Work Text:
For the longest time, the return from a mission had never been on Loken's mind. The question of who would be waiting to greet him, perhaps, whether to tend to himself or his armor first, certainly. But the trip itself? Not once, in all his years as an Astartes of the Luna Wolves had he wasted any thought on what had simply been a moment of transit from one affair that warranted consideration to another.
Now, however, now that he had lost everything, now that he didn't even have any armor to tend to anymore, even this stood upside down. Loken had been forced to adapt quickly to the fact that in guerilla warfare, withdrawing once one had reached his objective, once the enemy had caught wind of one's presence, was the most perilous task of any endeavor.
There were no brothers now, nobody to watch his back. Their forces were spread too thin across too many objectives, there were no excess men to send along on any mission that did not desperately need them. And so Loken trekked across the wasteland alone. Just Loken, unaccompanied, unarmored, and equipped with nothing but a bolter and a new, terrible cautiousness, lest he find a swift end he could no longer afford.
That had changed too. Once he had hoped to die in combat, and while he still prayed that death would find him standing, that he would never be taken captive, now rather than hope he yearned for it. Yes, if it had been up to him, one of these missions would be his end.
But life was precious in this oxymoronic rebellion of loyalists, and so Loken had to remain on his feet for as long as he had them.
Whenever the draw grew too strong he thought of home. His home, changing often but always consisting of a bed too narrow to have been designed with the bodies of Astartes in mind, and a defunct ammunition crate storing some essentials, Tarik's torn and mended cloak draped over it. That last point was the most crucial. To be a home, Loken's room needed Torgaddon's messy presence. Messy, because the second captain had never been one for the neat cleanliness that Loken favored. Years ago, it had bothered Loken, as things that are only loathsome when nothing more pressing demands one's attention are wont to do, but in the tumultuous upheaval of recent developments it brought him comfort. There was one thing, that would never change.
He thought of it on this return too. Stumbling through the city turned rubble, he wondered as he did often, whether Tarik would have come and disturbed his things, only to immediately dismiss the foolish notion. As if Torgaddon wasn't eternally occupied these days. Still, the moment Loken got home he would check as always. Just in case.
With a hissing whistle and a boom, the first missile hit the debris, some former streets away, followed soon by a second and a third. Bombardment of the planet surface had begun, and Loken, having tarried too long, was caught in the hailstorm. Only moments from now, nothing around here would be safe. Knowing that he would never make it to his check point in time, Loken scanned his surroundings for anything safe enough to hunker down and wait out the rain. A little ways ahead stood a building still mostly in tact. Loken picked up his pace and ran inside, glanced around, spotting the gaping opening to a storm shelter. Without hesitation, he dove inside.
A rain of debris followed him, a shower of splintered pebbles hitting the uneven ground all around. Loken coughed and teetered to the side, the sharp rocks of detritus digging into his knee and palms. Another explosion shook the walls, but other than dust breaking from the ceiling the room held.
It must have been beautiful once, not just a strong foundation utilized for storage and shelter. Although many of the tiles on the floor had been broken and shifted around, the vividness of their colors still struggled for victory against the chunks of concrete and finer rubble caking them. Other than a collapsed table, there remained no furniture. But this only served to show off the walls, which had been painted with floral vines reaching all around and gathering along a turquoise door frame leading into a hallway. Their defiantly lively reach made them seem as if as if once reconnected they might hold the cracked plaster together, by sheer stubbornness alone. Something about them, about the dead cheer of the entire space, reached into Loken's chest and squeezed.
Loken had grown gruesomely familiar with that sensation in the last months. Even though he loathed it and all it signified, its steady companionship had at least garnered him enough experience to recognize that it would not have been able to touch him here had he been less exhausted. Steeled in the knowledge, Loken gathered his wits about him. He hadn't surveyed the entire layout yet, and before he did he could not rest.
It was at that unfortunate moment, as Loken was clearing his gun off debris in preparation to head on, that he heard a scrape.
The sound was nearly lost to the rumbling outside, and for one second Loken longed to delude himself that it had come from there too, that it had only been wreckage shifting and nothing else. But it had been too sharp, and it had echoed from the yawning hallway.
