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No one was sure where Russ had gotten the idea in his head. Likely some well meaning person had attempted to explain that Space Marines were asexual, deeply oversimplifying the situation and not understanding Fenrisian culture in the meantime. Or perhaps it was purely Russ’s drunken mind that took an innocent comment too far. Regardless, it was for the best no one ever found out who was to blame.
Guilliman was not pleased to find himself with a lapful of drunken Russ.
‘You,’ Russ informed him, ‘need to lighten up.’
‘And you need to have some dignity as befits your position.’
‘You,’ Russ continued undaunted, ‘need to get laid.’
Russ’s breath had a high enough alcohol content to count as a weapon of war. ‘I see no reason to waste my time with such frivolous things.’
‘Frivolous? Spoken like a true virgin. If you could get that stick out of your ass for a minute, there are much more fun things you could have up there.’
Wincing, like a pick-up line that bad so thoroughly deserved, would mean dignifying it with a response. Shoving Russ off him would do likewise, but would be more satisfying. Unfortunately, the arm thrown over his shoulder meant this would require some manoeuvring.
‘Go. Away,’ Guilliman said slowly and loudly, in the hopes of getting through the drunken haze.
‘You should talk to Dorn. If he had his head any further up your ass, his--’
‘It is nothing like that, and I’m busy.’ Guilliman indicated his desk. In all honestly, he’d been scrawling notes on the most efficient scheme for by-lot spot checks for comparing munitions inventory to actual available stores, but Russ had no way to know that, and he was annoyed enough to not care about stretching the truth.
‘I liked your Educatio Veneris per Stultum. You should write a follow-up when you actually know what you’re talking about.’
He had been under the impression Russ didn’t read. Had someone in one of his Army regiments, who it had been meant for, read it to him? That sounded somewhat absurd, but with Russ, entirely possible. ‘Then you’ll understand why I don’t trust where you’ve been.’
Russ barked a laugh and explained, ‘For you, that was almost a joke.’
‘I am not joking.’ Well, it had been a bit of an exaggeration. It was unlikely his physiology left him capable of being an asymptomatic disease carrier, no matter how often he might be infected with all manner of things. ‘Out.’
He pried Russ’s fingers off his back with one hand, threatening to break any one that lingered too long.
Russ have a melodramatic drunken sigh. ‘I suppose you’ll be boring forever.’
‘Yes.’
‘If you ever change your mind, I’ll make it good for you.’
‘Leave.’
Afterwards, Guilliman discovered Russ had left behind the container of liquor he’d been sloshing onto his desk before deciding to get overly familiar. He was not going to return that.
He rubbed the ridge of cartilage between his eyes, though it was only an affectation. The headache was entirely psychosomatic. As he understood it, at moments like this people were wont to say they really wanted a drink.
*
‘Eldar girls.’
‘What?’ Dorn didn’t like to admit it, but he’d lost track of this conversation some minutes earlier. How had they gotten from the topic of he and Roboute being ‘very good friends’ to this? Clearly, because Russ was crazy. And drunk. He kept trying to pet Dorn like he had fur, which didn’t even make sense.
‘Have you ever been to Commorragh? You’d do well there.’
‘Because there are lots of xenos to kill?’
‘That too. Much more fun while they’re still alive, though. They’ve spent forever figuring out agonisers and flaying whips. Make your nerves sing until you think you can’t stand it anymore, while their wyches get you off. You won’t be able to tell the difference between pain and pleasure and you won’t care. Think about it.’
Dorn was more aware of his heartsbeat than usual, because he was annoyed at Russ. ‘Everything is about sex with you.’
Russ made a show of sniffing his neck, then leaning up to say right into his ear, ‘I can smell how turned on you are’, before dropping back to bite his neck.
Dorn headbutted him. ‘Go away.’
Russ sat back with a satisfied smirk as he rubbed at his bruised forehead. He called back before he left, ‘If you’re interested, Rob will be trashed by now. You could always take advantage of him. Or get him to take advantage of you.’
