heel catches behind a large top-sheet as you try to spin and throw it far with your momentum, effectively snatching your own footing out from under you; falling forwards towards the twister of chemical-laden water.

You don't even get the chance to properly react.

It's suddenly apparent that you're no longer about to enter the slurry.

You're no longer even on the ground, either.

You look over your shoulder, and are met by a familiar face. Grey-blonde-haired and surprisingly close—you find Sergeant Gadriel, in all his bright-eyed glory.

It's hard to get out the next words in your shock, but you try, even if you stutter when you say, "I-I, uh... t-thank you, my Lord."

He's holding you aloft with two big hands around your midsection, and there's an awkward pause between him stepping back with you in his grasp and him putting you down, before he nods stiffly.

Gadriel sets you facing away from him and you turn, and an—agonisingly—real awkwardness deepens as he simply stays rooted to the spot staring at you.

Did he... see you acting a fool?

Is he going to mention it?

Are you in trouble?

"Was..." you start, shifting your weight between your feet. "Was there something I could be of assistance to you with, my Lord?"

The blink he gives you is clearly forced, like he's trying hard to centre himself from some faraway thought.

He swallows and all but blurts out, "No—no, not yet, serf."

What does he mean by that, you wonder—still, it is not your place to question—even if he sounds a little terse. So, you simply nod dumbly and stand there. He doesn't seem to have brought any linens to wash, nor does he seem to be looking for something. He's glued to the spot, almost like he's already found what he'd been after. There's a focused attention in his gaze, which is certainly intimidating. Is he scrutinising you? Is he going to discipline you for your lapse in behaviour? You have trouble tearing your eyes away from his then, because he's kept them stuck to yours the whole time; and you've only just realised the impropriety of the act... what he's seen and what you've done.

Impropriety, when there's far worse on your list of deeds. Far worse with him and his squad-mates. Throne of Terra—you're still a little green about the matter. It hasn't been helped by Titus' elevation in status. You imagine the Sergeant is surprised to see you here. Titus doesn't really have need of you to do such tasks when he's suddenly drowning in menial assistants, but he has been more than glad in humouring your continued existence. Much like all the Great Angels, actually. They are all surprisingly kindly in such matters, seeing as they largely ignore you—which is good.

You are seen, but not heard by the others, as you are wont to be. Or perhaps more accurately, another Astartes—other than Titus—sees you, and you only see his boots as you bow.

Well, that is... except for the Sergeant, currently. He's looking right at you, and you're looking right at him. Throne, you haven't even glanced him since your return to the flagship.

Until now, that is.

"How have you been faring, serf?"

It's completely out of the blue, and you react in accord, nervously wringing your hands.

"Well," you reply reflexively, "I've been well, Lord."

"You seem it," he breathes, and takes a step closer to you.

You try to maintain decorum and take a step back, but he follows—and swallows up the step with one large stride that probably accounts for three of your own. You're toe to toe briefly, before you scud on your heels and your back collides with the scanner's countertop.

"Don't be afraid," he rasps. "You know I mean you no harm, serf."

Ah, so he is aware you're terrified, despite the fact you know him. That is, to make the claim that having had someone inside you is a form of knowing them.

"O-Of course," you rush to say, "And... and what of you, Lord? How have you been?"

He moves in closer while you stammer.

Gadriel is now looming over you as the low, residual glow of the machinery and vats casts his face in a truly frightening light for a second. He's very much a Great Angel suddenly, very much a being made for war on a thousand worlds; and very much glaring at you like you're one of the many, many enemies he's no doubt cleaved through with ease.

Then Gadriel blinks again, ever so slowly, and you're reminded of the fact he's not really seeing you as a threat. He's probably not intentionally scaring you either; he's just... a bit strange, like they all are.

"I have been distracted as of late," he says softly.

You frown sincerely as you answer, "I am sorry to hear that, my Lord."

"You ought to be," he grumbles.

You're not sure what to do or say to that.

You haven't done anything to him, or at least, you don't think you have. Still, should you grovel just in case? Somehow you get the impression he's not actually angry... maybe he is making a joke? Astartes jokes are very strange, but they're not as rare as you'd once thought they were.

You look up at him and blink back, just as slow as he did.

It seems to be the correct response, because Gadriel takes a long breath in and appears to be satisfied. It's hard to tell, namely due to the fact that his mouth remains straight. But there's a crease on either side of his bright blue eyes that looks like he is trying not to smile openly.

You're glad it worked, you're glad he is appeased momentarily, you're—

You're not glad when he crouches down and lifts you up under the arms like a child's toy.

A yelp leaves you in surprise, and you flail wildly before you are suddenly back on something solid. He's seated you up on the countertop, and it's just as high up as you thought it'd be. The top of your head is level with his neck, and it's a little too familiar an angle of him. You try not to remember being held up with spread legs by Chairon and seeing the same thing.

