Tag: slash

Summary: Thiel and Sevatar go on vacation. (No Nails AU, Sevatar/Thiel, sfw, post-wedding)

***

‘We deserve a vacation.’

‘We need to get someone to feed the cat while we’re gone,’ Thiel said immediately.

‘I didn’t mean leaving right this moment.’

‘Yes you did.’

Sevatar shrugged. ‘I’ll let the cat out and tell our parents, and you do the research. It’s hardly fair they got to put us through so much shit and then go off on honeymoon. They’re back, so we should bugger off.’

‘I’m not arguing with you! No, wait, I am arguing with you making me do all the work. Sev, wait!’

*

They ended up travelling by Land Speeder, a compromise between his initial impulse to take two separate bikes and Sev’s to take a Land Raider.

‘I have the perfect thing,’ Sevatar said and two minutes later he had the Ultramarine vehicle blaring Nostraman death metal from its vox. For once Thiel regretted being able to understand the language, or it would have merely been unpleasant noise and screaming. Thiel rolled his eyes and resigned himself to shouting anything he needed to say, and Sevatar grinned, but seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself, tapping his fingers as well as taking in Thiel’s discomfort.

The wind felt good in his hair when he took off his helmet, the hills of rural Macragge spread out before them, the sun rising behind them.

‘Campaigning makes me forget how big planets can be. Drop in near some population centre, kill a few leaders or strategic placements, then leave. But we could fly for weeks and see a whole lot of nothing.’

Sevatar grunted, but Thiel could track the subtle movements of his helmet, watch him watching the grackles on fence-lines. He turned up the music, as if unaware that the quiet he was hearing was that of absence of minds around him the way they would be in Macragge Civitas or on the Nightfall. Thiel grinned.

*

They looped back around and reached the ocean a few hours later, around midday. Thiel explained, ‘This stretch of beach is restricted access because when they were landscaping it a few years back, they accidentally scooped up sand from where the Legion used to do aquatic training a century back. So be careful of unexploded ordinance. I’d hate for you to step on a landmine.’ Sevatar laughed. ‘Anyway, there’s a popular tourist destination a few kilometres south, though more so in the summer than now, so we’ll have some privacy without being totally cut-off.’

Abandoning their Land Speeder near the ecological station Thiel had found in his research (the students who often occupied it being up a river inland for some sort of fish spawning natural event), they abandoned their armour in the sand as well.

There weren’t such things as swimming trunks in their sizes, and their fatigue bottoms would get waterlogged and annoying and make this feel like training. So they were naked when Sevatar tackled him into the water. The cold was invigorating, not icy but the warmer jet stream from the tropics didn’t reach this far north this time of year. The water was salty and briny compared to the filtered and recycled water of a spaceship, but that gave it character and made it interesting, in Thiel’s opinion, like flavouring it with fruit or syrup. Eventually he had to bite Sevatar to get him let go so he could surface again and gulp in new air.

Then he threw a jellyfish at him, Sevatar blinked in confusion through the see-through creature covering his face and leaving acid stings behind, and Thiel jumped after it to wrestle him under the breakers.

*

‘I’m not sure I’ll survive. Tell Tovac he can have my skull collection. Valzen is welcome to dissect my corpse to study the cruel and unusual way I died. Vanek may want to duel you over my spear, but whichever of you wins can keep it.’

Thiel let the door swing closed behind him, his arms full of boxes of pizza and his other purchases from town. ‘Dictating your last will and testament?’

‘As I die a long and lingering death, I have nothing better to do with my time.’

The amount Sevatar could complain was inversely proportional to how much discomfort he was actually in (which, joking aside, also reflected a deep unwillingness to admit to weakness, and Thiel knew perfectly well that was warranted in the presence of Night Lords). Still, Thiel amused himself slapping him on the back and moving his hand up to pet the back of Sevatar’s hair. Sevatar winced and hissed in response, and Thiel grinned.

‘I admit, I have never seen such a bad sunburn in my life.’ He’d noticed the early warning signs of it earlier in the evening, but Sevatar’s normally white skin had gone an impressive lobster red while he’d been out shopping. His skin had the sense to tan to a healthy, warm gold. He retrieved a value-sized bottle of gel from one of his bags.

‘Why did you get so much lube? Going to take advantage of me in my infirmity?’

‘It’s aloe. “For external use only,” the label says.’

Sevatar made a pleased hum at Thiel’s tattooed hand rubbing the cool relief into his back and sprawled boneless across the floor, submitting to his ministrations.

(It made good lube too.)

*

‘If you think I’m going back out there, under the fiery death orb, again, you have something coming.’

‘That’s fine. Sun’s up: you take a nap, I have tactical simulations.’ Thiel waved a dataslate absently. ‘We can train on the beach and swim again tonight.’

‘Tactical simulations.’

‘Tactical simulations.’

‘That’s Pokémon Adamantium.’

‘I’m an Ultramarine.’

*

‘If you can wait to watch the fish slowly drown on dry land, you can wait for me to cook them.’

‘There’s entertainment and then there’s food.’

‘Your seagull friends will enjoy the entrails if you let me fillet them.’

Sevatar rolled his eyes. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact it happened behind the largest, tackiest pair of rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses Thiel had managed to find, under a broad straw hat against the morning sun. Thiel didn’t look up from what he was doing with a bonfire and an industrial-sized tub of barbecue sauce.

+Mob him,+ he suggested to the gulls, helpfully.

‘I swear to science…! Get your birds off me or I’ll roast them instead.’