Loken drew up his bolter and crouched to the wall, out of the whirling light that flooded in from above. Any thought about fleeing the shelter was cruelly denied by the ongoing bombardment. The second time Loken heard the noise, its clarity made him nauseous. Without the assistance of his old armor's oily stimulants, Loken had to regulate his breathing himself, steady his arm himself as not rubber, not leather, but metal crushed rubble against tile.
They were footfalls, as reverberating as the explosions above, one following another until finally a figure clad in white ceramite stepped into the hallway.
He was not yet looking at Loken, still faced forward as he had exited the previously hidden side room. The man turned leading with his head, slowly, inevitably, and Loken began to shake.
Loken dropped his bolter, certain it made a sound, only to raise it again. He knew he should run, should take his chance with the shrapnel outside, and yet he stood dazed, trailing a crosshair on a helmet he knew would resist all he had. A helmet bearing a half moon above the right eye.
Little Horus Aximand strode towards him with a measured gait, perfectly sure of his superiority. His gaze swept through the room as he walked, and though the ruby visor was impenetrable, Loken knew well enough how it looked from the other side. No darkness would hide him, and no debris his unarmored heat signature. He could picture it, his own shrunken form pressed into the corner, and realized with a sudden clarity that today marked the end of the last that remained of the Mournival.
Death would not find him kneeling.
Loken rose, his bolter trained on the Astartes warrior before him. Little Horus didn't flinch, naturally, but he didn't react in any other way either. He finished his unhurried survey of the room right as he came to a halt in the square of light, painted onto the floor by the shelter entryway.
The reflected flash of an explosion illuminated the ceramite visage. Then Little Horus raised his hands and excruciatingly slowly took off his helmet. It was really him. Loken felt like an idiot for being surprised, and yet it stole his breath, how changed he looked, and how much like no time had passed at all.
It was the countenance of Horus, unmistakably, marred by a large, ugly scar that drew onto his face an expression more choleric than Loken ever remembered seeing on it. Most unsettling of all, it was beset by hauntingly vacant eyes, trained unmoving on the outside.
"Horus," Loken rasped, voice so dry he didn't recognize it himself. It garnered no reaction, so he called again, "Horus!"
Little Horus closed his eyes and exhaled. Loken waited for him to say something, to snarl, to finish what he had begun on Istvaan III. As the moments drew long, Loken's anticipation turned into unease.
"Little Horus," he insisted.
"Now you speak?" Horus asked after another long silence. Then he added, "And this is all you say?"
Loken stood, dazed. "What else should I be saying?"
"It's your voice," Little Horus shrugged, "it's a miracle you're speaking at all, after all that silence."
Loken could feel his choler rising, despite his better judgment. "I did not speak up?" he asked, "Me? Have you lost your mind?"
Horus' head locked onto him. "I'm not mad. Your presence doesn't make me mad." He furrowed his brows, his forehead fighting against the scar to be allowed to wrinkle. "Although I do wonder what's different about today. Maybe it's because of the anniversary."
"The anniversary?" Loken stuttered in disbelief.
Little Horus shrugged. "I assume you would be the keeper of that. Horus knows I haven't been keeping track of the days since Istvaan."
Loken clutched the bolter tighter, aiming at Horus' unprotected face. His words and his actions were strange, so very strange, but the confusion did little to quell the burning rage that threatened to consume Loken at those words. "Watch what you are saying," he snarled.
Little Horus scoffed. "I wasn't scared to look at you, you know. I met your eyes, I'll meet your voice as well."
"It's my bolter that you'll meet." Despite his words, Loken's hand was stalled by Horus' indifference, doubly so when he was met with dry laughter.
"Truly. Would that you were able to."
Loken advanced, the strangeness of the reunion urging him on to extend it by those few moments more until gun met temple rather than firing where he stood.
The instant the barrel's cold metal touched his skin Little Horus' demeanor changed. His face fell and his eyes snapped to Loken with unprecedented lucidity. His throat bobbed.
"Garvi?" he whispered.
"Any last words?" Loken asked to stall.
Little Horus stared. "It's really you," he muttered. And then, to Loken's horror, Little Horus began to cry.