He moves in near enough that you jump at the realisation his pelvis is almost at the same height as your hips, if not for your dangling legs being in the way.

You're well aware of the fact you're cornered—and that you're being fondled—for lack of a better word, as he leans in close enough that his head looms beside yours.

Big, calloused palms start to knead at your hips; taking an entire, single-handed grope of your outer thigh through your pant fabric and squeezing. It's going to bruise, it's going to be so tender later—and Titus is going to ask what happened—you won't even know how to begin to tell him. Something along the lines of 'Oh, Gadriel found me' and then he–he... he's reaching up under your tunic.

The hall's air is bitingly cold, but the big palm sliding up your flesh is so warm you can't help but sigh as they start to knead your breasts.

Afore you, the Sergeant's breathing is growing laboured.

He's huffing and puffing next to your ear, and you're stunned by the sheer volume of air that he can take in and expel. You'd been practically insensible the last time he'd been this close, so the realisation is a new, wry thing.

Something wet and scalding drags across the side of your gullet, and you abruptly figure out that he's—he's just licked you.

"You are still sweet," Gadriel heaves, and lathes his tongue on you again—but this time, up under your jaw. "Yes, this will suffice as an apology for distracting me."

You go rigid, unsure of how to answer once again and also quite frankly unseated by his sudden fixation. Perhaps him currently lapping at your skin like a starved animal should be a greater cause for concern. A wild, unbidden surge of fear seizes your mind. Do... the God Emperor's Angels eat people? No. No. They probably could, but surely they do not. You've never seen them eat anything other than their nutritional rations—sure, when you were young, you had seen the Chapter Master indulge beyond that. Sometimes in a glass or two—or ten—of amasec poured out by your father's hands, but the most far-fetched thing you've seen an Astartes put their mouth to in any sort of hunger is, well... you.

You shudder.

He brings his face close to yours, sharing the hot air of his breath.

Then, he moves even closer to you, smothering your cheek with his—before he decides to start tilting his head so your chin drags across his parted lips. You're extremely confused when Gadriel pulls away, only to repeat the gesture, except this time it's closer to him banging his forehead on you. His big nose jars against yours, and it stirs the distant urge to sneeze, although you manage to keep it together.

You're a little sore in the two places where his huge snout and reinforced skull made contact, and he reels back, seemingly as lost as you are.

"Is that not correct?" He asks, brows furrowing.

You blink a few times, "I-I'm not sure I understand?"

"Is that not a kiss?"

It's hard to believe the Sergeant even asked that, but it doesn't undo the fact that he just did.

"It's not... exactly," you flounder, "...m-my Lord."

You've noticed they've all got quirks. For example, when Titus is deep in thought or annoyed, he scrunches his nose and flares his nostrils; with Chairon, it's an absentminded biting at the inside of his cheeks—and now, you find that Gadriel chews his bottom lip. It's one of a panoply of little behaviours that make them seem less like angelic war-machines, and more like coltish men simply blown out to hulking proportion. It's so endearing it makes you a little giddy to linger on.

"Show me, then," he demands rather sharply, pouting at you.

You swallow and look away for a second before placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

Leaning up, you shut your eyes and press your lips against his. They're soft, and warm, and gentle despite the advances he makes forward.

It's a bit like kissing a slowly falling statue, at first. One that's breathing hard through its nose and trying to nuzzle into each peck. Your hand moves from his shoulder to the back of his neck, and you deliberately remember to card your fingers up, up, up through his hair to the crown.

Reliably, it gets the reaction you knew it would.

He moans as he leans in further, and your back slides down to meet the counter beneath you—then, his tongue peeks out. It's a surprisingly steady, natural escalation from Gadriel, all things considered. Namely because you're baffled he hasn't accidentally smothered you in his haste, yet. Still, you open your mouth and let him in, swallowing down the content rumble that leaves his throat.

As if by the whims of some cosmic, ironic pacing, he doubles down abruptly.

He's lapping at your tongue like a man dying of thirst, and you try to tug on his hair to get him to steady up.

It achieves the exact opposite, as you should've known.

Gadriel's rumbling becomes a long, cluttered mess of him alternating between panting into your open mouth and licking into it.

In his frenzy, you manage to turn your head away—but all it does it drive him to groan and tuck his face against your throat; lapping there, instead, and covering you in greedy bruises and saliva.

You keen loudly and wriggle, inundated with the full attention of the Sergeant trying to do as much as he can all at once.

That is, before he ducks down to your chest.

Your tunic is suddenly rucked up and bunched to your nose, blocking your sight. It's deeply unsettling having him fussing around where you can't fully see him.

Still, there's some comfort in the fact you can assume, largely, what Gadriel's doing by the groping of his huge hands and the drag of his tongue.

He's face-down against your chest, pressing your breasts together either side of his cheeks.

"How I've missed this," he moans, and the sound is scandalous.