*

‘You have billions of bacteria in your intestines and I can hear all of them,’ Sevatar told him matter-of-factly.

‘Go back to sleep. We’re still on Macragge, not hundreds of lightyears from civilisation. You can’t be going crazy–crazier–from the quiet in your head this soon.’

Sevatar snorted, already more of a snore.

*

Thiel couldn’t help but laugh breathlessly as he and Sevatar raced along the beach at a dead sprint. Even without their armour, they were too heavy for the shifting of loose sand to put them off balance. No, it was the pit-traps and the landmines they had avoid while luring each other into. Sometimes they set them off just for the concussive waves of explosion to toss the other to the side, heedless of real danger in their game.

Sevatar laughed to, approvingly, as if to say Look at how adorably sneaky and devious my Ultramarine is. Thiel glowed with it, and ran faster, determined to win.

*

‘Got everything?’

‘Am I keeping the sunglasses? Of course I am. But I should be the one asking you that.’ Sevatar leaned against the Land Speeder and showed every sign of planning to put his bat winged skull helmet on without taking them off.

Thiel rolled his eyes. Yes, he had been the one to call the Legion serfs who would show up soon to clean up after them from how thoroughly they’d trashed the place.

He took a last look at the sun setting over the sea, and threw an arm over Sevatar’s shoulder. Kissing him on the cheek, he asked, ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’

Sevatar was frozen against him. Thiel could almost hear the cogs turning in his head, as he tried to figure out what this gesture meant and how he was expected to respond to it. Finally he drawled, ‘I suppose you don’t bore me, so that was the best I could hope for between wars.’

‘Love you too,’ he said, the words coming easier each time he said them. Then he pulled his helmet on and locked it in place. ‘Let’s go home.’

Summary: Comfort in the Siege. (Khan/Dorn/Sanguinius, nsfw)

***

Dorn slept best under both of them, the solid weight of their bodies providing for him some of the reassurance his fortress brought them, the shelter of Sanguinius’ wings spread over them as a sanctuary. It worked best for all of them. Sanguinius needed to be on top to be comfortable and to have a lot of space to sprawl all six of his limbs over. Jaghatai needed to know he always had a clear path to move at a moment’s notice, but he could press against his brothers on his other sides.

Their father could hardly be unaware of this going on in His domain, and approved, as far as Jaghatai could tell, of the comfort they offered each other.

Other comforts too. ‘Would you?’ Sanguinius asked, flashing fang to explain his reluctance to take Dorn in his mouth when he woke hard and aching from the press of their bodies and the hormones in their systems, and Jaghatai did. Stroking Sanguinius’ back and wings as he pressed into Dorn, then taking a turn between the Wall’s spread legs as well. The soft sounds, almost sobs, Dorn made as he came.

Looking to the sky, they could only hope other loyalists would appear. Even more so that they would be in time, not after besieged Terra had become a cinder. Guilliman with all the forces of Ultramar, the Lion with his knights, Russ and his wolves, Vulkan returned to them, Corax from the shadows. But here, now, in the Palace and under fire, they only had each other.

Summary: Guilliman’s on edge from having to deal with Lorgar and Thiel offers to help. (A/B/O, alpha!Guilliman/beta!Thiel, background alpha!Guilliman/omega!Lorgar, nsfw, I have no idea why I wrote this since I don’t even like a/b/o very much as a trope so it’s more sex pollen than anything)

***

Thiel was a beta and awfully glad of it. Alphas were disproportionally represented in the Legion command structure, but it was betas who made up the backbone of the bonds of brotherhood that made the Legionnes Astartes what they were, while the alphas had their dick-measuring contests and the omegas their special-snowflake specialist roles nurturing neophytes or machine-spirits or whatnot.

‘Tell me if my theoretical’s wrong: You don’t want an omega, because you want an omega too much, and no omega’s going to be able to get anywhere near you without their biology taking over. Any alpha in the Legion would present for you too, you’re you, but it would play havoc with their systems. Both you and them would be getting the wrong signals the whole time and compensating for that would miss the point of trying to slip your control. You still want someone to take the edge off. Practical: I’m a beta. I want this.’

He should probably, he decided, have tried to sound a little more dignified and less desperate, but he’d wanted to get across that he was more than reluctantly giving consent to something that was the best tactical option.

‘What I would like is for my brother to not inconvenience others by putting them in such a situation,” Guilliman said acidly, gracing Thiel with such an admittance. Not that anyone could have missed Guilliman’s feelings about Lorgar. “I have no intention of treating him in the disgraceful way I want to respond, let alone anyone else.’

‘I trust you, sir.’

Guilliman nodded, with a hint of irony. ‘Good. I didn’t give you permission to do otherwise.’

Thiel took the direct approach. He had a certain tendency to leap before he looked. ‘If anyone can give meaningful consent here, it’s me.’

He reached out to touch and only afterwards realised he should have asked permission to dare lay hands on his primarch’s august person even under other circumstances. Well, already in too deep, so he might as well do what he wanted and continue. He lifted his hand from his lord’s chest armour and reached up to touch his cool gauntlet to his bare cheek. Primarchs really were unnecessarily tall.

Whether his lord took what was offered or threw him out on his ass, he felt no fear, and not just because it had been genhanced out of him. It was total trust.

Guilliman watched him appraisingly from level blue eyes, despite the widening of his pupils from the heat of his rut. He had a primarch’s peerless mind, but he took his own damn time. He refused to be rushed or to be hasty.

He closed his own hand over Thiel’s gently, with the fine dexterity with which he could pick up an egg with his gauntlets without breaking it.