He crumpled like a collapsing star, reaching for Loken and leaning on him until the bolter slipped from his forehead, unconscious of his weight or that of his armor.
"Loken," he breathed, "Garviel Loken. Garvi. Loken."
"Get a hold of yourself, Little Horus!" Loken implored. He was shaking, both of them were.
"No, no," he shook his head vehemently, burying himself into the crook of Loken's neck. "I am Aximand! I am Aximand, your brother. Say it!"
"My brother," Loken whispered, mortified into biliousness.
"My name!" Little Horus roared.
Loken involuntarily curled his arms around Little Horus, one around his back and the other clenching around the disfigured scalp. "Aximand."
His brother wept in earnest. Burning tears soaked Loken's shoulder, quickly cooling into an itchy patch. Loken swept his thumb across Little Horus' cheek, marveling at the moisture that came away with it.
"You disgust me," Loken uttered.
Hearing that, Aximand suddenly changed his hold, crushing Loken's arms in his plated grip.
"They're coming for me, Garvi," he heaved, careless of Loken's struggle to break free.
"Get away from me!"
"I've seen the way they look at me. Abaddon is mad! I'm thought up to be guilty of transgressions I wouldn't ever dare consider, while all I do is obey." He laughed hoarsely. "Of course, with you gone it's now I who is the least obedient."
"You!"
"Yes me, only me. Lupercal and Ezekyle are dead, and I'm the only one left."
They weren't. One of them was responsible for the very blanket bombardment that had forced Loken to hide, and Loken should count himself so lucky as to witness the end of the other.
Aximand's steel capped fingers were slipping. He clawed at Loken's arms, digging into the fibers of his muscles as he cried, "And now it is my end too. It is only fitting, yes, this is how it must be."
Loken struggled with renewed vigor, managing to break his right arm out of the stranglehold. Aximand's grip latched onto his chest instead.
"Be my death, Loken, claim me before they do. Don't let Abaddon find me, I don't know what he will do. It's you!" he roared, before going quiet again, "You deserve it."
Helpless. In the face of his old comrade's madness a new kind of paralyzing ineptitude took hold of Loken. It crashed overhead, foaming with dread, meeting his rage in a fatal maelstrom.
"Control yourself," Loken demanded.
"You control me," Aximand breathed, "but I am not afraid of you." He scrambled for purchase, pushing Loken an arm's length from himself. His scrutinizing eyes roamed Loken's face and body. "Do you want to hit me?" he asked lowly, "You should hit me, Garvi."
The crunch of Little Horus' nose reverberated through Loken's arm, echoing through muscle and bone even as the blood splattered across them.
"Am I giving you what you want?" Loken screamed, pulling his fist back to strike him again. His other hand crushed Horus against the wall, it was all that kept the traitor upright.
Under the fourth punch Loken felt a tooth loosen.
Before the fifth could connect, Loken was shoved backwards. He stumbled, powerless against the sheer might of Mark IV armor. Little Horus followed easily, wresting the bolter from Loken's grip like a toy from a child. Loken whirled around to rush after it, but the moment his back was turned Little Horus caught him by the wrists. He pressed both of them to Loken's spine in a single fist, clamping his other arm across Loken's chest like a steel bar and dragged him into an agonizing embrace.
Loken fought, he kicked uselessly against unyielding legs and arched his back in a futile effort to break free. The thing behind him swayed with his squirming, following him wherever he went, face buried in the crook of Loken's neck. Little Horus inhaled deeply.
"Loken," he moaned, still wet.
The worst part about it was how his heart ached at the strength and familiarity of the arms enveloping him. He was nuzzling at him now, speaking into the skin below his ear, from where the word's reverberated through Loken's entire skull.
"After all this time, are we all that remains?"
Or maybe the worst part was that it still sounded like his brother.
"Do not claim kinship with me," Loken snarled, "You've defaced yourself beyond recognition, you and me are nothing anymore."
Before he had even finished the sentence Loken was twisted around painfully by the wrists. He lost his footing, forced to move against his protesting knees, which only put more of his weight on his throbbing arms. The hold grew awkward for Horus too, and as he wrangled Loken into his clutches, his detainee managed to free one hand. It brought Loken no advantage. Little Horus drew him in, both arms wrapped around Loken's waist and the left wrist remaining in his grasp, heedless of Loken pushing and shoving at his chest.