He's been distracted by... lust? You thought Astartes disciplined nigh to death, not capable of pining. Titus certainly practises restraint when it comes to... these urges, but looking back—you're not too shocked the Sergeant is more gun-ho.

In your own distraction, you realise a little late you're half-off the counter. He's got your hips lifted in one huge hand.

"My Lord, p-please be careful—" you yelp loudly, and curl, not exactly fighting. It wouldn't do you much good. Gadriel is nothing if not persistent.

He's spreading and then releasing the underside flesh of your rear repeatedly. Only for him to decide thumbing one of your labia aside—and sighing to himself like he's misty-eyed with the delight of the view—is a good idea.

Unsettling, or more so jarring, really.

There's a very, very visceral memory of Lieutenant Titus' head between your thighs—and Gadriel's himself.

Bracing your elbows on the hard steel counter, you arch up slightly.

Truthfully, you can do little but watch as he then raises your hips even higher to pull your pants to your ankles.

He folds you up to your middle, and you lose sight of him briefly behind the pants stuck around your legs; the bunched-up fabric of your hooded robe around your chest only makes the whole endeavour even harder to see. You're being restrained and half-blinded by your own garb, and that's apparently working exactly in Gadriel's favour.

You hear him sigh contentedly again, and you just barely catch a glimpse of his big, trans-human tongue peeking out between your clothes as he licks his bottom lip.

The view is gone quickly, though, and hot air puffs against the tender skin between your legs.

"You are already wet," he rumbles slowly, focused.

You're genuinely stunned by the enormity of panic suddenly rattling about in your chest. So, you struggle to wolf down the saliva in your mouth around the lump in your throat and say, "I'm... uhm... sorry, L-Lord."

You don't know what else to offer him.

"Why?" Gadriel cuts in sharply as he promptly pulls your ass higher up, in a deep curve.

You don't know the correct answer to that, either.

With your cunt bared, the discomfort of open air on fresh, cooling saliva mixing with slick sits at the forefront of your focus. But Gadriel only makes a soft tutting sound as his big palm smooths down your sides; warm breath dancing across your inner thighs.

"W-Well, it's just that I... I..." you stammer, and immediately forget whatever excuse you had; replaced instead by the feeling of the flat of his tongue lathing a fat stripe over your entrance in one smooth motion, only to pull away, seemingly briefly appeased.

"You shouldn't be sorry," Gadriel offers at last, "I like tasting how much you enjoy this."

His words dumbfound you, but you don't get much time to think about that, considering you're not only being lifted higher; but also stunned by a boiling mouth latched squarely to your cunt.

He licks over your clit again, and again, and again, holding you fast by a single hand on your hip. God-Emperor have mercy, it is—it is utter torment. Each slow roll of that oversized, wet tongue against the bead of your clit makes your legs jolt. There's no possibility of canting yourself away, no repose, no chance of stemming the hot, thudding flush of sensations cloistering up—or is it down in this position—from your belly to your head. All you can do is let him gorge himself on your struggling as you moan frantically through the robes half-obscuring your face now; all thanks to the sharper incline of him bending your body.

Just barely, out of the corner of your eye, you can see how hard he's leaning against the counter-edge; craning down while his hand holds you up. And—oh, he's—he's got himself in his free hand. The Sergeant is touching himself to this. Throne, you can see the motion of him ruthlessly fucking into his own fist under the folds of his linens.

You moan, and he does too. It's always jarring how low an Astartes register is. You can feel the vibrations travel through your flesh like rolling thunder.

It's more than enough to make you squeal and buck against his mouth; more sucking you rather than licking, now, giving your poor clit not even a moment's reprieve.

He pulls away suddenly.

He's breathing hard as he lowers you down from his mouth, and pins your legs back against your front again. He's got you around the ankles, squeezing hard enough to bruise. Hard enough that not even the distraction of your dripping cunt can dampen the ache.

A fat, blunt tip prods at your entrance, and you freeze. The angle makes seeing it past your own shucked-up, baggy pants impossible. You can see him, you can see the lust blowing his blue eyes almost black, you can see the furrow on his brow, but you can't see when he's going to fill you. Your hands flail across the smooth surface around you, desperately trying to find a hold. He's going to jam himself in just like he had the first time, and start rutting into you like a very, very excited beast—and it's going to hurt—you're trying in vain to brace for the pain of a battering ram striking point blank. He's still palming himself, too worked up to stop. You can feel the head of him testing your warmth, circling your cunt, pressing in a little, edging closer—

You can't help the keening whine of both want and horror that rises up and finds freedom from your mouth.

For a second, you think it's an echo that a similar sound comes from in front of you. Some trick of resonance off the steel-plated walls and high ceilings, but that can't be right—your voice isn't that low, isn't that rough and rumbling—abruptly, something paints across your sex. It's hot and coming in thick, pent-up ropes.