*

It took all his control to hold back, but Roboute Guilliman would never allow less from himself. As a warlord, he had hurt many, many people, but on his honour, when he did it, it would be on purpose.

Instead, he indulged by imagining how Thiel was going to look when he fucked him. That it would happen was no longer in any doubt. How his skin would feel rather than the cool ceramite of his armour, though the latter did feel good against his heated flesh. How he’d beg for him without hesitation or shame, and his mouth would surely be filthy, forgetting entirely it wasn’t proper to talk in gutter-argot around his primarch.

He leaned down and captured Thiel’s lips in a possessive kiss, arm around his waist drawing him close with a clatter of armour and holding him steady against his unyielding strength.

Thiel moaned into his mouth, eyes closing for a moment, then snapping back open to take in every detail of his face hungrily.

Guilliman had better poise, but he was hardly less affected. He wanted. His erection throbbed beneath his armour, painfully hard and aching for release. Thiel wasn’t giving back the proper omega signals that the alpha part of his brain wanted, but the smell of Lorgar’s heat had already raised his rut quite well and Thiel he wanted. Thiel wasn’t an omega, but, as he’d said, primarchs who were alphas could make betas feel like omegas around them, ordinary alpha too. It was hardly unusual for an alpha to be only attracted to omegas (he could recall the approximate statistics from Macragge) and some cultures he’d encountered considered other pairings to be obscene. Guilliman’s natural inclination was a preference for omegas, but he wasn’t so exclusive, especially when his mind was attracted even if his hormones needed a push.

‘Strip,’ he ordered, and for once Thiel rushed to obey without arguing or reinterpreting his command.

Thiel wasn’t handsome, not in the way of the Emperor’s Children for instance, but he was solid in the Ultramarine way. Guilliman liked him for his glorious disaster of a personality and the way he looked at him with unabashed eagerness and lust anyway.

Thiel didn’t wait for permission to start on his own armour when he stood naked before him. His disregard of protocol made Guilliman smile, though he understood why formality existed for social functioning and he had mandated it himself. His smile became more of a smirk as Thiel stole kisses against his skin as he worked. ‘Brat.’

‘Even your geneseed couldn’t fix that, lord.’

He pulled Thiel close, feeling the length of his body against his own, the texture of Astartes skin and muscle. ‘Then we must have some things in common.’ Sitting back on his desk, he pulled Thiel into his lap and kissed him breathless.

Then he leaned down and bit his neck, hard enough to bruise but not quite break the skin. Thiel groaned in pleasure and unconsciously mumbled a couple words most of his Legion would blush to hear. Mine, Guilliman thought.

With a free hand, he retrieved a bottle of lube from exactly where he kept it in his desk. His other hand moved between Thiel’s legs as the other man straddled his hips, squeezing his arse, rolling his balls between his fingers, stroking his cock. His instincts hated the delay of foreplay, but it was necessary. Even with an omega it would have been necessary, unless that individual had also been a primarch. He refused to do Thiel the disservice of letting his mind linger overlong on the thought of taking Lorgar without holding back, or even Dorn, who was at least agreeable.

Roboute Guilliman liked to think he was a good alpha. When he was with an omega, he took care of them, gave them what they needed. He made sure of his partner’s pleasure, told them what to do and pushed them down as easily as breathing but made sure it was what they were aching for, something that wouldn’t hurt or shame them later, when the heat was over. He didn’t ignore how own rut making him want, but he wanted to do things right even more than he wanted to be inside the warm, begging body under him right that moment.

Then there was Lorgar.

Lorgar made him want for his brother to be someone other than who he was. Since that was not true or going to be, Guilliman was stuck dealing with the brother he had and wished he didn’t. Some part of him insisted that if he just got Lorgar to submit hard enough, to do what he was told and be still and listen, then everything would be right in the galaxy and between them. The other part of him just wanted Lorgar to submit.

He didn’t want to be the sort of person who didn’t care what Lorgar wanted or how much he hurt him, yet his brother brought that out in him. Lorgar being spiteful and irresponsible and not taking his damn suppressants and going around the fleet in heat like a biohazard of omega pheromones with primarch intensity was not helping.

Focus. He wasn’t Lorgar. He was stronger than his instincts. Even if he hadn’t intended for his body to be in this state of arousal, he would decide what he did with it. He was in control. Of the various practicals open to him, he had chosen to be here, now, with this impulsive Astartes who wanted him. Who had chosen him, as freely as was possible when he was a primarch with all the complications of aura and chain-of-command inherent in that.

‘Please, lord, fuck that’s good, deeper, fuck,’ Thiel was muttering into his chest as Guilliman’s fingers moved inside him, squirming against him, which made Guilliman smile.

Rubbing lube onto his cock, letting Thiel feel it between his thighs, he commented, ‘That’s only my fingers, you know.’

‘That has come to my attention, Throne you’re huge, feels so good already but I want you in me, I can take it, want you to like it.’

Guilliman grinned, already enjoying himself. He kept scissoring his fingers in Thiel and worked his cock in firm, sure strokes with the other hand. ‘I’m not getting inside you until you’ve had at least one orgasm to help you relax. Come for me, Aeonid.’

It turned out that Thiel could follow orders, with enough motivation. Guilliman kissed him long and slow and deep to express his approval, once the string of profanity had slowed down, and Thiel melted against him. ‘Good boy.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘We’re just getting started.’