Up close the distortion the scar inflicted upon Aximand's grimace was even more jarring. It tainted an expression Loken knew to be earnest with choler, corrupting it until it took on the appearance of scorn. Aximand's eyes, the only thing of his that would have remained as it had been were it not for the uncannily haunted look in them, were trained on Loken.
"You don't recognize me?" he implored, much too fervently for Loken to be able to stand it. "Garviel, it's me; you said my name, don't you remember? It's Aximand."
Loken abandoned his leverage on the shoulder to hit Horus' chin, slipping only marginally closer before he resumed his hold, this time with his fingers clenched around the jaw.
Unperturbed Aximand continued, "Here I am, right with you, now you can see me." Dark panic flashed across his face. "I'm not so disfigured that you don't know me anymore, am I, Loken? Say it isn't so. Come, if your eyes fail you, see with your h-"
Growing weary of the cascade of pleas, Loken clamped his hand over Aximand's mouth. The rumbling vibrations continued to assault his palm, until Loken pressed down, digging his rough fingers into the skin. All of the sounds fused into one, drawn-out and guttural, but at least once Aximand refocused he was silent. A heartbeat passed. Then Aximand parted his lips and dragged something soft and wet across the palm. Loken withdrew his hand as if struck by lightning, seeing himself forced to return it when Aximand leaned closer. Before Aximand could mouth at the part between Loken's index finger and thumb, Loken threaded his legs between Aximand's and wrenched himself around. Catching the hulking colossus off guard, it was enough to shove him into the wall.
Aximand groaned as his head hit the brick in an explosion of plaster dust, and he grew slack. He slanted towards Loken, who caught him in his arms and pressed him back into the rough wall. Mindless of the new weight against him, Loken pressed Horus against the brick and tore at his gorget.
The moment it came loose Loken dug his fingers into the meat and squeezed. Aximand coughed, spit flecking his mouth, and Loken dove down and crushed his teeth around it. It tasted like metal and salt. Rather than resist, Aximand tilted his hips, grabbing Loken so his thumbs rested in the divots above his hips to roll against him. Aximand licked Loken's upper lip, even as Loken ground his teeth. When Aximand squeezed his hands Loken let go, breath uneven as he traced the bloody indentations his bite had left with his tongue. He slid up until he met the wet heat of Aximand's.
A piece of rubble broke free under Loken's foot, and he had to catch himself. Aximand arched as Loken's fingers closed around his throat once more, while Loken cursed as he untangled their legs to regain his balance. He hiked one foot over Aximand's thigh, who met him at once, a solid surface pressing up against his groin.
Loken was furious. At many things, Aximand's obedience and his own weakness, but most pressingly at Aximand's lack of hair. How was he supposed to drag his good for nothing former comrade's face into a serviceable angle? He pressed his fingers into Aximand's scalp for the offense, hoping it would crack the skull, and twisted him against his mouth.
Aximand drew a raspy breath. "More," he begged once his lips were released for an instance, "Loken, please, more. They quiet, quiet under your fist."
"You will quiet under my fist," Loken snarled. He clawed at the plate covering Aximand's crotch, sliding down the leg when Aximand hastily joined his fumbling. Their hands brushed and got in each other's way. After a couple moments Aximand let go briefly to tear off his gauntlets.
Loken reached around and found his suspicion confirmed, Aximand still carried a combat knife on him on the back of his belt. A belt which fell easily under the well maintained blade. He even cared for it in the same way still, if the taste as Loken clamped the knife between his teeth told the truth.
Once the belt was gone, Aximand made quick work of the plate, revealing his straining manhood. It was repulsive to behold, and Loken closed his fist around it to bring it out of sight. He rubbed it roughly, taking care to catch neither the head nor the seeping liquid to ease his way.
Aximand scrambled to reach other latches, shedding his carapace piece by piece. As the armor came off of Aximand, Loken dropped his dick to catch the back plate before it could hit the ground.