Gadriel slumps forward, the hold on your ankles swapped for being pinned back by his chest. He catches himself on the hand he was holding them with, and you see just how beaded with sweat Gadriel's face is pink—a bright, rosy pink—as he opens his eyes and meets yours almost shyly.

That is to say, if a Great Angel could ever look shy.

"I did not mean to..." he starts to bumble out, but swallows midway through, apparently cotton-mouthed as he looks down at you. "Waste myself i-in such a manner."

You realise then that he's finished all over you.

There's no time to ruminate on that, though—because you're suddenly back to having something riling you up.

It's fingers—he's—oh, Throne. He's pressing into you with his fingers. A thumb rolls against your clit, and you buck, and then you're full of something—there's too much happening all at once. One hand's holding you steady, the other's got digits jamming into you like a machine.

"Do it," he grumbles as he somehow increases the speed of his fingers.

What? Do—Do what? What does he want now? You don't know what he's talking about. He's pressing his own spend into you, and it's—it's slimey, and slippery, and so, so satisfying knowing he's that desperate to fill you—and you're trying not to start crying at the rising crest that's hot on your heels.

"Mnnh–m-my Lord," you strain and try valiantly to get your words out over the distractingly sloppy sound of fingers fucking his cum into your cunt, "I don't understa—ah—and?"

"That wet gush you made when I had you for the first time," Gadriel rushes to say in a whiny, impatient tone rather unbecoming of his kind, but then again... nothing is really becoming of one of his kind in this situation, "Do it again, I want to see it properly."

"I d-don't—" you blubber, suffering through a heady throb of bliss that somehow almost hurts with how sharply it scorches your nerves. "I don't k-know how I... I d-did it, I don't—"

You're trying to give him what he wants, you really are; but you don't know how, and he's not going to stop unless you do. The pace of his scissoring at your walls is a brutal, stinging rush of pleasure. Your abdomen aches, instinctively trying to clench on the huge fingers playing you like some daft, mewling instrument.

It's too much. He's always too much too fast, and you can't help but whine and try to buck your hips away from the incessant bliss coiling in your core.

He stops, suddenly and you hear a heavy thud before you. You try to arch up, but any hope of getting to your haunches evaporates when a mouth latches at your clit.

You're so stunned you can't even manage a moan as he starts moving his fingers again.

The pressure builds and builds, hot and bloating in your loins and you feel like you're about to burst, drawn closer and closer to a damning end.

"Yes, that's it—" he groans, "That—that's exactly it, almost there," and quickly presses his face back in.

One long, luxuriant lick across your nub while he's knuckle deep undoes any restraint you have in a fraction of a second.

You squeal, scrambling at the counter anew—thighs shaking and trying to figure out how to do anything but squirt on his hand and chin.

It's no use, in the end.

You're a trembling, dripping wreck, and far too wrung-out to protest about the feeling of a big tongue lapping at your soaked inner thighs.

"So sweet," Gadriel mutters to himself, and stands.

You finally can see the entirety of him, though your vision is swimming. He's sucking at his own fingers, smiling that weird Astartes-smile all the while; and, for his part, he does look extremely happy about the matter.

You're boneless to the point he has to lift you clear off the counter for a moment to turn you over.

The steel is nice and cool on your overheated flesh, and you melt into it, panting.

"You did well, serf," he chuffs, as his large hands slide up the plane of your body, tug your tunic off you; and then trace back down the curves of either side. "Very, very well."

"Th-thank you, m'lord," you moan, only distantly aware of his palms coming to rest on the pant-covered meat just above your hip.

Then, his thumbs press into the dimples of your middle back, into some tender nerve centre deep under the muscle, immediately bringing a lulling ache to the light of day.

You take in a sharp breath and grit your teeth; wriggling as you bleat, "My Lord—?"

"I'm not trying to hurt you," he says, and the hands shift lower, pressing down on yet another unseen tension-point just above your pelvis.

He's being unbelievably gentle, for an Astartes; but what's even more unsettling is that the tenderness is also unbelievably uncharacteristic for Gadriel.

"I-I did not think you were, b-but it is—" you begin with a meek glance over your shoulder, "Titu—I mean... uh, the Captain doesn't really allow me to do much h-hard labour, so... there's no—ngh..." yet just as you did, the sudden drag of his fingers up the muscles astride the seam of your spine had you stifle a groan loudly. "No point t-t-to you debasing yourself doing this... truly."

The scalding pressure shifts into a dull warmth, roiling through your nerves sweetly; convincing you to arch your back. Your legs flex, and you feel your shucked-down pants falling all the way off one foot.

"You think my effort is pointless?" He supplies, a slight offence lacing his tone.

"N-No, Lord... I j-just..." you backpedal, and let out a short groan, lifting your hips a little. There goes the other pant leg, you suppose, as the fabric slides away. "Don't uh—understand."

"It feels pleasant, doesn't it?" He mumbles, one of his palms splaying out between your shoulders.