‘Oh good.’ The spark in Thiel’s eyes spoke to the idea that this had not been nearly enough to tire out an Astartes. ‘Please fuck me,’ he begged before Guilliman needed to ask him anything.

Guilliman rolled them over so that Thiel was sitting on his desk and he was leaning over him. Slowly, carefully, finally, he pushed inside him.

Thiel breathed in sharply as he was penetrated and held it for a long time, and it was only when his moans and jumbled muttering resumed that Guilliman knew he could inch forward again. He couldn’t take him all the way, he couldn’t let himself off the leash, but it was good enough, would have to be. Thiel was tight and hot around him at least, shuddering and spasming with the effort of stretching to accommodate a primarch, but not backing down in the least.

Mine, he told himself as a distraction from impatience. My Legionnaire, my son, my lover. The man who’s not going to be able to walk straight tomorrow after I fuck him raw.

As Thiel adjusted, he pulled back and slid in again in one smooth stroke. Thiel searched for purchase on the desk, didn’t find any, and Guilliman said, ‘You can touch.’

‘Oh thank science.’ Thiel threw his arms around his waist to anchor himself and have something to hold onto, and Guilliman began fucking him in earnest.

The friction was glorious, the very act of having someone under him and taking him, moving inside a welcoming body. He jerked Thiel off again as he found a rhythm, his sweet body clenching around him with his orgasm and his gasps of shock at how good it felt. He fucked him until Thiel was an exhausted, whimpering, boneless mess against him, Guilliman holding him up to his chest to keep him from collapsing entirely. Mine, he thought with each thrust inside him, each mark he left on his skin with fingers and mouth, each gasp that fell from his lips. Mine, he thought as he found his own release, satiated with the idea he had thoroughly claimed him, body and mind.

Guilliman rolled them over again so that Thiel could curl against his chest without having to try to support his own weight. The Astartes cuddled with abandon, seeking his closeness, his warmth, his approval.

‘I almost want to thank your damn fool of a brother now. I mean… pretend whatever I said was more polite, my lord.’

Guilliman chuckled and stroked Thiel’s hair. ‘Never repeat this to him, but I almost agree.’

Summary: Guilliman meets Russ again, after the fall. (sequel to this, Guilliman/Russ/Faffnr+his pack, post-Heresy, nsfw, WIP)

***

He’d hardly been oblivious to the insinuations involved when Russ muttered, ‘You smell good’ while embracing him, but his brother hadn’t pressed further at the time. He’d wondered if that had been general purpose flirting about him that the Wolves were prone to, or a statement about what he smelled on him. He had showered a couple times since last he’d been in bed with the pack, wrapped around each other against the words ‘too late’ in their ears.

He didn’t mind finding it surprising to later discover Russ in his quarters without further warning. It was worth being surprised over. He wasn’t sure what else he was feeling, other than that he probably shouldn’t be. They weren’t ‘his’ pack; he had no claim over them really–if anything Russ did. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen them with primarchs other than himself, though he really didn’t want to think of that, didn’t want to be reminded with an intensity that called up memories even when his conscious mind and willpower said not to.

‘You could have gone somewhere else or asked before inviting yourself in,’ he said instead.

Russ didn’t turn back to look at him, though he did pull his teeth back from Faffnr’s throat enough to speak. ‘That was rude of me. I assumed the invitation was to the pack, not individuals, and I would not have left your bed cold and empty, not now.’

It was not like Russ to apologise, but from what Guilliman knew of Fenrisian hospitality law, it was a serious matter and he’d be entirely in the right taking insult from it. He didn’t, really. Not now. His practicals for the theoretical ‘now that Russ is here on Terra they’ll leave and go back to their own kind’ had all been deeply unsatisfying, but he’d been prepared for it, just one more loneliness in a galaxy that seemed devoid of anything but.

‘Make it up to me,’ he said, because going through his mind was, Theoretical: I want to forget. No, I want none of this to have ever happened. I don’t want the weight of the galaxy to rest of my shoulders, or to likely as not start another war when my remaining brothers think I’m setting myself over them. But I will because someone has to and I don’t trust anyone but me to do it right, so I will give up ever last bond of friendship and brotherhood I have left. That is the undeniable ‘what is’ and what I have been pushed to. Practical: I want Russ to hold me. Just this once. I want to pretend and to have a memory for all those nights where it might be more of a comfort to replay than a source of pain.

Russ grinned because it was his habit to grin and the gesture came easily to his face, however much it didn’t reach his eyes, not anymore. ‘Make yourself at home. I thought these boys deserved a reward after having to deal with you for so long.’

It was easy to slip into the banter of Wolves. ‘I like to think I’ve taught them well. See for yourself.’

Bo Soren punched his shoulder affectionately, and Russ replied, ‘They’re blood of my blood. I wouldn’t expect less.’

They looked good together, Guilliman had to admit. All the small details he’d never noticed before until he had something to contrast it with, the sheer rightness of how they fit together. While he’d certainly gotten the pack whimpering and begging before, it was a different sort of submission than how Faffnr offered his throat up to Russ now. There was the obvious affection and trust there, yet he was absolutely sure the pack-leader would fight with his primarch as surely as he had Guilliman or any other if they had a disagreement until matters were settled.

Russ returned to what he’d been doing because he was hardly going to be so rude as to do otherwise, leaving Guilliman to strip down and make himself at home among the pack and their usual games of elbowing and licking. He watched Russ with Kuro Jjordrovk sucking on his shoulders (and watching over them) and Malmur’s wet mouth between his legs. He stroked Malmur’s hair appreciatively to show he was still paying attention, but everything faded to a prelude to Russ’ touch. He was too much a primarch to be overwhelmed by the presence of another one, but he wanted it, wanted it like he wanted back the touches of those he was never going to see again in this life and wanted it even if it came to the same end.

