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Khepri doesn’t ask for permission when Abaddon unravels his hair, nor does he wait to be prompted. Abaddon is too stubborn to follow even the simplest of the medicae’s orders. He slips into the water behind him, washcloth in hand, undeterred by the grit and grime and caked-on blood. He doesn’t scrunch his nose or sneer at the stench of healing salves, doesn’t shy away from what must be years or even decades of filth.
He works without question, slow and methodical, humming softly to himself in the silence of the bathhouse. Abaddon is somewhat healed but not well. Khepri makes note of the feverish heat surrounding his wounds as he washes, cataloguing every fresh addition to the map of scars and ink. Faded tattoos are cleaved in two and sewn back together over his back and shoulders, creating a patchwork of stories that speak more by themselves than Abaddon will ever say aloud. Khepri knows he’s simply a stand-in for Khayon, but it feels like an honor to witness such a thing, even in their current predicament.
At first, Abaddon resists his tediousness. He shirks too-close touches, nudging Khepri’s hands away or outright avoiding him. Though his mind is still guarded, Khepri can sense his discomfort rolling off him like the steam rising from their bath. It isn’t the nudity or even the intimacy of sharing a bath that torments him, Khepri knows. It’s the lack of ceramite plate between them.
Without his armor, Abaddon feels vulnerable in a way he was never built to understand. He isn’t afraid, but he’s too aware. Aware of every exposed vein and artery, every pulse point, every thin spot in his scarred skin. All weaknesses that make him mortal in the hands of another.
It’s an automatic behavior, born of self-preservation and not of distrust. Khepri continues, easing him into predictable motions, telegraphing his intentions until he begins to relent. He bares his chest like a wounded animal, guarded but somehow needy in the way he looks down at the sorcerer.
Abaddon’s newest scar is his heaviest to bear. Astartes healing is not a process built with vanity in mind; his body has closed the wound, but not gracefully. Sigismund’s final strike draws a mountainous line of scar tissue over his broad chest, still gnarled and pinkish, some of it cratered with the leftovers of stitches and staples. Khepri lays a hand against his sternum and waits patiently, listening to the idle rumble of his twin hearts for a moment that lingers far too long.
“What are you humming?” Abaddon asks. He doesn’t look at Khepri.
“A Tizcan song. It’s something like a folk story,” Khepri answers. “Should I stop?”
“No.”
Khepri nods, reaching for a clean washcloth. The water around them runs black with dried blood, reflecting their silhouettes in the low light. His own psykana manifests as it always does when he’s content, producing little wisps of morning sunlight that drift over the bath and flicker with interest. He isn’t surprised when Abaddon attempts to touch one, cupping a massive palm beneath it that Khepri can sense in his mind’s eye.
“It must be early morning,” Khepri says, watching the wisp curl between Abaddon’s fingers. “Or should’ve been, I suppose.”
“You and Khayon are the most sentimental creatures I’ve ever known,” Abaddon grumbles.
“Maybe so. But you carry Chthonia with you, too, just as Telemachon carries Chemos.”
“I don’t dwell on it.”
“It’s just something that is me, the same as your hair and teeth. You’ve already carved the ones they replaced, haven’t you?”
Abaddon scoffs, baring his scrimshawed teeth in a half-hearted sneer. Khepri can tell that his mouth has been mildly reconstructed, mostly with anchors to shore up what Sigismund broke, but he notes just how many of his teeth are missing their familiar ink. He wonders if the surgeons scoured his mouth the way they did his chest wound, always indelicate and too hasty.
“How do you ink them?” Khepri asks, reaching for his face thoughtlessly.
To his surprise, Abaddon lets him touch. He doesn’t balk at the gesture. Khepri skims the pad of his thumb over Abaddon’s upper lip, a warning, a request for permission. When no reprimand comes, he touches the Warmaster’s too-sharp canines. Just once, just enough to feel the ragged grooves before he knows he’s overstayed his welcome.
“Soot,” Abaddon answers. “Soot and iron.”
“Like your tattoos,” Khepri muses.
“Yeah. Same thing.”
“I need to wash your hair.” Khepri chooses his tone carefully. “You shouldn’t raise your arms again.”
The statement seems to parse in stages. Abaddon seems perturbed, his jaw clenched as if he has to physically bite back his words. Then anger, suspicion, and finally reluctant acceptance. There’s an unusual tiredness in his eyes that Khayon observed once, just before Moriana had boarded the Vengeful Spirit. A world-weary, exasperated sort of tiredness that can only come from bearing the weight of a thousand stars for just as many years. Khepri encourages him to lounge on the tiled steps, capitalizing on such a brief moment of exhaustion when he knows Abaddon will relent.
His hair is a matted mess as Khepri expected, snarled around old blood and wind-whipped beyond reason. It takes several passes of cleansing oils and soaps just to loosen the nests of filth. Even when the water runs clear again, it still feels as though his hair is sticky with remnants of the suspension fluids in his healing tank.