"Y-Yes," you whine.

"Then it is not without purpose," Gadriel began in a flat tone, looming close to your ear and letting his exhale taper off into a long, curious hum. "I am simply... rewarding you, for your work."

"You are, y-you certainly are," his fingers rolled over a pressure point and dug in, causing you to jerk, a shallow moan ripped out of you when your rear arches higher and bumps up against his groin.

You hear the Sergeant inhale sharply, his huge hands steadily sliding down, kneading your ass. He's surprisingly mindful to maintain a safe pressure as he digs into the tissue of your glutes.

He stops suddenly, and you're a bit upset about that because it actually felt really nice—but you're quickly reminded there's much lewder things he's more than happy to do.

A set of hips bumps against your rear, and you look over your shoulder to see him holding his tunic up. His cock's just as pretty as you remember it, and topped with the same colour grey-blonde hair as his head. It's flushed and leaking as he drags it back and forth against you.

"Why were you delivering used linens, serf?" Gadriel asks completely from left of the field, his erection sliding between the rounded cheeks of your rear, "There are other lesser menials that ought to do such tasks."

"Uh," you harrumph, a little taken a back by the sudden change of pace. Why is he asking this, now? Why is it suddenly important? Which all surmise into the thought of: why are Astartes like this?

"He shouldn't leave you to wander," he continues roughly while you dither, "You are too sweet, it is an invitation."

Try as you might to refute it in your head, the Sergeant's right about the notion it's probably a bad idea letting you freeroam. You hadn't even considered that you're probably a dangling treat to the Great Angels onboard. If Gadriel's like this, maybe—maybe the others are, too. If Titus, and Chairon, and Gadriel are all liable to desire, then how many others, too? Is it possible there's other serfs just like you, being... companionable? You can't even begin to imagine which ones would be, though. You wouldn't be able to tell. Maybe you've bumped shoulders with another in your exact situation, and had been none the wiser. Perhaps one of the young servant men and women, or one of the older serfs? There are pretty people on board everywhere you look, if you really think about it. Who knows who is closer to an Angel than they rightly ought to be? You pass by so many people day-to-day, it could be anyone. They could be a lord and a lady, one of the officers—even an ambassador. You should try watching closer. Maybe there's a tell? Surely, it can't be hidden entirely. You would like to see them, even if they probably won't really see you. You're invisible in your status. They wouldn't know if you stayed inside Titus' chambers or not.

Still, being cooped up and a layabout feels wrong. There is so much to do besides cuddle up, you should be helping Titus with more things—not just enjoying yourself, constantly; and you try, albeit rather poorly, to tell the Sergeant just that, "The C-Captain has many duties, now, and I still want to be useful, so—"

"If usefulness is your wish, you should always be like this," Gadriel hums, his free hand squeezing your ass while he rolls his hips again.

"Like w-what?"

"Wanting," he breathes.

"My Lord, t-that would not be... proper," you breathe, baffled at yourself that you're talking back to an Astartes.

"Why not? You like the attention well enough," Gadriel says tersely, and you turn away, trying not to tremble too obviously.

"I-I—" you stammer.

"We should breed you," he announces suddenly, and stops rolling his hips in favour of squeezing your ass with both hands, "How do I breed you?"

"I'm n-not sure that's a good i-idea—" you attempt to contend softly, surely shaking again, now.

"I want to try," he grumbles.

And it's readily apparent he's going to.

He's manhandling you onto your back, next; and your legs kick out in surprise.

You watch him fight his tunic over his head with a hurried grace, and pause momentarily to ogle the broad plane of muscle and scars bared to you.

He is still strikingly beautiful, battle-wounds and all. His ports catch the light like silver jewellery, almost. He's looking at you, too—pupils blown wide and pouting slightly. Throne, he's so pretty, you almost want to stare at him for hours.

You don't get much longer to simply bask in the view, though; because he leans back in and tries to bend you up under him like he had when his mouth'd been between your legs—you're worried if he folds you underneath himself too harshly, he'll snap you in two. And just as you think that, a muscle in your lower back smarts in pain seemingly proving your point.

A soft yelp leaves you, and it makes him hesitate.

Gadriel eyes you, clearly expecting you to speak.

"Mm... m'lord, please... wait—" you blubber, uneasy at the looming problem and your own attempt to address it under his gaze. "It'll be difficult like t-this."

He blinks slowly, "How can I make it better?"

"I-I," your mouth feels dry, "I really shouldn't be telling y-you to do things, my Lord—"

"Would you, if I order you to?"

You guess when he puts it like that, you don't really have an option.

"Maybe, p-perhaps... the former position would be less... daunting?"

"On your front?" He asks, sounding a tad disbelieving. "You'd prefer that?"

"Maybe on one of the sheets, t-too?"

"I can't see why not," he hums, and promptly leans back down to lift you clear off the counter.

