Tag: slash

Summary: Roboute of the Russ is a sorcerer. He’s the strongest man on Fenris–he’s a primarch, how could he not be?–but Fenris would tell him a sorcerer is no proper man at all. Yet a sorcerer he became anyway. (homeworld-swap, Roboute, Lorgar, Magnus, Leman/Luther, Horus, Hierax, Sorot Tchure, Mortarion, Roboute/OMC, PG-13)

***

[From the personal journal of Roboute Russ, encrypted and never published. Written in a custom font for an alphabet developed by the young primarch in an attempt to see if a new writing system without the historical and religious baggage of traditional Fenrisian runes would be more easily adopted. It wasn’t, and the attempt abandoned until he had the political position to push through a full set of reforms whole-sale.]

They call me conservative and I want to laugh. I don’t, because I’m not much inclined to it and I prefer not to insult a man’s honour over trivialities, but really. I, the firebrand?

Old Fenris was a conservative place. Life was just so marginal there. The ways of our ancestors allowed us to live, as a civilisation, year in and year out, through ice and fire. Change was dangerous, experimenting was heretical. If you tried something new and failed, or even partially succeeded but not as much as you’d estimated on the first try, then the whole tribe starved. Full stop. I heard this over and over, implicitly and explicitly.

At least one of my brothers is from a similar background, grew up hearing the same thing, from the stories I hear of him. Chemos was industrialised rather than feral, but humanity scraped by with the most marginal room for error in resource management as well.

And he failed. Too impractical, too decadent, too misguided, whatever it was. Maybe my golden brother would have learned if he’d had another round to try, but he wouldn’t have. His people would have all starved if the Imperium hadn’t come when it did. The stories don’t frame it quite that way, but it’s obvious from the subtext.

See, I want to say to the world. I did not end up like him. He is the spectre that was held over me, but I did not. I was luckier. I was better.

I have no intention of saying such a thing publicly. I have no interest in an honour-duel with a brother I’ve barely met over an insult. But I’ve thought such things to myself, for my own sake.

Here he is, the very imagine of everything I was warned about, every cautionary tale, every insult I heard over and over. He is what I was told I would inevitably be. I said no, I wouldn’t, I would do better, be better, and I didn’t become that. How can I not look down on him, who did?

Another brother I feel I should love better than I do: I am only a petty sorcerer in comparison to him, but I am also a sorcerer. He too toppled the old ways and old gods in favour of new ways and progress. He once believed himself something other than human, a god, but I once believed myself a wolf, so who am I to talk? Yet, I find him lacking in caution. Ironic, isn’t it? I fear him and what he will wrought like I was once feared.

I am no great seer of the wyrd and the yet-to-come; that is not my speciality. Not by the standards of my people and I hear they do things differently in the traditions and conceptualisations of other places, like Colchis. Strictly speaking many would claim what I’m doing is not magic at all: I am taking patterns that exist or have happened before and I am extrapolating based on them. In every time, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. Yet it’s magic because I can see the future, and it’s esoterica because I know what others do not. I’m sure my father has seen it too and will handle it. Regardless, it helps me understand that fear.

It’s irrational of me to still want the approval of short-sighted chieftains a century dead. If I wanted validation, I could get it. The neophytes these days, the children, they know no Fenris but the modern one, the civilised world I made from a feral one. Surely the schools taught them flattering things about me. I won. My followers prospered and my enemies waned in their few distant islands. They never lived with the reasons behind Fenrisian conservatism. They probably don’t even know the old superstitions, why I hesitate to put my brothers’ names on a dataslate page, even knowing intellectually it won’t steal his soul or such a thing.

Yet I want it still. I do not love this Great Crusade, though I understand its necessity and I fight in it, like I fought those who raised banner against me on Fenris. I do not love war. I’m good at it, I am told I was made for it, but something went wrong and I do not love it.

Fenris had such rigid ideas of what it meant to be a warrior–how such a man should be, what was right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable–and I didn’t fit that mould quite right and eventually chose to stop trying and cast it aside and do as I thought best. I raised armies, but I don’t like warriors. Those I loved best and who gave me the best support and advice were not men of war, those men who fit the pattern I disliked.

What I want is to be remembered as a great statesman. I don’t want to fight compliances against humans–they are unpleasant chores. I want the scattered scions of humanity to be thrilled to see us in the sky, to eagerly join the Imperium and agree we will make their lives better. How can people hear ‘We will lower your infant mortality rate’ and argue with that? That’s why I’d rather treat with mothers than warriors.

Likely this does not make me what my father wanted in a son. I’ve heard it before. Personally, I would say my fathers have been all well and good, but I would rather be my mother’s son.

*

Leman el’Jonson was good enough company, likeable and well-liked, as jovial as he was deadly when crossed. It was a familiar mould of jarls on Fenris too, so Roboute knew how to be cordial back without being intimidated, but he had never been so popular himself.

‘Those are fine dogs you have.’ It wasn’t an insult to the Imperial Hounds and their primarch when Leman said it, wild and bearded enough to be Fenrisian himself. ‘We bred dogs back on Caliban too, hunting dogs and scent hounds and the like. Good dogs, but I’m not so stiff-necked as to refuse to admit yours are better.’

‘Larger certainly,’ Roboute said modestly. He snipped the dark Calibani ale, thick enough ‘soup’ might have been a more fitting word than ‘drink’. ‘It’s the wolf blood.’

‘There are no wolves on Caliban.’

‘You call yourselves the Space Wolves anyway?’ he joked.

‘Not in the wild. In legend. My brother says he once encountered a beast that put him in mind of one, before I was found, but I’ve never seen such a thing.’ Leman didn’t need to specify which brother he meant, when it was not one of the Emperor’s sons.

Roboute absently scratched his sister’s–his dog’s–ears. ‘There are many on Fenris. Once they were all wild, before I was found, but we keep dogs now. There’s less wild than there was.’