"Shut your mouth," he barked at Aximand's whining.
Nestled into the inside of the curve rested several containers, filled with fluids such as combat stimulants, pain suppressors and anti-venoms. They sloshed as Loken tore at one of the vials, finally freeing it with the help of the knife. It was all he could do to hold on to it, when Aximand ripped the plate from his hand and pressed Loken's face into the crook of his neck.
"Teeth," he demanded. Loken obeyed, in spite of the blazing hatred that coursed through his blood. The rage at giving Horus what he wanted paled in comparison to the elation of getting to hurt him. He bit down, filled with glee at the thought of tearing away and taking a chunk of flesh with him.
Locked onto him, Loken used Aximand's leg to kick off one of his boots, only one, which was as much as he would assist. Aximand wrestled his pants down, freeing the bootless leg but leaving the fabric dangling on the other. Then he hoisted him up and pushed his fingers into Loken's heat.
Loken spat out Aximand's shoulder with a hiss and brought up the fist holding the knife to crack it across Aximand's cheek. He tilted the knife until the shiny blade pressed against where he had just broke skin.
"Stay your fucking hand."
The cartridge had warmed in Loken's grasp. As he bit off the top it tasted bitter and left a tingling sensation in its wake. Some of the oily substance spilled over his fingers, but most reached where he passed it to Aximand. The next time he ventured to press his fingers against Loken's rim they were slick.
They were warm and carried the same electric prickling too. Injected directly, the stimulants never felt like this, but then again, it had been a while since Loken had last had them, hadn't it? The hazy focus, the relaxed awareness they heralded, however, that was intimately familiar.
Something he didn't know had been taut relaxed at the recognition. Loken wrapped his arms around Horus' neck, blunt side of the knife pressed against the bullish muscle, and let himself be welcomed home in the rhythmic push of Horus' fingers.
After a while, Horus pulled Loken's leg higher, and Loken used the last he had before he grew too languid to roll them around until it was him caged against the wall. Both his feet left the ground in the motion, caught and lifted high by Horus, who ground into him before Loken's back even hit the plaster. Loken arched his back and hooked his legs around him, tongue and mind too thick with the stimulant's bitterness to admit to the careless idiocy of it all.
The blunt hot head forcing itself against him was nothing like what it had been last time. Nevertheless, its intrusion forced the air from Loken's lungs. He balled his hand into a fist and hit Horus' back, hit him again before he opened his palm to stroke across it briefly only to once again dig his fingers into the muscle. Every breath was assaulted by the stench of medical sterility.
Horus wasn't fully sheathed when he began to shallowly buck into him. Loken righted the knife, tip digging into into the trapezius, and Horus froze. Gravity alone dragged Loken until he was seated. He held out another moment, just to bask in the stillness of Horus at knife-point.
"Do it properly," Loken warned. He didn't need to state the accompanying threat, the steel was loud and clear.
Crushed against warm and slippery skin, Horus drew back halfway, then steadily pushed back in.
Loken growled, "I said properly."
Aximand picked up the pace, and yet control polluted every long stroke.
"Like the beast that you are!"
Finally, Aximand stuttered, losing any semblance of discipline. He moaned as if in pain, and adjusted his grip on Loken's hip to drive into him violently. His wet grunts brushed against Loken's ear with the pounding.
"Traitor. You disgust me," Loken groaned, every syllable forced out of him.
The hand on Loken's thigh squeezed and brushed forward towards his hip, settling where the skin folded into Loken's stomach. It dragged him down to meet every thrust, occasionally wandering back and forth. Loken nearly didn't register it, slack as he was slumped over the shoulder before him. It was all he could do to keep the knife upright and hurl mumbled abuse at Aximand.
He perked up when the hand left its path and inched towards his dick. Loken shot upright, furious.
Catching the affronting hand in a crushing grip, Loken spat, "Don't touch me. You think you get to touch me?" He shoved it away, slapped it for good measure too, so it would not dare forget its place again.
Aximand pivoted and moved his hand to the wall instead, leaning more weight onto it to press even closer to the wall, to Loken. Loken, who found himself growing more and more irate ever since he'd been roused from his stupor. There was Aximand, fucking him, even changing the angle, and despite being more than capable of good aim, never even brushing where Loken wanted him.