Summary: Guilliman doesn’t know exactly what’s going on between Dorn and Sigimund, but it means yet another thing for him to run interference on. (sequel to this, Guilliman/Dorn, Guilliman/Sigismund, Dorn/Sigismund, PG-13)

***

‘I had sex with Sigismund.’

Dorn, stoic, self-contained Dorn, winced in a whole body motion, despite himself. ‘I can’t believe you felt the need to say that to me, Roboute.’

‘Would you please,’ Guilliman used the better position he had purposefully made sure he was in to hold Dorn back from reaching for his pants and picking himself up from his bed, ‘give me the benefit of the doubt that I didn’t say that for the purpose of hurting you. I knew it would, but did it anyway.’

‘You do that,’ Dorn said, because there could never be a lack of bitterness between them, never be what there was that one moment when they clasped hands after Terra but before Guilliman’s usurpation, let alone before anything ever happened to their family.

‘I thought of not telling you. You hate the idea of living happily in ignorance, but I considered not respecting that. Eventually I decided you should know, or I’d have accomplished only half of my goals.’

Through gritted teeth, Dorn asked, ‘Then why did you do it? Wasn’t it enough you already stole my… Legion?’

‘I didn’t steal your favourite son. It was never me he wanted, not more than a little, but you. I did what I could because you could not.’

‘Do you know why?’ Dorn’s voice was low, a whisper, a growl.

‘He didn’t tell me, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t want to know, because I’d rather avoid another civil war over difference in opinion.’

‘You think my reasons foolish, whatever they are?’

Guilliman nodded, gravely, honestly, against his shoulder. ‘We are not nearly as much alike as some would make us out to be.’

‘Why then? Why tell me?’

‘Because you love him. Because you want him to be happy. I wanted you to know that just for a moment, even without your forgiveness, he could be, though it was a pale imitation.’

Dorn breathed deeply, his eyes closed. Guilliman knew him too well, knew the power of honesty upon him, and his inability to deny what he wanted so much to, even to himself. Inhale, exhale. Filling his lungs and returning to break the stillness of the dark.

‘Do you expect me to thank you?’ he asked finally.

‘No. I wanted you to know that good things can exist, still. That I can give you, when I can’t wrap you in my arms like I did him, brother.’ Which seemed an odd thing to say when they were naked in his bed, but it was true. They were both primarchs and there was too much between them for Dorn to give him the submission he craved, which was the most natural thing in the world from an Astartes to a primarch, or take a full measure of the comfort he needed. ‘When you can’t hold him like you both need.’

‘Stop.’

‘No. He shook to not buckle under the weight of wanting to be perfect enough to be worthy of you, but even broken he’s so strong and so beautiful. He makes war with the righteous fury of the Emperor’s Champion, but nothing else compared to seeing, for a moment, him not regret being alive. I have many sons I can take pride in, but none who cast such a shadow on reality as the Black Knight. I envy you for being the one he loves.’

Another ‘stop’ caught in Dorn’s throat, because he did not think he could say it without it coming out as a plea.

‘I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable with the sordid details, but it was almost like seeing him as he once was, while he was enjoying himself.’ What a thing to worry about when they were in bed together, but it reflected the heart of the matter. What he and Roboute had done had been physically gratifying, but not more so than what they did in the practice cages. Just thinking about what ‘sordid details’ might be with Sigismund involved made him hot and cold all over. Imagining how beautiful Sigismund must have looked spread out under Roboute, moaning and shivering with ecstasy. How he would glow if Dorn had been the one touching him. Throne, he’d always wanted to touch him, had never stopped, had never been able to stop. ‘I don’t regret pleasing him or, I hope, you.’

‘You always think you know better, don’t you?’

‘Get your own house in order and we can talk.’ No pity, no regret. Guilliman did not reach out and try to touch him or hold him for comfort, because that wasn’t what they did and not something he would have allowed. Only in this second-hand way could they reach each other, Guilliman caring for the thing he loved most in the world.

‘It’s not up to you to judge me.’

‘No,’ he said, and said no more to Dorn, not of condemnation or forgiveness.

Summary: If there’s one thing Konrad Curze and the Night Haunter can agree on, it’s that they both want the same person. (No Nails AU, Guilliman/Curze, early in the AU, PG-13)

***

Konrad Curze was very good at making himself unhappy. He caged away the monster, but he also wrapped himself in chains. Morality, social expectations, things a good person was supposed to do or not do, things you were supposed to take for granted. He wanted things he thought he wasn’t supposed to, wasn’t allowed to, and had to fight moment by moment to keep the monster inside when what the monster wanted was what he really wanted.

The Night Haunter didn’t feel the weight of any of that emotional baggage. What it wanted, it did. It enjoyed itself. It was playing a game with the galaxy, for entertainment and to win. It was justice. No complications. No consequences or worry about them, because there was only the moment. Besides, there was very little that could impose consequences on a primarch or stop one.

What it wanted was blood and screaming. Its sheer misanthropic hatred of all that lived made that a symphony to its ears. Then everyone would shut up and it wouldn’t have to hear the buzz of their minds all around with their constant petty venality and excuses.

Really, they all should have been impressed by how many people he didn’t murder everyday. Even when he wanted to. Even when they deserved it.

