Archive of Our Own

They spent six hours on the open, frozen ocean, distress beacon blinking up at the sky. No one came to rescue them.

Rawne sat folded up in a ball, numb hands tucked into his armpits, and watched the second sun dip towards the horizon. Gaunt sat quietly beside him, conserving heat in a similar way. By then the unforgiving wind had blown drifts of snow up around them, the landscape trying to devour them centimetre by centimetre. Frost crusted the scarf drawn up over his face, the condensation of his breath freezing on the fabric.

Rawne had spent the first two hours fantasizing about a hot shower and the bottle of sacra he’d down the moment he got off this forsaken planet. The next two he’d spent trying to will feeling back into his lower half. He’d entertained himself by imagining increasingly elaborate ways to kill Gaunt for bringing them here. The last two he’d spent wondering if the Imperium had already written them off and left. If he and Gaunt were the only two bastards left for a million square kilometres.

Gaunt had promised him a planet, and here it was. A worthless ball of ice, good for nothing except to die on. Ha ha.

Catastrophizing was easy. The truth was that the guard would only leave if all the orks were dead. The last time he’d seen his regiment they’d been scattered and leaderless. It seemed rather unlikely they’d managed to turn it around, slaughter every ork on the planet, and then marshall a complete withdrawal back into orbit during the time they’d been sitting there freezing their asses off. A sudden, freak victory he could buy, but efficient marshalling of resources? Out of the question.

Alone or not, hopeless or not, it was up to him to put in the effort to survive. With the sun setting and the frigid air starting to drop those few fatal degrees further, they’d run out of time to wait for a convenient rescue. Unless they found shelter by the time the light faded, they’d end up another frozen piece of the landscape, the snow drifting to cover any evidence of their stiff corpses.

A pathetic, useless death. Not even Gaunt deserved that. Not when the manner of his death had already been reserved, a bloody debt that Rawne wouldn’t let him default on. Not with all the ways he wanted to savour it still on his mind: The vivid technicolour of Gaunt’s face as it slowly lost oxygen, white then red then purple. The warmth of his skin, the resistance of his windpipe as Rawne bore down on it. The shape of his mouth as he gasped and begged for mercy and Rawne dug his nails in deeper.

The weather wasn’t going to kill Gaunt. That was Rawne’s job. And it wasn’t going to kill Rawne, because he needed to kill Gaunt. And frankly, he wanted to live. As stupid and annoying as this existence was, dying was stupider and more annoying. Especially like this.

That left going back into enemy territory, blind and basically alone. At least where there were orks, there would be imperial guard to reunite with.

Hopefully.

He grimaced, flexed his toes to prove they were still attached to his feet, and stood up. His left leg buckled. He caught himself in an undignified stumble, his injured thigh screaming in protest. The rest of his stiff and cold body screamed too, determined not to be left out. Gaunt ignored him as he swore as eloquently as he knew how. He slapped at the wound, that pain somehow more manageable than the unexpected kind. Feth, it itched. What he’d give for some morphia. Failing that, a cigarette.

“No one’s coming,” Rawne said, kicking snow at Gaunt. He didn’t respond. Uptight prick. “C’mon, move it.”

Gaunt remained silent and still as if he too was carved from ice. Frost crusted his goggles so completely Rawne couldn’t see his eyes. And fastidious, paranoid Gaunt hadn’t wiped them clean. Dread pricked up his neck.

“I’ll leave you here.” He circled the unresponsive man. “Take your pack, too.”

Could he see the rise and fall of Gaunt’s breathing?

“Get up, damn it!” He lunged forward, grabbing Gaunt by the armpits and dragging him upright.

“Nnnh.” Gaunt ragdolled in Rawne’s arms, heavy and useless. His arms hung limp at his sides, his bare hands paler than the snow, skin waxy, fingertips turning grey-blue.

Bare hands. Bare!

Rawne stared at them a moment, blood roaring in his ears, replaying the moment when Gaunt had ripped his burning gloves from his hands and thrown them onto the flaming wreckage of the machine gun they’d destroyed. Seven hours ago, and he’d been shedding heat ever since.

Of all the stupid, pointless—

Rawne hadn’t sacrificed his tanith knife, his piece of home, to save Gaunt’s sorry ass, only to have him die a couple hours later because Rawne hadn’t noticed him turning into a slab of frozen meat.