‘That is the way of things. Progress. The Imperium. It’s a dream worth following.’

‘Yes.’ Roboute wet his lips again. ‘We have many legends on wolves on Fenris too. Children raised by wolves. Sorceresses who can see through their eyes or change their skins to be as wolves.’

‘We have such stories on Caliban too,’ Leman said, neutrally. As if the conversation were idle rather than personal. ‘We fight like men. We might use dogs in war, but we burn witches, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Roboute replied, with a neutrality that was much icier. Acknowledgement of what had been said, not agreement. It was a matter of public record that Roboute had outlawed the practice among the Russ, whether his brother knew that much about him or not. Roboute thought he did.

They should have been able to be friends. Both raised feral in the wilds, if the stories were to be believed. They both had civilised the wild and brought prosperity and human control to their planets. Leman even had a man as his lover who he submitted to, though Roboute reminded himself that didn’t have the meaning elsewhere that it did on Fenris.

With his sorcerous othersight, Roboute could see Leman’s shadow was wolf-shaped, as clear as his own pack’s. It was obvious and he wanted to ask, wanted to discuss how it manifested for him and how he understood and used that part of himself. Had Leman lost it and had to relearn the magic like Roboute had, or had he retained it from childhood? Was he a full shapeshifter? He had heard rumours to that effect about his sons, but gossip was unreliable. Did he weave–or whatever metaphor his planet had for things of fate?

But Leman had made clear he was a proper man, a warrior, not one who used magic like a woman, like a crutch. No more elaboration was needed, not when Roboute had heard it so many times before, whatever specifics might differ between their cultures, if he had pushed for details.

‘They’re just dogs now. Tamed, they are no longer wolves. Good companions, a piece of home, but of course we make war like civilised people now.’

‘Of course,’ Leman agreed, and refilled his mug, words still unsaid between them.

*

‘There are… ways, for someone without the talent. So I’ve heard.’

‘The sorcerous cheats: spilling blood and summoning daemons, trading promises for power? We have the stories but it’s rarely done on Prospero. Some have the talent stronger than others, but to be a blind man with no sight and take a poor substitute of listening to echoes? That would just be sad. I don’t mind fumbling around in the dark.’ Horus laughed.

It was a fake laugh, an inadequate bandage over a wound like a furrow crossing a field. Roboute didn’t need magic to see that. These were words he repeated to himself everyday, as if saying them enough would make him believe them. He had to believe them.

Roboute shrugged, not wanting to intrude on his brother’s pain and knowing he had nothing to commiserate that wouldn’t make one of them resent the other. ‘We call it cheating on Fenris too, the unclean magics. Personally, I have nothing against psykers, but I lack the natural talent as well.’

‘Our father made us with what we each needed, I suppose, out of the traits He possesses. We can’t have it all, for who but He could be Him?’

It was easy to fall back on meaningless platitudes praising the Emperor for His wisdom. Roboute pitied Horus more than he envied him his upbringing amidst light and learning, he decided. Horus must be bitter towards Roboute for his sorcery, but he would not be the first target out of their brothers for it. Roboute had learned what he knew, not been so lucky as to be born with it. Horus would have to admit he could too and had chosen not to in order to hate him properly for it.

He would be polite and drop the subject. He wouldn’t say he personally preferred magic that was learned and acquired to that that came naturally, because the former was understood and owned while the latter was lost as easily as it came. He wouldn’t describe how wonderful it was to put on a cloak of feathers and soar or to dream skies he’d never seen or to sort a tangle of threads into a pattern. He was proud of what he was, what he had become, but a lifetime of being told he should be ashamed had taught him how to be silent. For once that silence was for the sake of mercy.

*

‘The primarch doesn’t like you?’ Captain Hierax of the Imperial Hounds asked the Thousand Son seconded to his company, Sorot Tchure. Hierax was not a man inclined to playfulness, but it was still clearly not meant as an insult or value judgement from his presentation.

‘Does your primarch like anyone?’ Tchure wasn’t offended, really. He had heard from various of his brothers that they had it much worse. The Imperial Hounds were not openly hostile to him, especially the Terrans.

Hierax paused for a moment, and Tchure saw he had accidentally hit a nerve. ‘Perhaps it would easier if he didn’t. I used to think that was simply how it was between primarch and Legion, but as more and more of them were found, we came to realise it was just us. I’ve never heard the Dark Angels or Iron Warriors complain their primarchs are unaffectionate to them in particular.’

‘Not to gossip of our betters, but everything I’ve ever heard agrees the Lion has the warmth and social graces of a rock. I had thought Lord Russ worked well enough with his First Captain, before he dismissed me entirely.’

‘He tolerates Marius Gage personally, comes as close to liking him as any of us. A few other officers. He is a primarch, mind. He is a tactical genius beyond compare. Gage, in turn, is a good man. I respect him and am glad the primarch found his continued service as First Captain pleasing. They have a good working relationship. They are not friends. Perhaps friends is the wrong word, but they are not your primarch and First Captain Ahriman, or Rogal and Sigismund or the like.’ Hierax clasped him on the shoulder. ‘We do not speak of it openly, for there is no merit from doing so, but it’s no secret and you should know if you’re going to be learning from the XIIIth: Our primarch hates his Legion.’

‘Really.’ Tchure didn’t quite phrase it as a question. The revelation was too personal, too obviously painful, though the wound was old and well picked at.

‘He considers us a necessary evil, so he commands us and instructs us, but something unworthy of love all the same, something without virtue except compared to a worse alternative. The Fenrisians call him resigned. They have a saying about the lot of a raided woman being her sons becoming raiders themselves. I suppose he saw you as a warrior rather than a witch, or you might have earned his favour.’

‘I don’t know if that was a compliment or not.’

‘Nor do I. There’s nothing more to speak of, though.’