Then Dorn was left alone. A shiver passed through him, definitely because of how annoyed he still was at Russ.
*
Handling Russ was not actually that difficult. You just had to know how to word it.
‘I made a vow,’ Lorgar told him.
‘Why would you do that?’ Russ looked like he was about to cry in sympathy and confusion. It did get him out of his lap. He might think it was a crazy vow, but it was sacred to him.
‘To concentrate purely on the spiritual, one must remove distractions of the mundane world.’ No sense bringing up the more complication doctrines of the priests specifically dedicated to the Lady of Love in the old religion.
‘But the world’s the world. Things unseen exist, but that doesn’t mean the seen doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course not. As below, so above. The good done in this world echoes through all that is, as does the evil.’
‘Why’s having fun a sin then?’
The odd thing about Russ, for all his faults, was that Lorgar got the feeling he honestly respected him, which was not something he was used to receiving from his brothers. Russ wasn’t arguing with him with hostility or condescension, but because he really did not understand his position and wanted to.
‘It’s not in and of itself. It’s wrong for a priest in specific because it would interfere with our ability to fulfil our duties properly. We are supposed to minister to the spiritual, so we give up the physical. We are supposed to care for all people, so we give up marriage to just one person.’
Russ still looked baffled, but he appeared to be thinking hard rather than dismissing him outright. ‘If that’s what makes you happy, I guess it’s okay for you. You’re a good man.’
‘Thank you.’
Then Russ went to find someone else to harass.
*
Russ was under the impression that fighting made them friends, no matter how unintuitive this was. Luther had tried to explain it by means of something called ‘Shounen Jump’, but the Lion was still dubious.
More likely Russ was trying to do something very embarrassing so he would be the subject of mockery. He had heard the confused rumours coming out of the Ultramarines barracks.
‘You’ve got that long-haired pretty-boy thing going on. You must get lots of fangirls.’
Of course, no one was drunker or more embarrassing than Russ himself, but people expected that sort of behaviour from him.
‘I wouldn’t know. The women with the fleet are professionals.’
‘That’s your problem!’
‘What is?’
‘Women!’
‘What about them?’ They were half the human race. What of it?
‘You haven’t spent nearly enough time with them, even if you look like one.’
Ignoring the insult, ‘I have time for knights, not civilians. There are others who are charged with dealing with such affairs.’
‘Everyone on Caliban can’t be this dense about what women are for or you wouldn’t have a population, or pretty-boys if you’re just having fun. Didn’t your man, what’s his name--Luther, ever take you--’
The hole left by Russ’s flying body encompassed the window, the window frame, and part of the wall around it. A few forsaken bits of masonry fell belatedly as the Lion lowered his fist.
Russ was still saying something about brothels, loudly. He decided to go find somewhere with very good insulation until he got bored and went to go bother someone else. Somewhere no one could see him, particularly Luther.
*
‘No, I do not have a “girlfriend”.’ Corax let his tone speak for itself with the additions Why would I want such a thing? and Stop breathing on me.
‘That’s not a surprise, but don’t worry. There’s no need to be gloomy about it. I’ll take pity on you.’
Horus said he was coming up with a plan for dealing with Russ’s drunken flirting spree, but this was, as usual, Horus making claims while actually being distracting by obtaining embarrassing picts of Guilliman.
‘How kind. Go away.’
‘It’s true--getting laid once will only do you so much good. You seem like a long-term project. You need a wife to coo over you and tell you that emo poetry you write is really deep. Don’t you have a woman? Nasturi Ephrenia?’
What? No! ‘Were you dropped on your head in the test tube? We were childhood friends. She’s like a sister to me.’
Russ laughed. ‘You have more of a problem flirting with a childhood friend than your gene-brother?’ He sounded like he was teasing, but Corax failed to see the joke. Did he not understand how the Westermarck effect worked?
‘I like her more than you.’ Go away.