Without a word of warning, Loken dropped first one leg then the other, shoving Aximand as he regained his footing. Aximand shouted in surprise as he stumbled back, teetering and falling easily when Loken kicked him.
Rough pebbles of debris crunched against the broken tile floor as Aximand's mass was dragged across it. He was too dazed to rise, and only groaned trying to regain his bearings as Loken staggered towards him. Loken dragged the fabric of his pants through the dirt with every step, bringing his boot down on Aximand's hand to abort his attempts of getting up.
"What a reprehensible disgrace you are," Loken spat. "Even the lowest vermin know how to fuck and die. If you can't do as much as the former, what are you good for?"
He came to a halt once he was level with the head, sneering down at the fallen brother. Aximand blinked up at him through misted eyes.
"Don't even think about it." Loken crushed his heel into that face. He forced the jaw to the side, ground down into the filth.
"Unreliable." He savored the rush of Aximand squirming below him, how ineffectively he pawed at Loken's foot. "Miserable and pathetic boot licker. Go on, we both know you love the taste."
Aximand shuddered and stopped squirming. Hesitantly he changed his hold on the boot and tried to turn his face against the pressure into the sole.
Loken kicked himself off Horus' face. "Pathetic indeed." He was shivering with the cold, oily and aching. It took only two steps down to the waist, where Horus' vulgar manhood leaked onto his abdomen. Loken placed his foot on it, just enough so every heaving breath Horus drew squeezed it against the unrelenting rubber. Though he had both eyes trained on Loken, the wet one and the one that was swelling shut, Horus remained motionless. His fingers dug into the ground, betraying his tension.
Not satisfied, but not further infuriated by the display either, Loken pushed his foot off and straddled Aximand. Bracing himself on the chest he brought the knife into Aximand's field of vision. His hearts beat with a fluttering ferocity as he choked, "Who is holding the blade this time?"
Loken bracketed the torso tightly between his thighs as he lowered himself, his knees digging into the flanks with frustration when Aximand kept slipping along his cleft but not entering him.
"So desperate to follow orders that you know nothing besides?" he scoffed. "What are you waiting for?" Loken hadn't finished speaking when Aximand scrambled to align himself and raised his hips to meet him. One hand steadying him was all Loken permitted as he sank down.
Before he was fully seated, Loken slipped. His hand slammed into Aximand's throat, and both gasped in tandem as the air was punched out of Loken's lungs in return.
Loken moved before he wanted to, solely so Horus wouldn't be able to collect himself either. Aximand followed as best he could, his hold as much to fight the punishingly hard thrusts as to aid them.
"Ugly," Loken hissed. He pressed the flat side of the knife to Aximand's face, and made sure to lean down so Aximand would hear his words even through his strangled gurgling. "Spare me one reason not to part your head from your body."
"Do it," Horus rasped. "Do it, do it."
Loken dragged the blade across the flesh of Horus' throat and pushed. It was the blunt edge. How else could Loken observe the meat bulging against the icy metal freely and unobstructed by blood. How else could Loken ensure things wouldn't end quite yet.
Up close, there was no way to escape his eyes. Behind the intense concentration to keep up with the relentless pace, Little Horus gazed at him with something burning. Terrified to name it anything akin to yearning, Loken decided it had to be delusion. He wanted to press his thumbs into those sockets and gorge out the eyes in time with the onslaught in his abdomen.
Instead, he raised the knife, blurry in between their proximity. Aximand lifted his face.
Loken set the tip to the thick scar and jerked the blade across. He was nearly bucked off as Horus convulsed and coughed. When Aximand returned to himself with a rattling breath, his renewed vigor carried the kick of a bolter.
Tossing the knife aside, Loken clutched the bloody face with both hands and wrapped his lips around Aximand's cheek. He bit down, holding on tightly even as he broke skin, rattled by the thrusts.
Once the skin turned too loose and slick, he let go and spat the metallic taste in Aximand's face.
Loken righted himself, arching his back until every blow hit true. Closing his fist, he stroked himself roughly.