You're lowered to the ground on shaking legs, but miraculously keep your footing when his support falls away and he reaches for what's left of your pile of unwashed bedding.

He pulls a large blanket out, sniffs, and makes a face with his top lip curled up.

"Lord?" You ask, unsettled by his reaction.

He doesn't answer immediately, and sniffs at it again, only to roll his tongue around his mouth and shallow snort.

"Smells like Titus," he notes flatly, "...and you."

There's probably more than a few stains of lascivious fluid on it. You're not exactly sure how many. Could be one, could be ten. Most of them are probably yours. Titus really does have a fixation on finishing you off as many times as he can, and definitely goes a fair number of rounds with you in tow—not that you're really complaining.

"Ah," you breathe, trying not to start stammering again under the Sergeant's scrutiny. "I-I suppose it would, my Lord..."

"He takes you this way as well?" Gadriel raises a grey-blonde brow and snorts again, turning to lay the fabric out across the counter with a quick flourish. Then, he lifts you back on to the sheet-covered counter with not even a hint of issue.

"S-Sometimes—He... knows I-I enjoy the heat," you force out, and settle against the familiar feeling of the blanket with a practised ease. Talking like this is much easier when you can't see him. Your nerves get too high when you're plainly aware he's looking. "You all run very hot, it's... nice, being close to."

"Is it not the size disparity that makes being mounted your favourite?" He asks sternly, but it's not really a question. It's the cutting remark of observation that only an Astartes could make so plainly. It's filth that sounds more like he's making a simple, casual comment about the time; and all it does is send your brain into spirals.

It is, it is, it is—you like it, you really, really like it because of that. You can't admit it, but you also can't even deny it for a fraction of a second. Throne, just the thought of feeling huge legs and cold ports against your ass and thighs makes you whine high in your throat. It makes you force your spine to arch hard despite the dangle; clenching your abdomen to try to lift yourself just that little bit to aptly present. Trying to give him a clear invitation to fill you.

Let him use you however long he wants, let him drain himself of all the hot spend he's got.

Titus always makes you wait, like this. Likes to lick, or stuff his fingers in. He makes a game of being sure you're so wound up you finish just as he slides in. You're hoping you can get a nice, streamlined version out of that out of the Sergeant.

Retrospectively, you note Titus' made a monster out of you, truly. A greedy monster. You're only a little serf, compared to all of them; and your tastes have been adjusted to the obscene. Now, you're all too keen to let anything twice your size in blue ceramite spill in your womb if only to please. You're not going to lie and say you're shameless, because by the God-Emperor, that you enjoy being used is mortifying—and you're no more confident around them because of it—yet it still doesn't change the fact.

Gadriel's response to your attempts to harry him is a choked, appreciative thing, followed by a laboured swallow.

He nudges your entrance without any preamble, and just that touch is so warm you shiver at the heat—but then it gets so, so much better.

He wraps a hand around your hip to keep you still, and presses forward.

It's depraved how easily he slides in, because you know it's solely due to how wet you are.

It doesn't negate how big he is, though. You're still much smaller. There's just no way to truly consolidate the Baseline-to-Astartes dimorphism, let alone with a Primaris like Gadriel.

You squeal when he jars himself against your cervix, and whine sourly when there's no familiar, divine press of hips flush to your ass.

Gadriel groans out a long, trying sigh, "I needed this so badly."

Any thought you have to respond to that disappears as he starts fucking into you with purpose.

It's so good you can't help but squirm, trying to fight for purchase on the surface. Your toes don't even skim the floor, even stretched as you are. To your brain, it feels like a great height, like dangling off a balcony, or a cliff with a sheer drop. And all the while, he's driving himself as deep as he can into you. Throne, the sounds you're only distantly aware you're making must be debauched.

"Keep making those noises, serf," Gadriel rasps, his voice heavy.

A big mitt smoothers down your back and the touch is so sudden you jerk, only for him to drive into you again, and again; and then that same huge, overwhelming hand is at your scruff, holding you down to the surface like a scared animal.

Panic immediately seizes you, even though you arch a little higher to let him rut deeper.

It would take a flex of those fingers to snap your neck—honestly, it'd take less than a mere twitch, at that.

A cry is all the response you can articulate, and you try, mindlessly, to lift yourself on two palms and fuck yourself back against him.

It's apparently not the reaction the Sergeant was after.

Seeing as, a moment later, his unoccupied hand is wrangling your arms behind yourself—holding them in place with a vice-like bracket about your wrist like some living pair of cuffs. The sheer strength in every aspect is dizzying, but you suppose it's an admirable consideration seeing as he's not yet accidentally broken anything of you.

Everything surely aches, but that is far exceeded by the blessed thud of sensation plaguing every nerve and synapse you have. You're melting, and he's so, so far in you. You're certain he's bullied your insides into allowing another inch to fit with his oversized cock. There's no other logical explanation as to the fact you can suddenly feel strong hips plastered flush to your rear; and a pair of balls snug against your clit.