*
‘Normal people can tell the difference between other people and their dogs, so they don’t go around petting humans.’
‘I didn’t think you were a “normal people” kind of person.’
‘Compared to you--stop licking me--I suddenly feel I have a great deal in common with the rest of the human race.’
Russ was much more of a barehanded fighter than Mortarion, so punching him would not have much of an effect and using Manreaper seemed like both an overreaction and unwieldy at such close range. Some of his brothers were perfectly reasonable, like Guilliman, but Russ was more like an exuberant puppy than a well-collected human when he was drunk and bored and when weren’t those things true?
‘Does it feel good?’
Mortarion could barely feel Russ’s touch. His layer of scars contained very few functional nerve endings. ‘No.’
‘Because your scars feel good. Tex... texture.’ He looked pleased with himself for remembering the simple word.
‘I don’t like being touched.’
‘That’s too bad,’ Russ said, expressing sympathy but not moving away in any way. ‘I like touching you.’
What was he playing at? He wasn’t Sanguinius or Fulgrim here, someone pretty. He didn’t want Russ’s pity. He wanted... No, he shouldn’t say something pathetic and give Russ more ammunition for when he inevitably revealed the joke or bet he was doing this for.
‘Go away. You’re slobbering everywhere.’
Mortarion reminded himself he couldn’t feel much of anything through his scars, including the tingling he was imagining where Russ’s hands had been.
‘I have got to get the chemical formula for that stuff.’
*
‘I bet you’ve never had a girlfriend.’
‘You would think that.’
‘Are you saying I’m wrong?’ Russ asked, more an amused purr than a growl.
‘Yes,’ Magnus said simply.
‘I don’t believe you. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be a fast learner once I show you how it’s done.’
‘Difficult as it is for you to believe, other nerds exist in the galaxy, and many of them find me very attractive.’
‘Do nerds even--’
‘Yes!’
‘What about the ones who are tech-priests? They don’t even have the right equipment.’
‘Why would that get in our way?’
‘Incubus witchcraft doesn’t count. You’ve never had real sex, have you?’
‘Go away. Unlike you, I have a date tonight.’
Well, a date for a D&D game, but it would probably descending into making out at some point anyway. They were definitely going to get that demilich already; his druid had just figured out where its soul gems were.
Well, he thought after Russ had been successfully thrown out, it was awhile until then. Considering how much time most people spent thinking about sex, there had to be someone who was right now. Hey Fred--
Busy. We’re setting up a livestream of the ridiculousness the Ultramarines are up to. You can watch through my eyes of you want, she offered before her thoughts were distracted by, Green, don’t drop that!
Good enough.
*
‘Married?!’
The Khan nodded. Russ continued to stare at him like he was waiting for an answer, so he ventured, ‘Yes.’
‘Happily married?’
This did not seem to require an answer, since the only one he could think of he had already given.
‘Why have I never met her?’
‘We are on Crusade.’
Russ seemed to accept this. His people hardly brought their wives on their raiding boats for war, not migration, from what the Khan had heard.
‘You sly dog, keeping anyone from meeting the sister-in-law. She must be a prize if you don’t want her stolen away.’
He missed Börte. The mention of her brought the feeling of a cold wind to his soul, one that echoed forever through the empty quarter without ever finding what it sought or hitting an obstacle that might stop it. His adopted father had negotiated his marriage to her ere he died, fulfilling the last duty of a father to his son.
His wife kept his home, and his home was all of Chogoris, not just their yurt. He heard stories of her wise governance whenever new sons of the tribes became old enough to ride out to join the horde in the stars. He had many strong sons, as a man might, and they were his clan, but that didn’t count in the same way as the children of his only wife. Because of him, she was a barren woman with no sons or daughters of her own. He had suggested that she might... but Börte had shook her head and said he was enough for her and he would always provide for her.
He wondered if he would ever see her again. Once they had conquered the whole galaxy, he could return to his own tribe’s land, keep his own herds, eat the khuushuur she had cooked and drink her airag again.