‘Perhaps speaking of it has some merit. I am an outsider here, but our Chaplains tells us wounds fester when kept silent. We have a practice in the Thousand Sons, from the brotherhoods on Colchis and from planets we’ve reclaimed like Davin: We call them warrior lodges, where all can come and speak, brother-to-brother, without rank or fear of reprimand. That we might know each other as brothers and reaffirm our traditions as warriors.’

‘Perhaps we will learn from you as you learn from us then, as your primarch surely intended.’

‘Yes,’ Tchure agreed, ‘that was ever his intention.’

*

‘What happened to our brother, the IXth?’

Roboute shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was just after I was found, yes, but I wasn’t there. Janos was, but you’d never drag an answer out of him when he was told not speak of it by our father.’

‘Ah,’ said Mortarion. Roboute hoped he believed him, because he was being honest.

‘Personally, I don’t believe the more… slanderous rumours. He was already dead or died in some accident the Emperor sought to prevent. That was more the mood of it.’ He did not speak of the XIIth and Mortarion hadn’t asked; no one spoke of the XIIth.

‘Ah,’ said Mortarion again, not giving much away. No one knew much about him at all, just that Fulgrim had shown up with him and he didn’t like drawing attention to himself. ‘Thank you for telling me about early Crusade history even so,’ he said politely. ‘I’ve talked to Konrad and Fulgrim, but they haven’t been around nearly as long, of course.’

Somehow it always seemed to happen that anyone who seemed personable among their brothers, anyone he might have become friends with, already had a closer friend. Everyone knew Mortarion had fastened immediately on Konrad, even if he and Roboute finished their tiptoeing around each other with positive impressions. Roboute liked both Jaghatai and Corvus, for example, but they made anyone feel like a third-wheel between them.

‘If you have more questions, please. I was second-found so I’ve been around, and I’m from a planet that was much unlike the Imperium’s ideals before that so I understand the culture shock.’

‘Primitive and superstitious?’ Mortarion asked, still too neutral to know if he was saying his home had been too or merely commenting on stories about Fenris.

‘It was.’

‘But you don’t believe such nonsense now.’

Roboute shrugged. ‘It’s not so easy to shrug off everything you once thought you knew, especially once adulthood sets in. I support the Imperial way, but I am a primitive barbarian in many of my habits still. It never seemed worth the effort to change, and personally I find we have more strength from diversity than cookie-cutter adherence to some Terran mould.’

‘You believe the Imperial Truth to be untrue?’ Mortarion asked, more daring this time. Still deniable, but not fooling anyone.

‘I believe the Imperial Truth to be useful. My homeworld was a very… magical place. Reality did not work there the way the physicists and iterators say it’s supposed to. That is undeniable fact. I practice the wyrding ways because that’s how we protected ourselves there. Yet I believe the world of spirits and magic is not safe and is not benevolent, so the Emperor is quite correct in keeping people from it and doling it out carefully. Sometimes a lie is more politically useful.’

He could have said, but didn’t, that lies were more than rhetoric, they were magic. They were what magic was built on. Convince someone of something that wasn’t true and you made it real and that was magic–that a man could become a wolf, that they could not see the thing in front of their eyes, that the future could be known. Magic worked because of a sufficient number of people thinking to themselves it seemed like it should work that way gave it a certain weight of reality, made it exist in the reflection of the Otherside and bleed through. You didn’t go around talking about that sort of thing, though, a practitioner had to learn it themself.

Mortarion considered, giving none of his thoughts away until he was ready to. ‘I don’t disagree. Religion as a series of ethical beliefs and comforting behaviours, fine. The spirits, as you call them–daemons, Chaos, unbegotten, I’ve heard many names for them–yes they exist, but they should be kept from humans and human worship. I’m not fond of sorcery either, but I feel you to be responsible and cautious, so I have no quarrel with you personally, brother.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘I disapprove of the treatment of psykers as a group and feel we as a species could handle that better, but people have been arguing that since before the Old Night fell. Anyway, I can’t help but worry creating an empire on a lie is like a house on a foundation of sand.’

Roboute had no good answer to that. ‘I too find it doesn’t sit well, but I do not claim to know the mind of our father. He’s too old, too vast, too powerful, knows too much we don’t. He orders and we can only trust and obey.’

‘The law is not in heaven,’ Mortarion muttered, but didn’t say more. He left him on friendly terms, co-conspirators in some things, but never quite close enough to be called friends or to call on each other when conspiracy gave way to true rebellion.

*

Vinsentti Katrinson didn’t look back on the ‘good old days’ with any fondness, not that he was old enough to remember them personally. Who would want to have lived before running water and electric heaters? People thought they’d lost power they’d once had, that was who imagined they could have been jarl if only things had been different and everyone else were beneath them. Vinsentti knew he wasn’t in that category–life would not have been good for him when barbarians still ruled Fenris, not when he was fuðflogi and hated fighting. Thank the Emperor for Roboute Russ, he said without reservation.

Even with the comfortable life from being the son of Katrin Lexasdottir, forseti of the Althing in trust for the absent primarch, he’d still gone to the diplomatic core, to the iterators, got off Fenris. It was a good life too, bringing Imperial enlightenment to the other barbarians out there, hopefully getting them to be a bit less terrible to each other, being in the primarch’s own fleet.

As for the primarch himself… ‘Lord Russ, what’s he like?’ Off-worlders called him by his clan name, as if a quarter of the planet didn’t share the same tribal ties, but they didn’t know better. Thengirsson, his older byname, was too political when the Emperor on Earth was supposed to be his one and only father, and they hadn’t been that close besides, saga said (and if Thengirsson was a controversial statement, Eirsson would be tossing a frag grenade). ‘Who’s he sleeping with?’ he asked Lady Amaranth of Phaedrus, one of the lord’s chief advisors, old enough to know and to not be a rival for the unspoken And how do I get it to be me?