"You better- you better finish now. Because when I'm done," Loken heaved, "when I'm done so are you."
Aximand curled up with a shout, clutching Loken's thighs as he came. Though he was wrung out, he did not dare to stop moving until Loken grew taught, and thick strings of white coated his abdomen. Loken sagged where he was sitting.
Aximand's face was bruised and swollen, and covered in blood, spit, tears, and the oily stimulant. Revolted, Loken dragged his fingers across Aximand's stomach. He smeared the white through the mess of fluids, catching on the broken nose on purpose.
From one moment to the next, Loken felt incredibly drained. He slumped down, freeing himself of Aximand's imposition without having to look.
"Garviel. Loken." Scarred countenance out of sight, there was nothing to distinguish the man below him from who he used to be. There was no change to the tang of metallic sweat and gunpowder clinging to Aximand's skin like after every battle before. The slurred words still resounded in the voice of a brother. The voice of Horus.
"Little Horus," Loken breathed. Aximand lay pliant beneath him. He offered no resistance as Loken slid off him and to the side, except that he caught Loken's forearms in a vice grip, as if afraid he might vanish.
"Do you really think that I am ugly?" he asked after a while.
Loken shook his head, unable to speak. Aximand must have been been able to understand his meaning through the sticky entanglement of their cooling limbs, for he said nothing anymore.
As time passed uncounted, Aximand's breath evened out and his hold grew slack. Loken gave it another couple of heartbeats before he let go himself.
He dragged himself to his knees, taking in his surroundings. Scrapes covered his legs and his bare foot. His boot sat half hidden behind several pieces of white armor, his bolter lay a little closer. Loken crawled the short distance until he could pick it up. Aximand didn't stir.
Loken scooted back. Crouching over Aximand, Loken took in the wreckage of a face, the trails of bruises and bite marks. In several places blood was already coagulating into brown crusts.
Loken raised an unsteady hand to cradle Aximand's cheek. Slowly he thumbed away some of the filth. Once Little Horus had confessed that watching the other two head out on missions without him left him a little jealous.
"I always want it to be me, going into something like that."
"I know," Loken had replied, "and I'm always just a little afraid."
"Of what, Garviel?"
"That we won't see them again."
"We will," plain-spoken and analytical Aximand had promised. On Loken's pestering how he knew he had added "I can't say," with deliberate irony. It had made Loken laugh.
Loken leaned down and kissed Little Horus on his brow. He withdrew and placed the muzzle of his gun where his lips had just been. Aximand's lashes did not flutter. The bang echoed explosively in the barren room.
Gore splattered Loken's face. He heaved, slumped over the hulking form, ears ringing and the afterimage of the floral murals in the flash of gunfire burned into his retinas.
Eventually, as the body began to cool, he got up.
Slowly, meticulously, he dressed himself. Then he dragged the cuisses to the body and fastened them around Aximand's legs. He rolled him on his side so he could slide the back panel underneath him. Fastened his pauldrons, gauntlets and boots.
Eventually there was only one piece of armor left. Loken turned the helmet back and forth. A thin metal scar ran across it, vertically, beginning right over the brow. It bisected the half moon painted there.
We never had the Crescent in the Mournival before, Loken thought hysterically.
He kept his gaze fixed on the helmet in deep contemplation. There was no head to place it on. There was nothing but the smoking aftermath of bombardment outside and the swaying of Loken's stiff form here.
"Tarik would get a kick out of it," Loken mumbled. His own words roused him from the trance-like state. Blinking around the room, he spotted his bolter next to the cadaver. Holstering it, he stumbled into the gray outside without dropping the helmet.
The rain had stopped, but in the distance a foreboding thunder announced the arrival of enemy infantry.
Loken briefly considered taking the helmet home. He pictured placing the shell of Aximand's former self on his repurposed ammunition crate, next to Tarik's cloak.
There was a tracker in it. Even if there wasn't, the communication channels could be traced. Loken beheld the dusty brightness of the freshly smoking wasteland. Then he wound up and hurled the helmet as far as he could. It bounced twice before it tumbled out of sight. Loken staggered away and continued his trek alone.
When it came to the last of the Mournival, death had found Loken kneeling after all.