‘Yes.’
*
‘You, you I’ll believe are popular with women.’
‘Yes?’ Vulkan considered where Russ might be going with this. ‘Did you want to commission a gift for one?’
He got the feeling he’d been wrong by the look of surprise on Russ’s face, like this hadn’t occurred to him before. ‘Yeah. Can you make glass beads?’
‘Of course I can.’
Russ smiled back, with a friendly number of teeth and a nod of his head. ‘Of course you can, mastersmith.’
‘Why glass, not gems?’ He didn’t think Russ was interested in his craft, but the request had been strangely specific.
‘Rocks? Bah. Some rocks are shinier than others, but what are they worth compared to a crucible of glass?’
That sounded like a Fenrisian cultural thing, but one Vulkan agreed with. The bones of the planet were wonderful raw materials, but not compared to something that had known the touch of fire and hammer.
‘I’ll do it. Who’s it for?’
‘Do you have a girl back home? Drink with me and tell me about her and I’ll tell you about my woman.’
How much mead did Russ have on his person? Where had he even produced that from? ‘I thought that would be plural.’
‘Of course there’s all the women and men you sleep with, but that’s a different matter than you wife. If you want to hear about all of them, we could be here for awhile.’
Russ filled what Vulkan had intended to be a vase with liquor and passed it over. Vulkan downed it, almost strong enough to approximate fire in his throat, and admitted that while there had been other women since, he still regretted a little that the Emperor had come to Nocturne before he had married Maia, who’d been the only local pewtersmith after her first husband died, and helped her raise her children into adulthood, like his family had raised him. She was as temperamental as a fire, but her dark eyes sparkled with good humour until you couldn’t help but feel amused rather than offended as she deflated your hot air.
Russ nodded sympathetically and asked if she had big tits.
*
‘Yes.’ Russ seemed to be waiting for something more, so Angron ventured, ‘It’s not that interesting.’
‘Not interesting? That would be like... like... not enjoying drinking!’
Drinking wasn’t that interesting either. Angron supposed he had more in common with Russ than the rest of those posh princelings, but that went only so far.
‘You get drunk. I’ll drink the blood of my enemies unspiked.’
‘It’s like you hate fun. Women are so...’
Half the human race? ‘Squishy.’
‘Their...’
‘Intestines.’
‘Wait, what?’
‘When you squeeze them too hard. Squishy.’
‘You have to be careful about that.’
Careful. He laughed. Bastard who’d never been coming down from the Nails with nothing left to fight but stabs of rage still spasming through him, tried to redirect the hormones but it didn’t work, they’d tried to breed him like a dog--
‘Go away, Wolf King. I could fuck you, but I don’t want to.’
They only did what they wanted in those days, free. They slept in big piles in the snow. He never felt the cold, but they told him it was and he was happy to share his body heat with his brothers and sisters. There was no privacy, but nothing to hide, nothing everyone hadn’t seen before. Vik sat on his chest while she kissed him--never anything soft about her, and her scars made her beautiful. Asti, his quick hands got everywhere, he would make Kolgrimma laugh even when she was tired. Larbedon was so warm, solid and steady and hit like a brick wall. Fun.
Russ was gone. Too bad. They could have fought.
Angron went to find something to kill.
*
‘Okay, we can yiff.’
‘What?’
‘Just a minute, I have cat ears somewhere. Unless you’re into the full fursuit thing.’
‘What? Are you even speaking Gothic?’
‘Get with the noosphere, n00b. You could use the brain extension, but you would lower the collective IQ I admit.’
‘What?’ Russ looked increasingly lost.
‘I swear to science, you can just google image it on my cogitator.’
‘What’s “twincest” and why are all your tabs about it?’
‘Don’t be silly, I have all of the Crusade kinkmeme open. The tabs just continue off the edge.’
‘What’s a kinkmeme? What’s Rule 63? What’s “Kanada’s history”?’