On Fenris, they said he was stroðinn, he let men have him. These days they might add ‘not that there’s anything wrong with that’ if they were liberal about the changes to gender roles in modern times, but prejudices didn’t disappear overnight. The Imperials insulted him for surrounding himself mostly with women and said he was sleeping with them. Vinsentti didn’t know, which was why you watched carefully, why you asked.

‘Make the first move,’ she told him. ‘And the second. He doesn’t like to himself, worries a show of interest from him might come out sounding like an order because of what he is, but he might be interested back. You seem like his type. He’d like to settle down with someone who could equal him, I think, but he’s a primarch and we’re not, so he makes due with various close “friends” to handle some fraction of what he can give for as long as we’ll have him.’

The obvious question was why he didn’t seek companionship among his brother primarchs, but that answer was obvious. Vinsentti had never met any of them, at that time, but he’d heard of them. Roboute fought when he needed to and had some Astartes under his command he got along well enough with, the very duty-bound and stalwart sort, but it was clear as day that he disliked war and disliked warriors. He’d been made for war by the Emperor, but Fenris had soured him to it. Vinsentti found that easy to understand. Warrior cultures were not kind to those who didn’t fit in.

Be bold, he figured, so he flirted. He wasn’t clever as a primarch with words, but he could try and not let himself be cowed by the interaction. He could indulge in long, lingering gazes, wondering how his blond braids would feel in his hands. He cast little cantrips–not because he expected so small a love spell would enchant a primarch, but to put his interest out there. He wasn’t much of a sorcerer, he only knew a few small household magics his mother had taught him, but this was the sort of spell that could get a girl in a lot of trouble back in the day, flirting and enticing a man into an affair. For a man to cast it, back then it would certainly had been more trouble than his life was worth.

Roboute smiled back, a quirk of amusement at the corner of his lips and his beard. He indulged. He let himself be courted.

Vinsentti made a point of courting not just him, but making friendly with his entire inner circle. He knew any relationship was never going to be exclusive, and honestly was grateful–the idea of a primarch’s attention on him and him alone was far too intimidating. He might not be interested in them in the same way, especially the women, but he wanted to show off he was the sort of man who played nice, who fit into that world. Better to play to the mould of the sassy gay friend in a Terran romantic drama than the tragic dead gay, the argr oathbreaker, the seiðskratti demon-summoner.

Roboute showed his interest back with reserve. Nothing that could be taken only one way, nothing that couldn’t be innocent if Vinsentti wanted to take it that way. But interest back he showed. He ended up, for instance, with the nicest sweater he had owned in his life. Roboute gave such things to half the ship crew that crossed his path in a given fortnight, especially the foreigners who complained about iceworlders and their use of air conditioning; it didn’t have to mean anything.

He was always fidgeting, Roboute was. Like he needed to be doing something with his hands all the time, didn’t matter what, just to get some of the pent up energy of having a brain like that out. One of the things he did was knit, muttering something about fine motor control, as if working with thread were anything but fraught with meaning on Fenris.

The sweater was also perfectly his size, which was surely trivial for a primarch to do with a glance, but it was not lost on Vinsentti that he had been looking and had been thinking about him. It could have been innocent, but Vinsentti had made clear it didn’t need to be.

‘Very generous, jarl, but if you want to give gifts to me, I have things I want to tithe to you.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘Lean down so I can kiss you and you’ll find out.’

It was sweet and slow as caramel, the passion there but never fully unleashed. Later, when their dance around each other eventually lead them to Roboute’s bed, he said, ‘I’m sorry for my weakness.’

‘Don’t be,’ Roboute said, carding his red braids, holding him close under the furs after they’d finished, his dogs adding themselves to the pile. It was the Fenrisian way, the whole family sleeping in the same bed for warmth. He smelled good, like dried flowers and fragrant herbs. ‘Why would we seek others if not to make ourselves better, to shore up frailties and fix broken places within us? Personally, I’d rather have silk than steel against my chest. I would rather avoid yet another competition, whether I’d win or lose, in favour not needing to fight. I have many strong arms I can call upon; I would rather be loved with a whole heart.’

‘You deserve it,’ Vinsentti said, face buried in his neck. ‘You deserve so much more, but that I can give.’

Wrappping things up with a couple more WIP scraps that were either too fragmented to post alone or I still haven’t given up on believing I’ll one day finish them. [nsfw]

***

[post-Betrayer Guilliman/Lorgar psychic/dream hatesex]

Lorgar had guessed that Guilliman would determine he was in a dream, them lose all interest in interacting with his subconscious’ imagining of the traitor. He had been wrong (as usual, a part of Guilliman’s mind said, even as another told him he should qualify that with unfair).

‘Payback for Nuceria?’ Lorgar asked. Guilliman would prefer he didn’t talk, but when had he ever done what Guilliman wanted, or shut up? Even in his imagination. He’d rather not dream of him at all, or that he not exist.

For everything, he thought, but didn’t say because he would scream it. He hated Lorgar and hated Lorgar for being able to make him lose control.

Lorgar seemed to hear, but this was a dream, after all. ‘Go on. This is my gift to you. The only one I can give, when in the waking world I can’t stop and can’t justify myself to you.’

Guilliman hit him again, angrier. He didn’t want this Lorgar who wasn’t fighting him. He wanted the cleanness of a battlefield, to overcome another primarch who was a worthy opponent and to drag him back to Terra in chains because he was better. He didn’t want the empty victory of triumphing over this weak, spineless, masochistic, childish, mewling thing, which Lorgar was, possibly by his own addled, inherent nature.

*

[Russ takes Konrad on a spirit/totem quest, also hot springs sex]

Leman balanced the tray heaped high with food and beer easily even as he followed the incline deeper into the mountain. He would have been following the smell of sulphur, had there been any question where things were in his own halls.

