Brothers In Cold- WH40K (Horus Heresy)
Written for the Canadian Shack 10th Anniversary Party 2012.
Summary: Genetically engineered test-tube godlings finally learn to get along.
The space hulk was jokingly called The Canadian Shack by the explorator team. The fused ships had merged in such a way that from a distance, the Terran lieutenant who had provided the nomenclature said, its surface resembled northern log cabins shown in the history books of Merica. Dorn didn't find the moniker as hilarious as Magos Suda, who was in charge of the Mechanicum explorator ship and evidently an expert in early Terran history.
Given the nature of their creation, space hulks were irregular things; no two looked the same. Yet The Canadian Shack boasted such a horizontal regularity that one could almost imagine it had been crafted with a deliberate hand. Impossible, of course. Still, the magos explorator could barely contain her excitement at the chance to study this unusual find.
It so happened that the Shack translated into real-space near the Cheraut system, where the expedition fleet comprised of the III, VII and VIII Legiones Astartes was headed. Upon intercepting the message that a space hulk had been found, a small contingent of the main fleet detoured to support the explorator team in their mission. The rest continued on their original course.
Rogal Dorn, defacto commander of the expedition fleet, though his brothers Fulgrim and Konrad Curze were also present, had been rather stressed during transit time. He wasn't close to many of brothers and he hoped these joint expeditions would foster a better relationship between them, as well as between their legions.
It hadn't worked.
He had no quarrel with Fulgrim; they just had little in common aside from a strong sense of responsibility to the Emperor and his budding Imperium, and a nature that fostered self-improvement and self-discipline. Dorn never knew what to say to Fulgrim about the arts, and Fulgrim didn't subscribe to the stoic ideals Dorn favoured.
With Curze...
As Dorn cut down another greenskin with his chainsword, he sighed with frustration. Sigismund's suggestion that he might improve his mood by slaughtering xenos scum for the explorator team had not worked as well as he'd hoped. The few greenskins found infesting the space hulk were finished off too easily to be more than a minor distraction. When Dorn caught sight of his morose brother swiping at a large greenskin with his crackling lightning claws, his own dark thoughts came flooding back to him. Blood splattered the plain, white, octogonal corridors of the ancient Terran starship that made up this part of the Shackas they sliced through the greenskins, still-pulsing pieces falling to the ground with heavy, wet smacks.
Curze caught Dorn's stare, the red lenses of his winged battle-helm glinting in the embedded lights of the ship.
"Brother?" came the soft, throaty growl of Curze's vox-distorted voice.
Dorn looked away, checking in on the vox-net how their boarding party was faring. Space hulks were notoriously hard to scan given interference from both their unique structure and warp taint, but it seemed initial assessments were correct that the Shackonly carried a small force of greenskins. Nonetheless, He and Curze had found themselves separated from the rest of the boarding party. A trifling matter, for two such beings as them.
"Let's push on," Dorn said, "we should get back to the Cheraut system."
Of course, that was when it happened.
They had stepped into another ship, from the long corridor of the last one into a dank, gunmetal gray room that seemed to have been crew quarters at some point in its life. Rows of empty bunks like metal skeletons stretched into the gloom. Dust and scraps were all that remained of the mattresses they had held. There was a loud creak and the groan of stressed steel.
Suddenly, the connection to the room was sealed off, preventing the primarchs from backtracking to rejoin their forces. The temperature dropped sharply, a rim of frost crackling around the edges of the room, and Dorn and Curze immediately regrouped, weapons up. Witchcraft, or a holdover of the warp still running through the space hulk?
The lights flickered, then cut out.
Their armour powered down. The regulators in their suits whined, cycling off, and soon the cold seeped in.
Metal on metal, they left dents on the walls as they rammed forcefully into them with their armor. Bolter rounds exploded uselessly, leaving black discoloration in their wake. Both Dorn's chainsword and Curze's gauntlets had lost power as well, though it didn't stop them from using the weapons as blunt with the strength of their arms and their weapons, they barely scratched the surface of their unexpected their suits inoperable, they couldn't vox their forces. All that remained for them to do was to wait until the others eventually found them.
Dorn unlocked his helmet, moisture-laden air hissing out and freezing around the gorget of his suit. With the visor useless and the air filters barely functioning, it made little sense to keep it on. He breathed in the chilled air and squinted. He could see nothing in the darkness. And it was getting colder.