Not Roboute, Konrad claimed. Different, better, mine. Konrad loved him, wanted him, soaked in him like water in the desert–his presence, the sound of his voice, the touch of his hands, the steadiness at the edge of his mind. Still there was always that little voice that Roboute would tire of him or of humouring his weakness, that he would realise how much better he could do, that the other shoe would drop and he’d find out what Roboute really wanted from him. He could either keep worrying, keep up the distance completely and he couldn’t do that. He wanted to. He wanted to say I love you, I’ll murder anything that tries to hurt you, I’ll give you everything, but he…

The monster agreed in some ways. Roboute was different, not just as a primarch, but because of Konrad’s whole mess of emotions. It didn’t hate him. It found him… interesting. It wanted to play with him, like a cat with a mouse, rather than the all consuming hate and rage that led it to slaughter.

It thought Konrad’s reservations and mistrust were more likely to be right than not and liked to remind him of that, but it didn’t care as much. When (if) Roboute broke Konrad’s hearts, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t be able to put Konrad back together again. Then he would stop trying, stop pretending, and the Night Haunter could do everything.

Until then, it was still simple. Konrad wanted him so the Night Haunter did too, no romance or interest in anyone else’s feelings in its way, just desire.

It was fun to sneak kisses even if it was batted away most of the time. Roboute was uncomfortable and that was funny, and wary enough to treat it like an enemy. Only sensible since everyone was an enemy, some just more cowed than others or too dead to ever be a threat again.

It liked to play with him, like a cat batting a mouse back and forth. Didn’t even have to break his legs first, because noble Guilliman wouldn’t try to run. Konrad’s movements were always jerky, but this creature made each step into a lunge. It was violence and hunger made flesh.

‘Go away and give him back.’

‘No,’ Night Haunter said, going in towards Roboute’s neck and getting held at arm’s reach. It bit his hand and licked at the blood, but Roboute hardly flinched and didn’t let him closer. ‘I see no reason why I should.’

Just a bit too little sleep, too little food week after week over too long and it eventually added up until the cage doors were so brittle they could just

snap.

‘I can think of many. Leave him.’

‘Or what? Will you hurt me ‘til I do?’ it purred. ‘What else are you going to threaten me with?’

‘Don’t think I won’t hurt you because you share the same body.’ Roboute’s hands tightened to try to hold it in place.

‘Will you? He’ll remember. Will you tip your hand and show him you’ll hurt him if he does something you don’t like?’

‘I don’t want him to remember hurting me either, or for him to think I won’t stop him from doing things he doesn’t want to do.’

‘But he does. Or, should I say, I do.’

‘You’re wrong in your assumptions there.’

‘Oh, what’s that?’

‘I don’t think you’re different people.’

Night Haunter laughed. ‘Good ploy. Now we have some privacy where he won’t remember.’ Not that anything would go wrong with Konrad’s eidetic memory, he would simply unconsciously shy away from anywhere too close to here because he couldn’t deal with processing that.

‘I’ve been thinking about it. Do not misunderstand me. You are everything he does not want to be, and he locked you away because he chose not to. You are unusually disassociated from the rest of his personality, but you are a set of impulses everyone has.’

‘The cold administrator wants to hunt and tear them apart with his bare hands and taste the blood on his teeth?’

‘Yes. Sometimes. But I don’t, because I don’t want to more. Being vengeful is easy, but it’s a bad reason to send men to war. I’ve chosen not to do what I feel is wrong, and so has he. That’s why he doesn’t want you.’

Night Haunter grinned. It didn’t care about morals or ethics and had no investment in winning an argument about them. It just wanted to make Roboute uncomfortable, to make him feel guilty or unsure as he sought to justify himself. Everyone justified himself, I was right, I had to, Someone else would have if I didn’t (Night Haunter’s was Because I wanted to and Trying to do otherwise is futile.)

‘Killer of worlds. As long as you did it with regret rather than glee in your hearts. Do the dead care, I wonder, or would they have rather lived?’

Roboute was angry now, Night Haunter could see it in the tense of his muscles and the pulse under his skin. What he said, though, was, ‘Don’t try, monster. You’re no Angron. We left because we had been wrong.’

‘Such a monumental error.’

‘I am a primarch. You say we cannot deny our natures. I believe our nature is this: that everything we do, for good or ill, is by on a grand scale. When we are wrong, worlds burn. Billions, trillions likely, die, or reduced to lives of pain, loss, and meaningless. Yet, even if the galaxy would have been better off without us, we exist and must do our best.’

Roboute had the look on his face he got when he was thinking quickly and intensely, even for him, running through theoreticals and applying practicals by the hundreds every second.

‘Do you want me to say it? I will. The Emperor was wrong in many ways, and we did wrong, both in obeying him and because of our misguided beliefs. I have done things that I now believe were wrong. Many of the compliances were wrong. We destroyed much that was good and worthy in the name of tyranny.

‘Not all of it–there are regimes that need to be pulled down and people who need to be stopped from preying on others. I don’t disagree with everything you’ve said, or we’d have nothing in common. But being a monster for the sake of that which needs done? No. We have more power than that. You have me and I have you. We can do better. We can do it right, without compromise. I seek peace. I will kill if I see no other way to prevent the deaths of others, but with regret and reluctance in my heart. Maybe you will call it hypocrisy, but it matters to me.’

‘So Lawful Good.’

‘I wrote the laws. I could rewrite them. That means the only person I’m answerable to is myself. What being lawful is about is refusal to compromise. Therefore, I must know my own heart and own mind, and what I consider to be good and what evil, and make decisions with my eyes open. I must protect my people, all of them, and treat every life as if it is that of someone I know and love personally, then make decisions on their behalf that will cost some their lives anyway.’