Or the fact that your cervix feels like it's in your throat, of all places.

You'd never properly fitted him to the base, even with the extra stretching from Titus and Chairon before him.

He's seemingly well aware of the fact he has stuffed in all he can. Because the groan that echoes from above you all of a sudden when he rolls himself into you again is obscene. It's a wet, open-mouthed sounding thing, luxuriant and lazy.

"There, just... just like this is perfect," he pants.

His hips grind forward in slow, steady motions, rocking upward. The once rabid, almost hydraulic-press pace of his hips hammering into yours has completely dilapidated into sloppy humping, for lack of a better word.

Rather unsurprisingly, it's exactly enough of a change of pace to send you finishing on his cock.

"You're just so tight and warm... a-and..." he starts to say but your hearing rings out, and you lose the rest of his words to it. You can't help how your insides thud, and a surge of bliss chokes a garbled cry from your gullet. It's so quick but intense you grind your teeth, clenching hard but stilling fast.

And through it all, Gadriel rocks into you. More than happily letting you know he's enjoying your end with a long, self-satisfied groan. You can feel him filling you, too; a nice, hot load inside—it's gratifying knowing you feel this good, that he's enjoying it, even if you're so sensitive you're shaking.

But it's only a prelude—a short glimpse at a steeper, harder crest that'll come, which makes everything far worse; because there's pleasure still building just from having his cum heating your insides, let alone being ploughed into. The bliss doesn't blow away like dust; it stacks and stacks, and you know the next one will not be as easy to ride off.

You can hear him above you, panting, and a whine rises in your chest as he rasps, "You'll take another, won't y-you?"

Your hamstrings burn with the effort of your orgasm, core cinching and head pounding in unison with each rabid squeeze you make around him.

You're sobbing openly, vision half-blurred by tears you try blink away, "Y-uh-yes, m... m'lord."

Every part of you is so sensitive, it's almost dazzling feeling him shudder in delight atop you.

The hand scruffing the back of your neck moves to brace his own bulk, now flat and palm-down beside your head.

At that reprieve, your face turns until your cheek's nicely cooled by the steel. The sheet's been moved and jostled enough that it's slowly slipping back. The cold is pleasant, even if your insides still feel like superheated slag.

The shift allows you a skewed, tear-blurred glance upward, and you're graced by the sight of a drooling Sergeant.

Gadriel's face is banded across with a flush just like before, except he's keening, brows knitted almost as if in agony—salivating like a beast.

But your short time to watch him is quickly ripped away. Because, abruptly, Gadriel's entire weight presses against your back. For a brief instant, you feel every ounce of air drive out of you, but it's somehow remedied by him tugging you up against him.

Swooning, you let out a little mewl; over-full and over-hot with the sudden embracing. The Sergeant's like a furnace to the touch, you can't even wriggle enough to gain a millisecond of reprieve from being stuck in the iron-hard clutches of his huge arms. Stuck between him and the surface, he's more or less mounting you now, just like you asked, and you're stunned he hasn't shattered your spine. You can still feel your toes, and legs, and rear—but God Emperor help you, does your ass hurt. And so does your cunt, for that matter—even if every sloppy roll of his hips against you is absolutely sublime.

He's back to pounding the living daylights out of you, with not even a hint of thought towards the fact that he's only recently cum in you.

You gasp, half-stunned by the heady return of fresh pleasure to your senses.

But then his hold changes, and you're suddenly in a headlock.

It stifles you nigh instantly, and any loud, depraved noise he'd been fucking out of you tapers off to a hoarse keening.

Gadriel tips his chin down and rubs his cheek against the top of your head, nuzzling up while he's apparently completely oblivious to the fact he is starting to choke you.

He also doesn't seem to notice you scrambling at the forearm braced under your throat. And when he starts moving again, your head swims at the warm slide of him.

An agonising, weightless burst of lightning tramples through your nervous system and you cry out a noise closer to a hissed wheeze—desperately trying to figure out how to make the rush stop, or how to make it never stop—something, anything.

But you can't disengage him; he's too much.

"Why aren't you moaning?" Gadriel rasps between heaving breaths, still rutting forward, "Is... is this not good? I'm t-trying to be good."

Something in you twists into a knot and unwinds with a snap, mere seconds later. You can't help but whinny in confusion, shaking beneath him. Your orgasm feels like a death throw. It may as well be, as speckles of black and static edge your vision. Phantom lights of colour burr across your sight, and—

The vice under your gullet abruptly lifts away and you cough harshly, barely managing to wolf down air despite the mercy.

Your feather-light nerves feel a pulse-pulse-pulse between your thighs; the shudder of huge hips and an all too-familiar heat being spilt in your twitching cunt.