‘Switch to the other window.’
‘Ewww.’
‘Oh, that’s just Rotten. Come on, you’ve seen worse.’
‘Not on purpose!’
‘No, the blue icon.’
‘Forget it. I’m going to go wash my hands now after touching your cogitator.’
Alpharius settled into a comfortable expression of smugness and put his cat ear headband on top of his headphones anyway.
‘I’d better tell Horus his plan worked before Russ gets any further.’
‘But it didn’t,’ Omegon pointed out, emerging from hiding. ‘He was humouring you.’
‘Of course, but Horus is at least partially right that he seems to lose interest once he’s confirmed that whoever he’s talking to knows what sex is. And he was somewhat squicked, just not as much as he was pretending.’
‘He could have just asked if he wanted a check-list. We have copies.’
‘I know.’
Some people were so weird.
*
You could see as he resolved never to ask Lucius a question again, because he had not wanted to know nearly that much about what Fulgrim and Ferrus were getting up to, nor was he ever, ever going to sit in that chair in Ferrus’s quarters on the Fist of Iron again or eat off that table or use those battle-cages or...
Lucius licked his lips. A job well done. The sooner that brute was no longer pawing around the better, and he certainly wasn’t going to let him paw at his lord if he could avoid it.
‘What was Russ here about?’ Fulgrim asked.
‘Nothing important. He decided not to waste your time with it after all, my lord.’ Lucius’s expression made it obvious more than that had happened, but he wouldn’t outright lie to him...
‘Carry on then.’
‘Of course, my lord.’
*
‘If you’re going to be creepy, I can leave now.’
The Night Haunter grinned, all teeth. But baiting Russ was fun. ‘What did you do when you decided you wanted a new island? Of course you and your raiders would rape the women and all the men you didn’t put to the sword right away, then take them for slaves.’
Russ looked more confused than uncomfortable. ‘That’s what you do.’
‘To someone who commits the sin of losing. To someone who doesn’t matter. I just prefer starting more personal fights than tribal feuds.’
‘I thought you killed rapists.’
‘I also killed murderers.’ He giggled. Really, if you were going to be a hypocrite, you might as well go all out. Russ seemed to believe in the rightness of whatever he was doing at the moment, while he knew perfectly well he was last monster he’d ever put down. He would bear, he would embraced all evils in the galaxy before then.
He closed the distance between them. Wanted to smell him better. Did they smell the same things? he wondered. ‘The medicae mortis would take bets on what injuries were inflicted before or after death. Hardly any point desecrating a corpse when you could have it whimpering so sweetly while you fuck it raw and take pieces off one by one. You leave yours alive, I suppose, but haven’t you ever had felt a woman’s heart beating like a hammer inside her chest as she tried to pull away from you while you fucked her in a pool of her husband’s blood?’
He was still laughing over the look in Russ’s eyes much later, when he equerry found him.
‘Seems like Horus was right.’
‘Right about what?’ He didn’t much care, but it might be interesting to use later if Horus actually turned out to be wrong about whatever it was.
‘...You never got that message, did you? Never mind. You didn’t need the help, my lord.’
‘Do you have anything worth saying?’ he growled. The walls seemed to close around him. He had an itch to get out, feel the wind, prowl the rooftops.
Shang seemed as nonplussed as ever by his change of moods. That was why he kept him around, comparatively. ‘I thought you also might want to hear that my lords Angron and Dorn were last seen using each other to demolish architecture.’
‘Why are they fighting?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Hmm...’
*
‘I never knew anyone could bend that way without broken bones. Educational.’
‘I didn’t want to know,’ Loken repeated. ‘Especially about Sanguinius.’
Aximand scoffed. ‘It’s not like it’s a secret.’
‘Yes, but... at least it ran Russ off.’
‘It’s a bit odd he was scared off so easily.’ Aximand’s eyes darted around unconsciously as if looking for a trap.