‘How can you love him knowing what he’s done? You’ve heard how they died? How they pleaded for their lives and eventually just for the pain to stop? Knowing how much he enjoyed it? Do all those people he killed not matter to you because he’s your brother? Because you want him? Forgive him anything because they didn’t matter as much as he does, or do you agree that they deserved it?’ The monster bit as its tongue as it talked, remembering the taste of blood and wanting more of it.

‘I saw the inside of his head, remember. I can understand, I can accept, I can love, even that which I can’t forgive. I can admire him for what he tried to do and what he built from nothing. I can see the goodness in him, the righteousness. Justice is personal, for it to be true, about who someone has chosen to be, not guilt by association on a large scale.

‘I can also say he was wrong in methods, and lost his way, and I disagree with him. He tried to harness you to do what he thought had to be done. He was wrong; you can’t be used. You can’t be used in degrees according to someone else’s will; you destroy everything you touch, including him. I can stand here and offer him another path and support him in his choice to walk it.’

‘Pretty words for the dead. Plenty of people have offered philosophy for how things should be while he ate their children.’

‘I’m not perfect and never claimed to be. I’m not a saint, I don’t belong on a pedestal. So love is something selfish. So I too find suffering easy to ignore when it’s happening to strangers I don’t have to see or know. What is justice? More killing will not bring back the dead. We must live for the future, and choose how to live the rest of our lives since we are here.’

‘You can’t protect everyone like that. You are weak. Those who sin will do so again.’

‘I know I can’t. I will fail over and over and others will suffer for it. Yet I will protect what I can, every time. The world isn’t as cruel as you make it out to be.’

‘How do you justify everything you’ve seen that contradicts that?’

‘Love. Truth. Faith. I do not deny the existence of evil, so don’t deny the existence of good.’

Konrad thought the monster thought only about violence. It would freely admit it usually thought about killing, but it was more than that. The monster didn’t do evil for the sake of evil. It did evil because it enjoyed it. Because of the righteousness of it. There were all manner of vices that existed that it had never indulged in; not because it resisted temptation, but because it didn’t find them tempting, or remotely interesting. It did the things Konrad wanted to do but wouldn’t, because of reasons or it would be wrong or some such restraint of another. Wanting to lash out, to make them pay, make them suffer, keep them from ever hurting anyone with their malice and their greed and their pettiness ever again was the background noise of his life, and when he was Konrad he usually didn’t unless he could give himself an excuse.

The situation was unprecedented, admittedly. Konrad wanted to kill most people, most of the time. He pre-emptively hated and distrusted people far away he hadn’t met yet. At best he found people less annoying than most, or more easily cowed and tamed. Liking someone, loving someone, to this degree not something that fit into his worldview. The entire rest of the galaxy might be in one category to him, but Roboute was in another.

Night Haunter was just a dark mirror. Only a reflection, nothing new. It was Konrad Curze without restraint, without reason, without justification, without the chains of not doing things a good person wasn’t supposed to do or want to do. Konrad was afraid of hurting him, but that was experience telling him he was the kind of person who liked hurting people and always had done it before. But even the Night Haunter did not act with complete randomness; it was only that Konrad refused to examine his own motives and emotions closely enough to understand the underlying logic.

Konrad mistrusted Roboute, couldn’t believe in something that seemed too good to be true without wanting to poke and prod and find the imperfections and betrayals beneath. Konrad, even in the darkest depths of his hearts or in momentary flashes of irritation that he didn’t really mean even at the time, really and truly did not want to kill Roboute. So Night Haunter didn’t either.

Simple.

So the Night Haunter loved him. So the Night Haunter kissed him.

‘Can you stop me from fucking you without hurting your boyfriend?’

‘No.’ Roboute’s fingers tightened on him with deliberation more than passion, but tighter than he would hold Konrad. The grip was a threat. That wasn’t right. He should want the monster outside, believing he was safe. Shouldn’t want to keep it here, to be trapped with it. ‘You and me. You think there’s a theoretical I’ll let you hurt me rather than hurt you. Do you think that exists for anyone else under my protection while I’m here to stop you?’

No, it didn’t. It had met him. Honestly, it wasn’t half as interested in anyone else as it was in Roboute. It wondered if it could make Konrad’s gentle lover get rough. It wasn’t tentative and easily led like Konrad was, and Roboute wasn’t as indulgent of the monster. It wanted Roboute to try to stop it, but not succeed. It wanted, it wanted, it wanted.

‘Tire me out enough and I’ll crawl back to my den to sleep. He wants to throw you down and despoil you and make you as dirty as him and he hates himself for it.’

‘Sex isn’t dirty, whatever your planet taught you. I’m not ashamed of wanting him.’ There was a slight hint of the embarrassed blush Roboute was prone to, but no hesitation or wavering in his voice. ‘I want him to be safe and happy more.’

It knew about wanting. It allowed itself to be distracted with games, but it did fully intend to take what it wanted. It didn’t have any of those pesky ‘Should I? Should I not?’ steps between wanting and doing. Wanted to make him squirm and scream and…

Roboute held its head in place and kissed it gently despite Night Haunter’s attempts to bite back, then carded his fingers through its hair. ‘I love you.’