The first day after he’d fished his brother out of the snow he’d barely spoken, armour malfunctioning from the cold and hair brittle with ice, wrapped in a nest of fur and wool and the body heat of Leman and his milk-brothers and everyone in the general vicinity he dragged in to act as a furnace, plied with boiling tea and soothing darkness. As Konrad slowly thawed he had become more snappish, but he had eventually agreed to try the hot springs over his scepticism and reluctance to be both cold and wet.

He didn’t see Konrad at first, and more off-puttingly couldn’t smell him over the background scents, but after a moment he unfolded from the water to keep Leman in his line of sight. Water cascaded down his hair and clung to his skin, his form sleek and whipcord thin for a primarch.

There was no question what was going to happen after that.

Leman set the tray down carefully, because one was not wasteful with food, even though that was not why he was salivating. His shirt clung to him with the steam in the air as he pulled it over his head, joining his outer coat and cloak and followed shortly by his layers of trousers.

*

[Dorn/Sevatar set in the same verse as various past crack fic for that pairing, such as this]

‘I don’t think of you as a whore, you know. That’s how you think of yourself, and that’s a problem.’

‘Fascinating.’ Sevatar stretched languidly. ‘Are you going to tell me you’re fucking me because you like me next?’

‘I do not. Prostitutes, from what I understand, are sought to be anonymous, to be totally different from a relationship with a lover, to be able to do thing they wouldn’t do with someone “normal” or worthy of respect, who is a real person.’

‘You respect me now?’ Sevatar raised an eyebrow at Dorn.

‘For all your faults, they are not all that you are, and I do acknowledge you as a warrior of the Legionnes Astartes. My point is, while you might think me willing to degrade you, do you really believe I would him?’

Sevatar didn’t have a good argument to that, because any idiot could see that Dorn and Sigismund adored each other. He spared Sigismund a glimpse: propped up against Dorn’s pillows, gorgeous as ever, obviously jealous.

‘I know sex doesn’t have to be degrading. Never took you for the harmless fun type, though.’

Now, Sevatar had turned tricks as a kid on occasion because it was just what you did, to survive. As an adult he still approached sex as something not necessarily related to emotions in any way, but it was a different matter. You didn’t enjoy whoring, while if he was something of a slut now it was because he did like the sex he had. He wasn’t necessarily nice to the people he fucked, especially if they were weak or he was proving a point, and few people were stronger than he was or had power over him.

(Curze was his own matter: he wasn’t prone to introspection or figuring out what emotions meant. He just knew Curze existing made him do things he knew before, during, and after were totally insane, and never regretting it.)

‘Should I be “respecting myself” more?’

*

[Angron/Russ, Brightest Idea AU]

‘You would think this is a good idea. Revelling in being ordered here.’ Angron snorted. ‘You want another notch on your belt?’

‘Actually, I want you to fuck me.’

Angron hadn’t gotten going, the Nails hadn’t started biting in earnest, so he was capable of stopping short. He had expected to need to chase Russ off with a good pounding, him with his swagger and casual assurance that the galaxy belonged to him, that no one could say no to him without going against the Warmaster’s intentions or would.

‘Why? I don’t expect submission from the Wolf King.’

‘Because I don’t hate you, brother, and I don’t look down on you for any of the reasons you think I do. I don’t expect you to ever like me, but when you think of me I’d rather you be reminded of how I felt under you, and that I let you without reservations. I don’t care if it leads nowhere but you mocking me for playing the woman to you next time we meet.’

‘I’m not known for my memory.’ Or any conscious thought that wasn’t fragmented and broken for that matter.

‘I can remind you anytime, though I hope to be unforgettable.’ That was Russ’ grin, like fate was convenient and went just how was most convenient for him. ‘You don’t have to hold anything back; I can take it.’

Angron’s eyes twitched spastically. ‘Bad enough you’re a cur who expects everyone to lick the boot of one who kicks you like you would, but now you’re just asking for it.’

‘I couldn’t be asking any more clearly: Fuck me.’ He made it sound like a challenge.

[…]

He’d wondered if Russ intended to lie there and take it, but he was no passive participant; he surged against Angron, kissing and biting and pressing them together. It infuriated Angron how he wrestled with him, but for fun, not as one fought a contest he intended to win. Angron wanted to hurt him, wanted to make this a contest of life or death he needed to win rather than watch someone fight him like it was a game when so many better men and women had died wanting to live.

[…]

To his annoyance, Russ had not been unsuccessful. It took conscious effort to remember why he hated him so much, while what naturally came to the forefront of his mind from looking at Russ was how good it had felt to be inside him, with his fingers digging into Angron’s back to urge him on.

*

[fem!Emperor/Russ, Consort AU, they were having an argument about Magnus and gender roles or something]

Leman Russ’ lover was always overwhelming and powerful against him–this was his jarl as well as his bedmate after all–ancient and wise and nameless, something that made his very essence want to submit and show his belly and trail after like a dog, not to mention argue with as general to lord and crush their lips and skin together. And at the moment Leman’s lover was all of those things, and undeniably female.

Not just the body, though that was. Smooth skin, glossy black hair longer than it had been, soft and wet in all the right places, the heavy breasts and thighs of a mature woman who had borne many children and always had enough to eat, and no less strength in the muscle and bone below that. The scent was female–female hormones in sweat, feminine perfumes, a woman’s familiar lust. Leman knew perfectly well that sight didn’t really see his lover with his eyes, but he liked to laugh that he never got the smell perfectly matched to the body. What his nose told him he was smelling was what was put in his mind, the projected persona and force of will he saw as scents. So his lover did not merely look or smell like a woman, but was pressing it into his mind like the weight of the deep ocean upon his chest, the very essence of womanhood, motherhood,

*

[Dorn/Sigismund morning after, specifically in response to this fic]

Sigismund was known for his temper, not sheer awestruck wonder, but the situation call for it as far as he was concerned. Dorn had made love to him, and wanted to do it again even more so. Once was a dream, a fantasy to confess to a chaplain and ask for proper punishment to purge himself of covetousness. Or it could have been an accident or experiment or momentary lapse, though he didn’t think his lord was like that. Dorn waking him with a gentle kiss, like knight and sleeping princess might share, was another matter entirely.