You look up through your tears and see Gadriel's face pinched up, he's gritting his teeth hard—and a sound like a broken piston leaves him. It's a shrill, keened whine up from his huge chest that vents out through his nose, tapering off to wild panting; he's straining through his own end while filling you up. It's so over-much that you can feel the warm-wet spill of what can't manage to stay in you dripping down your sex and thighs, in fat, milky ropes.

You can feel his thighs twitching against your own, and the errant, impulsive half-thrusts that he can't help.

Gadriel's... satisfied enough to calm for the moment, it seems.

You don't know how long you're simply gasping for air under him. The heat of him against your back is so nice you almost doze off, to say nothing of the bliss of having him still hard inside you. You're warm and content, and aching—and most of all, filled. It's sloppy and leaking where he's still buried inside you. He's done a thorough job of keeping it in, despite that. You're tempted to lazily rub yourself, even raw as your clit probably is, and let him bask in one more orgasm. Throne, you'd even let him have another round, if he wanted—you can think of how to explain taking so long to Titus, later.

But when you do regain higher thought, you realise you're drooling against the steel beneath you, and only really rouse when he says, "...serf?" in a very, very small voice for an Angel.

It's hard to talk when your body prefers hyperventilating, but you push through the urge to slump.

So, you groan instead.

"Are you alright?" He asks quietly.

You groan again, a little higher in pitch this time.

"Well... that's a good sign," he answers quickly.

A whine is all you can offer, as he rears up to his palm and looms over you.

"Gadriel," comes a gruff, familiar voice out of nowhere.

Belatedly, you flinch and try to rise—only to keen at the feeling of a cock still hilted in you.

"Titus?" Gadriel mumbles, confused, and you swear there's the smallest tremor to his voice as he adds, "I... I did not expect you here."

"Her access logs in the ship's system," Titus rumbles sternly, "As does yours."

Gadriel's pulling out of you, suddenly, and you whine—it's uncomfortable, losing the warmth and the fullness so quickly. But Titus' here, and that's good. You can't turn to see him, stuck on your belly as you are, but you're glad to see him. He's always so much softer. It'd be a nice change of pace. Maybe it'll be like the battle-barge, and you'll get spoiled with more.

You almost start drooling again.

You try to rise again, wanting to greet Titus as you ought, but your limbs are like wet rations. You can't even muster up the strength to even start to lift yourself off your front, especially not with your legs dangling.

Gadriel rolls you onto your back and carefully strokes your side. It's nice, and you blink up at Titus standing next to him. He's in his tunic, with his soft blue robe pulled over the top. You're very happy to see him, even if there's a harshness to the lines on his forehead that entails a very poor mood.

Somehow, you drag yourself up to a sitting position, and the room spins for a moment with a queasy tilt.

"Careful, careful," Titus' hand comes to rest against your bicep, steadying you while you regain your bearings. "Not so fast."

When you're finally settled, you peek up at him and huff softly, which earns his palm coming up to your cheek—or more accurately—against the side of your head.

You reach up to place your hand over the top of his, content and deeply, deeply exhausted but still wanting to at least try to cheer him up. He's probably just been concerned. But you're alright, and you know exactly how to prove it.

"M'okay," you slur, and paw at Titus' large forearm with your other hand until you find the port on the interior. You circle it softly, and he sighs again.

He likes it when you do this, so it's no harm to try to at least show you still have some sense.

Titus' face creases as he looks down at you, "You've made a mess."

You frown sadly, and turn your face into his hand more as the disapproval stings, "Mm... m'sorry, Titus."

"You don't have to apologise," he tuts, and his thumb starts making slow circles against your temple, "I am talking to him."

You look from your Lord to the Sergeant as he says it, and Gadriel winces.

"She enjoyed it," he offers in his defence, and his hand joins Titus' efforts, though not on your face. Instead, he's stroking your back; rubbing a little like he'd done earlier, "Didn't you, serf?"

You moan softly, basking in the warmth of hands on you.

"She's not to be trusted with metrics of enjoyment," Titus cuts in as he raises a dark brow and sets his mouth into a thin line, "She'd gladly let you break something. Look at her, she's covered in bruises, Gadriel."

"I-I'm a-alright," you affirm again, despite the mumbled hoarseness in your voice while looking up at them both. You're so tired that any reservation against the act doesn't even occur to you, because what's that supposed to mean?

Titus regards you with long, trying exhale before he abruptly says, "Yes, you're very tough—but I think you've had enough for a cycle," and pets you again; then he turns to Gadriel and flares his nostrils, "Not to mention, there are staff outside who are rather displeased about having their entry-clearance rescinded."

Gadriel pointedly looks at the floor, pulls his hand away from your back and clears his throat, "We were finished, anyway."

"Good," Titus harrumphs, "Then you won't mind if I clean up, will you?"

Gadriel doesn't have anything to say about the fact that it's his tunic that Titus then uses to wipe the cum dripping and smeared between your thighs.