He was dangerous because he made it want to feel feelings, Konrad feelings. Wanting to have someone was easy. Wanting someone to be happy and to burn everything that might ever threaten them was the kind of complicated it didn’t handle. It couldn’t think–it was immediacy, animal impulses, raw emotions. I would do terrible things for you. ‘That’s what people always say when they want to fuck for free.’

Roboute didn’t get defensive or back down. ‘If you want me, I’m here. If you want me to stop, I will. Whatever Konrad remembers of this, he has nothing to be ashamed of, because I said yes and meant it.’ His touches were light, soothing. They made Night Haunter fidget with stopped-up energy.

It wasn’t hesitant in taking the initiative. It ground its hips against him. Its claws tore bloody stripes in Roboute’s chest through his robes. It pushed him into his coach and loomed over him.

Roboute didn’t flinch and didn’t back down, and let the Night Haunter do all that without losing a fraction of his control. As he was pushed down, and he reached up and pulled the Night Haunter to him just as firmly.

‘I love you. I believe in you. I won’t look away no matter what I see, no matter what happens. I love everything about you, even the parts of you that you hate, though I support you in wanting to change. Even if I had to kill you someday, I won’t look away, because I love you.’

It might not have sounded reassuring to anyone else, but Konrad thought, Thank you. He wouldn’t have believed him in statements like That will never happen or I’ll never give up on you. What comforted him was knowing someone would stop him if he lost himself.

Roboute couldn’t have made a monster fall in love with him, because that would be stupid, but the fact was Konrad Curze had fallen in love with him and the monster was one in the same.

It was frustrating how even being firm he managed to be gentle. He was holding it tightly enough Konrad would have been having a panic attack, but not tight enough, Night Haunter thought. It should hurt, the bones of its wrists grinding together until they broke. But Roboute wasn’t doing that, wouldn’t do that. Still trying to stop it without hurting it. Trying to kiss it softly even as it bit him back. He wouldn’t meet violence with violence because he was weak (in love), and it made Night Haunter want to scream with conflicting emotions and kill until they went away.

Why would he do that when he knew it was a monster?

Because that was the choice he had made, to make love to a monster and in doing so declare it human, because that which was worthy of love could not by definition be a monster.

With his lover beneath him, smiling and satiated and radiant as surely as he was bruised and bloody and well-used, the Night Haunter couldn’t fight Konrad rising to the forefront of their mind again, because Roboute was something he wanted to come back to. Roboute had said he loved him again and again without fear or lies, until Konrad could almost believe he had nothing to be ashamed of for what he had just done to him.

With the future silent, he could hear himself think, and be Konrad and not the monster.

Summary: Teenaged Lion overhearing Luther having sex with a prostitute in a stable. (Luther/OFC, one-sided Lion/Luther, R)

***

He should not be here, but it would be far too embarrassing to admit he had been here all this time, having missed the opportunity to run off and give Luther some privacy with only minor teasing. He wouldn’t be found, he knew: the others were quite occupied, and would hardly leave to climb into the loft to check the winter stores of hay for rot like he’d been doing.

(If he were being honest, he probably should jump out the second story window of the barn to get away. He’d be fine. He shouldn’t be straining his ears, strangely acute, for every whisper of sound.)

They sounded like they were having fun, like the breathless laughs of boys playing around and not taking their sparring seriously enough. Her voice had a high but rich quality to it he wasn’t used to, he’d spent little time around women, but the register at least wasn’t so different from the boys whose voices hadn’t broken yet among his fellow novices. He’d heard mentioned that Luther had no particular companion among the washer-women, herbalists, and prostitutes that lurked near wherever knights were, but he and this woman seemed at least somewhat acquainted. Or maybe it was just Luther’s natural charm and a woman’s desire to make herself appear pleasant to ensure return business.

Certainly she sounded like she was enjoying herself, to his inexperienced ear. ‘Oh, yes, right there, that’s the spot.’ From the wet sounds, Luther was doing something with his mouth. ‘I’m going to need a scarf tomorrow if you keep sucking like that.’

‘If you wear another bodice that low, you will. How about if I go lower? I trust this will be alright?’

‘Ah, that will do. Such a gentleman, sar knight. I’ll be embarrassed if I don’t spend twice the time tracing the contours of your chest as you have mine.’

‘Will you find that half as fun?’

‘I have no complaints, but you underestimate how appealing touching a man like you can be.’

Lion felt a hollow churning in the pit of his stomach as a jolt of something–agreement–shot through him. But he touched Luther all the time, as Luther showed him a new sword technique, arming him as his squire. He had no reason to replay those moments in his mind like he did or inexplicably want to linger over them.

Through a crack in the floor, he could find a good enough angle to see glimpses of Luther’s chiselled chest (and the woman’s pale breasts, he reminded himself he was supposed to look there).

He was studying, he told himself. This was something that would be expected of him as well, soon. In another few years, or a few months at the rate he was going. Everyone said they’d underestimated his age because he must have been malnourished. Now that he’d gotten some proper food into him, he was shooting up like a weed as puberty hit him. He would have urges soon, he was told, perfectly natural urges.

Luther groaned, loud and low, and she was doing something with her hand that he couldn’t quite see. He tried to guess, watching their movements and extrapolating. Learn, don’t think about how calloused hands would feel between his legs.

He was annoyed about her skirts being in the way because he was not entire clear on the mechanics of it, that was why.

Would he too make such a breathy sigh and tell Luther how good he felt, if he were the one sliding down onto him? No, it would be Luther’s words of approval he should be repeating (speaking to the woman he would be with, not hearing them in his own ear).

He told himself he was jealous of Luther, not the woman. He told himself he wanted to be Luther, not…