He was still pressed against him, head pillowed on the solid wall of his pecs, as Dorn leaned down to reach his lips. Dorn had a hand on his cheek, guiding him to exactly where he should be. ‘I love you,’ Sigismund said, for what could be more right than to speak those words first each morning and last each evening?

‘I love you too, my son.’

Dorn’s other hand moved to stroke his side and he remembered the promise that after they’d taken the edge off they’d have plenty of time to explore every inch of each other. There were those who called Dorn cold and he could be, cold as the mountains of Inwit, but they’d never seen him smile ever so slightly every time he saw Sigismund, hear his dry and understated sense of humour, understand the passion driving his dedication and duty.

*

[Perturabo/Sigismund hatesex, Porn industry AU, something something porn movie excuse plot where Sigismund was in command at the Battle of Phall and was captured]

Perturabo hated him. The best. Of course Dorn had to get the best. Oh, there was Horus’s Abaddon and Curze’s Sevatar and Sanguinius’s Amit who were exceptional, but Sigismund, Sigismund was the best. And now he was Perturabo’s to possess, to hold down and despoil.

Almost as good as Sigismund was the immediate feedback of Dorn himself frowning, arms crossed, out of the view of the camera. Perturabo had fucked Dorn before, but that Dorn liked as much as he hated himself for liking it. This was fucking what Dorn loved most.

“You should have stayed home, boy. You should have never tried to match your strength against mine. I am iron. I will win.”

“I had to fight. I will do my duty. If my life is forfeit, then take it.”

“I can think of better use for you.” Perturabo ran a thumb across Sigismund’s sneering lips, holding his chin in place.

Sigismund held his gaze, defiant, as Perturabo claimed his mouth brutally. He didn’t fight as much as he could have, though. It was defiance for form’s sake, while he acknowledged his loss, for all that he was an Imperial Fist. If victory was denied him, he would accept with stoicism what he got. Perturabo didn’t want that.

*

[Lion/Curze, pre-UE]

The scent of rot in his nose, but it was only black mould growing on one of the abandoned decks of the Invincible Reason. Sudden sound, but only deck plates shifting and the ventilation cycling. It echoed strangely, not coming from exactly where his eyes and knowledge of his ship’s layout said it should, but that was only a pressure in his ears from the Warp transit throwing him off.

Yet the Lion knew his prey was close, the stain of him on the edge of his mind if not visible on the walls. He could smell the dried blood scent of him, seeming to come from everywhere without respite.

The faint glow of emergency lighting every few metres across the deck only served to make the shadows darker, where Curze hadn’t smashed them. He didn’t always, liking the contrast of it, the weakness of the light, almost as much as complete darkness.

The Lion felt a tug on the long strands of his gold hair, but Curze wasn’t there, only the breeze, only the shadow (it had been him all the same). He didn’t turn to look, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, but all the same the next brush came across the cheek opposite his gaze. Wet, like a brush of lips or the flick of a tongue.

‘Curze,’ he growled. A laugh like a dying choke.

‘Frustrated at their dance of ours, brother? There are ways of taking that frustration out.’

‘You and your innuendo. You’re as bad as Russ.’ That was unfair to Russ, even the Lion had to admit. The wolf annoyed him with his flirting and their rivalry; the Lord of the Night was his enemy, a rabid thing that wanted to violate him mind and body.

‘Father did some strange ideas when he got started with you and Fulgrim,’ Curze said companionably. ‘Such beautiful monsters. I guess he changed his mind later, except with that bloodsucker.’

‘Don’t call him that.’

Curze laughed again, perfectly aware that the Lion hadn’t been defending Sanguinius’s honour. ‘No brother of yours am I? I could not have been make as you were, for then you would have to be like me.’

The Lion took a deep breath, still trying to smell for him. Rancid grease all around him. ‘I know I’m not like you.’

Breath on his ear, the scrape of sharpened teeth on the shell of it. ‘No, you’re too pretty for people to see through your lies to what you are, while I wear it writ on my skin.’

*

[Porn Industry AU, I think this was supposed to be part of the lead-in to the Ultraorgy]

It was a solid theoretical, Guilliman admitted it. It was certainly… eccentric that his father had decided to finance the war effort by sale of adult entertainment, but it had its benefits. People would certainly fall over themselves to give them money, compared to quotas and tithing that left resentment behind.

He didn’t mind getting naked. He didn’t mind the sex; sex was enjoyable. He wasn’t about to insist sex was only permissible between people who were in love or for the purpose of procreation or what have you. He simply maintained certain standards that any film he appeared in make at least some effort to establish the sex as consensual, respectful, and mutually pleasurable. While there were some of his brothers who he might have been inclined to argue with about the wider social implications of not holding to those standards in pornography, somehow the conversation would always descend into kinkshaming Dorn, and better not to open that can of worms.

Summary: Thiel would be the first one to admit he deserves to be over Guilliman’s knee. (Guilliman/Thiel, nsfw, mid-KnF)

***

‘If he wasn’t my brother, he’d be a political embarrassment and an impediment to the effective rule of the Imperium. I know what I’d do with him.’

‘I’m sure I could demonstrate how, lord,’ says Thiel, and then winces.

‘Was that a joke, sergeant?’

‘I may have just made a very unfortunate attempt at humour, lord,’ Thiel admits.

*

‘Do you want me to demonstrate?’

Thiel looked at his primarch like he was crazy as he was, but the twinkle in his eye told him the practical perfectly well. Guilliman was on-edge and wanted to unwind, wanted a safe outlet so that everything with his brother would go just right. He had to be perfect, even when perfect wasn’t good enough, in public.