Combing it is nigh impossible. Khepri separates it by hand for quite some time, massaging a fragrant balm into each knot until they begin to work apart. Abaddon’s only complaint is that the balm smells heavily of incense, unbothered by Khepri’s tugging and pulling.
“Do you know why I don’t trust you?” Abaddon asks suddenly, still lounging as Khepri works. “Why Khayon’s word is not enough?”
“No, Abaddon,” Khepri murmurs.
“You lunge at every opportunity to appease me.”
Khepri pauses. Despite touching Abaddon, having his hands in his hair and his hulking body between his knees, he still can’t breach the defenses of his mind to pick apart his intention. Calmly, he begins to comb his fingers through the very ends of his ragged mane, working his way up as he waits for a lecture.
The lecture never comes. No speech, no scolding, no commentary.
“Is that not my station?” Khepri counters. “Khayon—…”
“Khayon is not some docile, subservient creature,” Abaddon says. “He has a spine. He gives resistance, friction. His willfulness shapes him into something I can work with.”
“You want a tool.”
“No. I want substance. You are a shapeless, formless thing because when I call for you, you rush to me like water poured from a cup. I cannot take the measure of a man who only keeps the shape of other vessels.”
Khepri sighs, settling in for the final stretch of combing and preening. He knows what Abaddon means, truthfully, but it galls him to think that Khayon led him astray so easily. He mulls over his words, stifling the wisps of his own sorcery that still hover over the water beside them.
“I think,” he starts, inching closer as he works, “that there are pieces missing from our board.”
“Oh? Now you have opinions?”
“I do. First, when you brought me aboard, I was led to believe that my survival hinged upon my subservience.”
Abaddon gives a quiet scoff, almost a laugh.
“It was made very clear to me that you would not tolerate anything less than the most devoted equerry. Two, I fear you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be formless, as you phrased it.”
“Educate me, Neb-heru. Enlighten me.”
Khepri bristles at the way his Chthonian accent draws out his given name. He brushes tediously for a moment longer until Abaddon’s hair slips between his fingers like satin ribbon, far too exquisite for a man who would eat the hearts from his chest for taste alone. It drifts along the surface of the water in curling black tendrils, impossibly long, glossy with the finest oils Khepri could synthesize. So much effort, and for what?
“You know as well as I that there is power in being unknowable,” Khepri continues. Carefully, tentatively, he smooths his hands over Abaddon’s shoulders. Muscle ripples beneath his touch. He takes this as a sign that his attentions are acceptable, leaning closer, pressing his cheek to the cool port just above Abaddon’s ear. “And that adaptability means survival. If I am to live in the ever-changing currents of the Warp, I must learn how the river flows and follow suit.”
“Why not bend the river itself?”
“You know the answer.”
“I have my own, yes. But I want to hear yours,” Abaddon says, low and rough. He’s hooked, invested in their little game.
“As a sorcerer, there is no subjugating the Immaterium,” Khepri says. “It would be foolish and arrogant to believe I could do such a thing. But if you see it as a river to be tamed, there are ways to build around it. Or in it. Like the water wheels that powered the forges on Chthonia. You can certainly carve yourself a niche in one part of the Immaterium and watch it move around you—…”
Bolder now, Khepri trails his fingertips over Abaddon’s chest, tracing his scars as he finds them. He presses himself close, bodies flush, his own voice hushed and sweet in contrast.
“—…but why would you settle? Why not move with it and see where it takes you?”
“All this brings me back to my original problem,” Abaddon says, glancing back at him over his shoulder. “I can’t measure a river.”
“I’m not the river, Ezekyle. If you say I take the shape of a given vessel, then show me the proper vessel.”
Abaddon shifts, wanting to reach for Khepri, but Khepri stills him. The water makes the transition into his lap effortless; strong, calloused hands claim Khepri’s hips, trapping him there, his knees splayed wide to accommodate Abaddon’s massive figure.
“Khayon is your blade, and you have made him so. What am I?” he presses.
“A serpent. A whip,” Abaddon says, following the arch of his spine. Khepri makes a quiet noise, searching blindly for the ports that dot his chest. “Pliant, but not soft. Coiled. Quick. Agile.”
“Precise.”
“Deadly.”
Khepri smiles to himself, letting his face rest against Abaddon’s collarbones. He slips his ring finger into the port above his hearts, searching for the protective membrane inside, teasing without breaking the surface tension. It provokes the same rush of hormones that they all feel as their bodysuits are engaged and armor mounted, a flood of endorphins and adrenaline meant to spur battle-lust, but his light touches are just a taste. Just enough to make the blood run hot. Abaddon’s growl is so low that it can be felt in the rattle of his bones rather than heard.
Too-sharp teeth rake along the top of Khepri’s shoulder, testing the softness of skin. Abaddon licks at his pulse as if he dreams of biting down on his throat, trapping him like a prey animal to be gutted and smothered.
“Ashur-Kai says you will be the death of me,” Khepri says, barely a whisper at Abaddon’s ear. “That you will pull me apart and swallow me piece-by-piece.”
“I will. And I’ll pick your bones clean when I’m done.”