He heard the bastard’s voice in his head, mocking him for making stupid mistakes because he’d never been deployed in a cold zone before. Hypocritical, self righteous…

Maybe Rawne had never had to survive a planet whose only geographical features were different kinds of ice. So what if Gaunt had? For all his experience he was dying now just the same. And without that experience, without expensive schools and prestigious officer training and imperial resources, Rawne was alive. Because all that wealth meant that Gaunt always expected someone in his corner, some resources to marshall. He’d never been without options.

Rawne survived because he never made the mistake of expecting help to come.

He brought his face close to Gaunt’s, eyes narrowed into hard slits. “You’re not dying here. I’ll drag you every step it takes to reach shelter if I have to.”

The frosted, blank discs of Gaunt’s goggles held no satisfying response. Rage crested up his spine and he yanked them up off of Gaunt’s face so he could see his enemy’s eyes.

They were filmy and unfocused, tracking something in the middle distance only he could see. The corners of his eyes were crusted with frozen tears.

Rawne shook him. “Do you fething understand?”

Gaunt’s eyes wandered across Rawne. It was impossible to discern his expression with his scarf pulled up across his face.

“‘M awake… Oktar… sir,” he mumbled. He raised his arm in a halfhearted attempt at a salute. His fingers didn’t make it to his forehead, falling limply against Rawne’s shoulder instead. Rawne brushed the hand off his shoulder, unsettled.

“Good. Stay that way.” The cogs of his mind turned on their own: who was Oktar? A superior officer, likely from Gaunt’s past. When Gaunt was commanded, not the commander. A figure of respect? Fear? Love? He mentally filed the thread to pull when the timing was right. The past made men unravel.

Rawne slowly let go of Gaunt’s sides. He swayed alarmingly, knees threatening to buckle.

“Stand at attention!” Rawne yelled with a sudden burst of inspiration. If there was one thing Gaunt could do, it was follow orders. Let this be one of them.

“Yessir!” Gaunt stiffened with new strength, decades of training branded into the very foundation of his cerebellum taking over control.

“Show me your hands.”

Gaunt obeyed. Working as quickly as his numb fingers could manage, Rawne drew Gaunt’s— his, it was his, Gaunt had only ever been a thief playing at being tanith— silver knife and cut strips from his cloak.

Gaunt’s hands were so pale it made the hair on the backs of his palms look darker and the scars criss-crossing his fingers stand out. His fingernails, neatly trimmed and well kept, were bruise blue. He rubbed each hand roughly between his own, feeling Gaunt’s callouses catch against his gloves. Then he bound them with the strips of cloak into makeshift mittens. It took him three tries to tie them off, fingers clumsy and fumbling. He shook out his hands in a futile attempt to bring feeling back to them.

Gaunt remained disturbingly silent, swaying back and forth. He’d stopped shivering. Rawne had the vague idea that that was a bad sign. Rawne was used to some prodding banter to fill silences, especially when the two of them were alone. Gaunt reminding Rawne that he was below the commissar, and that Gaunt very much enjoyed his position with his boot on Rawne’s neck. Maybe Oktar didn’t like backtalk.

He looked back the way they’d come, barreling across the ocean in a now sunken sled, pursued by now sunken orks. It was going to be a long way on foot. Kilometres of frozen wasteland, ice whipped into frothy peaks by the grating wind, making it look like the ocean had flash frozen mid storm. Blowing snow eddied over it, a microcosm of the currents still raging below the ice’s crust. And the towering wall of the ice shelf beyond, its blinding peaks kissing the clouds. The final rays of the setting sun pierced it, making its billion years of algae buildup glow. Deep blue, mauve, blood red, creeping up towards the translucent tips like a spreading bruise. Split and cracked into a hundred valleys, the shelf’s maze of caves hid the scattered guerillas they’d been hunting— and a place to shelter for the night. It shimmered and wavered like a mirage behind the gusts of swirling snow. Mocking him.

Gaunt was never going to survive long enough to escape back into the shelter of the ice caves. Cursing, Rawne tore off his own cloak and wrapped it around him too. Gaunt stared at him as he did it, squinting against the light.

“Don’t,” he said. “Too cold. You’ll die.” He pawed at the cloak, trying to push it off. “‘M not as important as you, sir.”

So Oktar was kind. Self sacrificing. Rawne hated him already.

“I won’t die if we move quickly.” He slapped Gaunt’s hands away from the cloak and pulled his goggles back over his face. Gaunt’s eyes were so dark, like the moist dirt at the bottom of a grave. You could fall into them and never climb out. It was unnatural. “So march. That’s an order.”

“Yessir.”