‘Eh, Alpharius said he was very vanilla.’ Torgaddon waved it off in favour of gossip.
‘Which Alpharius?’
‘Who cares?’
‘Is Dorn going to be okay?’ Loken mused, then looked uncomfortable at his implied suggestion that a primarch might not be and about gossiping above his station in general.
‘I hear Curze dragged his unconscious body back to his den with his teeth, and you know what that means...’ Aximand trailed off.
‘What?’
‘Don’t think about it too hard.’ Torgaddon threw an arm over his shoulder. ‘Actually, you probably wouldn’t ever figure it out on your own. Let me educate you.’
‘If it’s about sex, then yes, I can follow that we’re still having the same conversation we’ve been having.’
‘You see Garvi, when a bird and a bee, or your father and your uncle as the case may be, really want to jump each other--’
‘Did Russ already get you drunk?’
‘Why would I need the help?’
*
‘See the ball?’ Perturabo squeezed the plasteel-boned latex and it folded and compressed, squeaked from internal speakers, and returned to its previous shape. Not a new invention by any means, but he was rather pleased with the durability of the design.
Russ had perked up with his entire body at the noise and his eyes were now following Perturabo’s hand closely. He doubted drunkenness had really affected Russ’s sense of balance as much as he was pretending, but he moved his hand in more complex patterns through the air just in case.
‘See it? You want the ball? Go get it.’
He threw it as far as he could. Russ leapt after it with the force of a round from a bolter. Perturabo closed and barricaded the door behind him. Thank science that some people could be dissuaded by any barrier that didn’t instantly fall to them, unlike anyone with work ethic.
He’d need to design something new in case Russ tried this again. A gun that shot ceramite discs that most people could use for target practice and Russ could catch with his teeth? He began to sketch.
*
Back where his boys were just bedding down after a long night drinking and brawling, Russ picked his way through and occasionally over the snoring bodies. His wolf brothers got scratches behind the ears and an only-slightly-chewed-on new toy from Perturabo. His wife was waiting for him.
‘Did you win?’
‘It went about as expected.’
Joannina Belisarius was not a complicated person, so she looked a bit confused at the non-binary answer but read his pleased mood easily. She started to comb out his hair so she could rebraid it. ‘Did you get laid?’
‘Nope.’ Not that he wouldn’t have if things had gone differently, but that had never been the main point. ‘I got you a shiny.’
Joannina snatched after it but he held it above her reach. Undaunted, she pulled his hair and bit his shoulder as hard as she could to explain what she thought of that.
‘Start any blood-feuds while I was away?’
‘My power-fist wasn’t turned on! That doesn’t even count and anyone who says otherwise is a whiner!’
‘And what did your lady mother say?’
‘“Don’t come here again until you develop problem-solving skills other than violence.”’ If she’d had a tail, it would have drooped submissively just at the memory. Being fostered out to the Vlka Fenryka from infancy in exchange for Russ lending her father his sons as Wolfblades had not left her equipped to deal with Terran politics. She made another pounce for the necklace, missed, and managed to elbow him a couple places as she fell.
‘Did you miss all the excitement?’
‘Fred lent me her glasses to watch vid-feeds, but by now there’s only rubble and graffiti left. The EotE server claims the letters taller than I am painted outside Guilliman’s command centre say “No Ultramarine shall drink alcohol.”’ She shrugged with the indifference of someone who was illiterate and would not have cared anyway.
‘No, they would actually do it. They’re Ultramarines. They’d all jump off a cliff if he told them to.’
Joannina looked scandalised. ‘What would they drink then?’
Russ considered but concluded, ‘I have no idea. I’ll have to make amends by nursing my dear brother through his hangover with more drink until he changes his mind. For the sakes of those poor bastards.’ The sun was rising over Terra, but he estimated he had an hour and a half until Guilliman woke up given what he knew.
She was thinking the same thing. ‘That still gives us some time.’
‘Yes it does.’
Their lips met and neither of them spared any more attention for anyone else.