"Can you see anything?" Dorn asked Curze.
There was a click and a hiss of depressurized air as Curze removed his helmet as well. After a pause, "There are no exits," said Curze. Dorn trusted his brother's superior night vision. From what little Curze had shared with them, it seemed his life on Nostramo had served him well in at least this aspect.
Dorn could hear a faint rattling sound and the chatter of teeth. Curze was shivering. The environmental protection provided by their armour was gone, and the metal was now as cold as the atmosphere around them. Though their bodies still emitted heat, the insides of their artificer armour were becoming lined with ice. Dorn hardly noticed, having grown up on the Ice Hives of Inwit, but it seemed Curze was used to warmer climes.
"We could share my cloak," Dorn offered. "It will keep us warm until our men find us." He heard a susurration, and assumed it was Curze's hair shifting as he nodded. Curze was tense as Dorn helped him out of his armour. Dorn was unhappy with the turn of events himself, but it was a necessity, loathe as they both were to admit it. The cold was deepening, enough that even Dorn was starting to feel it, his fingers going numb as he worked to undo intricate clasps and locks.
With a final clang, he dropped the last part of his own armour into the pile he'd made, distantly registering the way its iced surface burned his hands. He turned, and frozen fingers grasped the back of his knee. Startled, he almost kicked out in reaction to the unexpected touch before realising it was just Curze trying to guide him in the dark, blind as he was without the light.
Curze was already curled into Dorn's cloak, this one made from the pelt of a Baal beast, a gift from their brother Sanguinius. It was thick and soft, dark red with a brindle pattern, and large enough to cover the two primarchs, if they sat close.
Neither of them was prepared to do that. Dorn had ever been aloof, implacable as the snow-capped mountains of his youth and it was rare that anyone touched his naked skin nowadays except during combat practice. Curze... was Curze. Dorn doubted Curze trusted anyone enough to even hold hands.
Still, to resist in these temperatures would be suicide, and Dorn was pragmatic. He slipped under the cloak and settled down next to Curze, deliberately close. Curze flinched at the contact. His body was smarter than his brain though, and Curze leaned back in to greedily take advantage of the heat Dorn radiated.
Curze's skin was icy against Dorn's, but as they sat under the cloak, it warmed. Not used to such intimacy however, Curze kept shifting, wiggling back to bask in the warmth only to jerk away again, unable to accept such weakness. It was irritating, and each movement dislodged the edge of their impromptu cocoon and allowed heat to escape and tendrils of ice to slip in.
"Oh, come here," Dorn said crabbily, and pulled Curze close. He wrapped his arms around Curze and ignored his protests, hissing, and scratching. It was like hugging a large cat. "Stay still." For good measure, he maneuvered his leg on top of Curze's and held them down.
"This is uncomfortable," Curze said unhappily into Dorn's neck. It tickled a bit.
"Well if you have a better idea, I am open to hearing it," Dorn replied. This close, he thought he could make out the curve of Curze's pale ear under his own nose.
Curze was silent and still, tense in Dorn's embrace. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and whisper quiet. "The last time someone held me, it was our father. I was... incapacitated at the time."
Dorn didn't reply, unsure of what he could say in response. He continued to hold his brother as he stared sternly out at the darkness surrounding them. Perhaps this was more of that familial feeling that humanity spoke of. That strange blossom of protectiveness that grew as he held his brother in his arms even though he knew full well that Curze was capable of tearing a world apart with his bare hands. Dorn had not felt like this in many years, not since his grandfather had died. He rested his chin on Curze's head gingerly, and pretended he was a child again, cuddling for warmth in the dark.
Curze bit him.
Dorn held on with stoic disapproval. Curze's biting became a steady, rhythmic chewing. Wincing, Dorn realized his brother had fallen asleep and was gnawing on his pectoral the way a babe would at his mother's breast. Well, this was closeness as well, he reasoned and settled for an evening of discomfort. It wasn't terrible. A hard life of hard training and his genetically-engineered body had left him with a chest as steel-strong as a ship's bulwark. Curze's teeth weren't anything against such power and it was actually somewhat pleasant once he acclimated to the sensation. Odd, but pleasant.
After some time, ensconced in warmth and unaccustomed intimacy, Dorn thought, Yes. This closeness is actually very nice. Perhaps they should try this more often.
THE END.