Thiel, despite all his flaws or perhaps because of them, was someone who could tell a joke and someone who could play around without taking things the wrong way. If anything, he was grateful for the whole idea he could put his primarch more at ease and help him shed some stress and have fun.

‘Well, lord, I know I’ve been a bad boy and have it coming, but I figure what I deserve for you to do to me isn’t so different.’

Guilliman was grinning now. ‘You agree you deserve to be over my knee?’

‘Most definitely, lord.’

‘Come here then.’

Guilliman ruffled his hair when it was freed from his red-washed helmet, but was otherwise business-like in stripping him of his armour. He found a chair and dragged Thiel into his still-armoured lap on it.

‘I’ve seen your record. You just can’t stop yourself from causing trouble, can you?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’

‘Of course I forgive you, but I need to teach you a lesson you remember next time.’

Really, all those people who said Guilliman had a stick up his ass, when he was such a fucking tease. ‘Please.’

Guilliman looked at him so approvingly that Thiel had to look away; that did things to him, even more so than Guilliman’s unarmoured hand on the small of his back, then lower to trace his ass. Then Guilliman hit him, and Thiel cried out in shock, even though he’d been expecting it, at the pain of it and at how good it felt.

Guilliman modulated his slaps carefully–enough to sting for a moment but not truly hurt him, when he could break him so very easily. They also sent him reeling just enough to grind his cock into Guilliman’s knee, but then he’d known that was going to be part of the game from the beginning.

He dug his nails into his palms from lack of anything to hold onto. Not that there could have been any holding on when a primarch was touching him. He didn’t bite his lip despite the urge–Guilliman clearly liked the sounds he made and he wanted to show his appreciation.

He didn’t even try to hold himself back from rubbing against Guilliman’s leg. The cold, hard, unyielding ceramite was too much against his aching erection, but he moved against him anyway, loving the pain and overstimulation of it. ‘Please,’ he said again.

‘Are you going to be good now?’ Guilliman rubbed a hand over his reddened ass.

‘I will. I promise. I’ll try to be, for you.’ Thiel would have agreed to anything. Would he keep that promise? Unlikely. He’d never managed it before, but he’d never intended to do wrong, it just happened despite his good intentions.

‘There’s a good boy.’ Guilliman smiled down at him, indulgent. ‘You can come now.’ Thiel spent himself with a groan at his permission. ‘You’ll need to clean that up, sergeant.’

Thiel grinned back, unashamed of the mess he’d made of his lord’s armour, and went down on his knees before him. He put his tongue to good use, and rubbed his whole head between his primarch’s legs. ‘May I, lord? I want to make you feel good.’

‘Go ahead.’ Thiel rushed to get his armour partially undone, as close to fumbling as a Space Marine could manage, but he got Guilliman’s pleased gasp as he took him into his mouth as payment.

Guilliman put a hand on his head, gauntleted fingers stroking his hair gently, but let him set the pace and kept his hips still to keep from choking him. Thiel certainly couldn’t fit his primarch’s cock entirely in his mouth, but he could make do with every trick he knew with his tongue to wring approving groans from him. He tasted utterly inhuman, even more so than an Astartes, but Thiel liked it, and how huge and hard and hot he was.

Guilliman came with only a slight tightening of his hand on his scalp and Thiel coughed and choked a bit with the effort of swallowing around him. He wasn’t entirely successful, but used the back of his hand to clean his face and licked his fingers without shame. Damn.

Guilliman lifted him up to his feet and kissed him lovingly, in the way of someone who considered showing that affection as indispensably part of intimacy as getting off.

‘Wait here. We do need to have a serious and more articulate conversation at some point, perhaps after we’ve mustered out from Calth. However, I appreciate your insight into my thoughts now. I believe I am ready to deal with my dear brother again.’

‘Anytime, lord.’

Summary: Russ is a flirt and Dorn has only the slightest idea what he wants. (Imperial Consort Russ AU, Dorn/Russ/Emperor, PG-13, WIP)

***

Russ was a flirt. This annoyed Dorn. It was unprofessional, and Russ took more liberties with his person and personal space than Dorn considered permissible.

“Treat me with respect or we’ll need to settle this on the duelling field.”

“I’d still respect you in the morning.” Russ grinned undaunted.

“I’d prefer it today.”

Russ shrugged, a generous expression upsetting braids and his wolves, like he knew something Dorn didn’t. “Do you want to fight?”

“Get your armour.”

“I don’t need it.”

It occurred to him Russ might be tricking him out of his own armour, but honour demanded it of him. Of the few other primarchs he’d met, they’d tolerated the cold, but only Russ exalted in it. His furs couldn’t have been adequate, to anyone but an iceworlder.

Dorn struck first. Part of him wanted to hit Russ. Russ danced away, watching, measuring. Is that who you are? Dorn asked. All bark, no bite? It made him angry to be toyed with, to think he was being bothered by a coward.

Then Russ’ grin turned predatory and he struck. No probes of Dorn’s defences for him, no strike and fade looking for another opening. He used his sword with all the grace of an axe, but he put all his weight behind it. He pushed and pushed and pushed, fierce and predatory, a storm behind him.

Dorn knew with certainty he was going to lose. He was, he still believed, a better fighter. He might well win in the future. But he’d never fought a primarch before, anyone who even approached his level, and Russ had.

Dorn fought still. Russ pushed him back. For a moment, he wondered if his sword would strike home and there would be no later. Intellectually that didn’t seem likely, but nothing of Russ spoke of holding back.

Pushing him against the wall, Russ lunged. Dorn didn’t blink, didn’t look away, but Russ used his teeth rather than his sword.

Dorn wouldn’t have been surprised if Russ had ripped out his throat, but he didn’t. Not that he was gentle—he drew blood and tore into muscle. Dorn gasped in pain… and something else as Russ pinned him between his body and the wall and pressed a leg between his.

His body reacted in primal, instinctive ways. Accept your loss and submit. Show your belly. He tilted his throat back to give Russ better access.

The Wolf King pulled back, too soon (and where had that thought come from), and licked his blood-stained teeth. “Oh, he’s going to like you.”

He sauntered off, firelight and shadow playing in his red hair. Dorn was left mystified about why he’d stopped, and snapping at himself about what else he wanted Russ to do anyway.

*

Russ made no attempt to seek him out after their fight, but he watched and Dorn looked away, hoping he looked like he was flushing in anger, not blushing.

Horus took his leave before the Emperor returned from surveying the outer reaches of the Inwit system. A primarch was busy, the Emperor’s son and chief general most of all. (The phrase “Ew, I don’t even want to think about it, Leman” may have been uttered in his presence before Horus left the system quickly, but Dorn wasn’t sure what that was about.)

The tension built between them. The electric current that was Russ made him snappish; Inwit was inclined to blizzards, not thunderstorm.

It was a relief when the storm broke, at some signal Dorn couldn’t guess.

“Drink with me.”

“Why?”

“The night is cold.” His eyes said, You want this, and damn him, Dorn did.

Russ didn’t waste time beating around the bush, drinking from Dorn’s mouth as often as his own cup. Dorn shivered at Russ’ teeth nipping his lips, looming over him, lowering him to the warm furs of his bed.

He groaned in approval at Russ running his teeth (fangs) down his throat, leaving bites and bruises behind and lapping at them with wet strokes of his tongue. And in frustration as Russ didn’t go further. So eager for him to get your trousers off, he complained to himself, but it didn’t help the fact he really did want his hands on him even more than he had.

“Stop teasing.”

“I’m waiting,” Russ corrected.

Before Dorn could ask what for, he became aware of another presence. It was the sort of presence that made it impossible to believe he could ever had been unaware of, yet he hadn’t noticed a door opening or Russ’ wolves stirring from the mouth of the cave he carved around himself.

“Are you now?” asked the Emperor in a voice Dorn heard more with his mind than his ears, smooth as honey and immovable as the mountains.

“I want him, but of course I wouldn’t take what’s yours or pre-empt you, my jarl. I was just testing the water.” Russ wasn’t defensive or apologetic in the least, totally confident he wasn’t being genuinely censored.

It was strange to see Russ’ body language change so completely as the Emperor drew him to him with a hand in his hair. The arrogant, aggressive Wolf King so pliant and submissive, so eager to please.

Dorn had never been more turned on in his life.

Oh, he’d heard the rumours. There were always salacious rumours, someone said to have gotten some position or favour on his or her back. He’d thought those calling Russ the Emperor’s consort had meant that.

They were having a conversation Dorn wasn’t privy to. Maybe in the way of long-time acquaintances everywhere, in the angle of Russ’ gaze and the turn of the corners of his mouth; maybe a silent conversation Dorn couldn’t quite overhear more than whispers of.

Russ chuckled aloud. “You and your kink for submissive iceworlders.” It was strange to hear Russ describe himself that way, but after that display he’d just seen, well. The tales said Russ had fought, in the beginning. He couldn’t imagine it. It was one thing to fight Russ, who his instincts told him was no more than his equal, but it had been the most natural thing in the world to bend knee to the Master of Mankind.

Russ still watched him with open, visceral hunger. When the Emperor tilted up Dorn’s chin to meet his eyes, Dorn couldn’t have called up a single detail about him except the absolute dominion there, the will to rewrite the galaxy utterly. Everything genecoded into his being to submit to.

“Yes,” he said, an answer to an unspoken, formality of a question. A plea.

Summary: The next morning, Russ gets his turn in. (sequel to this fic in the Brightest Idea AU, Russ/Lion+Russ/Guilliman, background Guilliman/Lorgar, nsfw, WIP)

***

Guilliman awoke to the slight tightening of the Lion’s grip on his upper arms. He took in the scene before him instantly, but his mind wanted to luxuriate over every detail. The Lion’s fingers digging into his flesh, the way his breathing was quiet and even but he was biting his lip and his eyes were tightly shut. Russ moving behind him, face hidden by golden hair and growls muffled by the Lion’s neck.

It was different than but similar to how the Lion had looked a few hours ago with Guilliman moving inside him. This time Guilliman could give his full attention to the look on his face, the tensing of his muscles, and all the tiny cues he gave of how much he was enjoying himself without the distraction of his own pleasure.

The Lion was stunningly beautiful, but so out of touch with his own emotions and those of people around him. Even Guilliman thought that. He sometimes wondered why Lorgar couldn’t have managed to get into a feud with their other brother instead.

And he really did not need to be thinking of Lorgar, crying out under him, cursing him and begging for it harder all in one.

The Lion flinched in surprise as Guilliman leaned forward to kiss him, but he didn’t pull away and rubbed against his leg eagerly as he moved closer. Russ spared Guilliman a grin, but continued his work on the Lion. Guilliman could feel the force of his thrusts through the body between them, could tell by the hitches in their brother’s breath every time he found the exact right angle.

No wonder Russ had been practically drooling to watch them together.

The Lion shuddered between them and gasped for breath, unable to remain perfectly stoic. Guilliman reached down a hand to work him through his orgasm, making the Lion shiver violently with sensation and getting his fingers wet and sticky.

Russ pulled out slowly, dropping kisses along the Lion’s neck and shoulders. He was still hard, and Guilliman had to look away rather than stare at how his erection throbbed, but not before Russ caught his eye and grinned wider.

Leaving behind a glassy-eyed Lion sprawled on the bed, Russ pounced across him to land against Guilliman’s back and roll closer to press against him. ‘Going to fuck us both?’ he asked, happy how his voice sounded: light and teasing, and rough with lust.

‘Aye. Think I was bragging about my prowess?’

‘Oh, you were bragging alright.’ Guilliman ground back against him and let himself be rolled over onto his stomach, half on the bed and half on the Lion. ‘But I never believed you were all bark and no bite.’