It was strange for Gaunt to be directing that word at him. It knocked the natural order of the world out of balance. Half of Rawne wanted to shake him and yell Pay attention, you bastard! Whoever this Oktar guy is, he’s not the one saving your ass. The other half of him wanted to take it as far as it would go, wring everything he could out of playing Gaunt’s superior. Get on your knees, soldier.

No time for play. He prodded Gaunt forwards towards the distant cliffs.

Time stretched and oozed, malleable, as they marched, heads lowered against the wind. It felt like hours, days, passed, but whenever Rawne looked up to check their progress they seemed no closer than before. It was like they were trapped in one of his nightmares, running in place without ever moving, but this time he couldn’t escape by waking up.

They couldn’t afford to spend a second longer than necessary out in the cold. Feth, they were already in debt and only going deeper. The clock ticked down, impassive, immovable, towards concrete points-of-no-return for survivable core temperatures and percentages of necrotized flesh. Rawne knew he was on the wrong side of it.

He set his teeth and kept walking.

Frost crystalized on his goggles. Wind tore at his jacket and scarf, trying to rip him open and climb inside. Snow worked its way into his seams, up his cuffs and down the back of his neck. It melted cold against his skin.

Gaunt began to lag behind; subtly at first, pace slowing, steps taking on a weave.

“Double time, soldier!” Rawne called over his shoulder.

“Yessir.” Gaunt’s words were a slurred mumble, snatched away by the wind. When Rawne glanced back a few minutes later, he was so far behind that the blowing snow between them turned him into one of his namesake ghosts.

This was untenable. He couldn’t trust Gaunt to keep up on his own, couldn’t afford to slow his pace to match Gaunt’s. Well. If Gaunt couldn’t keep up on his own, then Rawne would apply force. He had promised to drag him.

He slogged back through the drifting snow and grabbed the hem of Gaunt’s doubled cloaks, throwing them up and swinging himself under in one fluid movement before he had a chance to reconsider. Gaunt made a soft, surprised sound, low in the back of his throat. Rawne secured Gaunt’s arm around his shoulders and put his own around Gaunt’s waist, bracing their bodies together. Quick and efficient.

Gaunt sagged into the hold with a sigh, tucking his head in close against the wind. His face found the crook of Rawne’s neck. The thick press of insulating fabric didn’t prevent him from feeling the hard line of Gaunt’s nose against the corner of his jaw. As if Rawne would protect him.

Every hair on the back of his neck stood up. Even delirious and half dead, Rawne never would have shown such weakness. Not to a superior officer. Not to a friend. Not to anyone. He had never expected Gaunt to stoop so low either. It alarmed him.

Rawne kicked him in the shin. “You think I’m being merciful? Keep up, or get dragged.”

It was more hospitable under the double cloaks, sheltered from the wind and warmed by Gaunt’s body. That made it a good idea. A tactical idea. It turned back the hands of the clock, wrung out an extra few seconds of survival. Gaunt shivered against him, convulsive, like a hare in the shadow of a hawk. Even so, there was something reassuring about having Gaunt’s lean body pressed firmly against him. The rise and fall of his ribs against Rawne’s side meant he was alive. He tightened his grip against Gaunt’s waist, winding his hand into his belt, and dragged them forward towards the looming cliffs.

Each step was a battle, the shifting snow hiding bumps and gullies in the ice, the wind a physical wall he had to shoulder through. Three times he stumbled, his foot finding some hidden crack, and once he fell headlong, in a tangle of knees and elbows as he dragged Gaunt with him. His thigh wound screamed in agony and a warm, wet gush informed him he’d torn the perfect stitches Gaunt had sewn into him.

He lay there for a second, soft snow pressing against his face. There was something strangely pleasant about it. The comforting wash of despair pulling a blanket over him and massaging the strength from his limbs. He knew he had to get up. He’d wasted precious seconds falling, he couldn’t afford to waste any more lying there pathetically. He needed to get up. No one was going to help him. It was up to him, and him alone, to make sure they survived. To claw them both every inch of the way to shelter, and not complain when his fingernails got torn and bloody.

He levered himself up onto his elbows, face contorted into a snarl. Blood dripped down his thigh, freezing as it hit snow. Leg spasming from the tension, he pulled himself inch by inch to his hands and knees. The moment he exposed the wound to air the blood froze on his skin, gluing flesh to fabric. Every movement pulled at the scab, sending fresh agony twitching up his body. Sweat poured down his back from that small exertion. The wind battered against him, threatening to knock him over. Lie down. Give up. Die.

An outstretched hand, bandaged with strips of camo cloak, entered his vision.

Gaunt, swaying and shivering but on his feet, offered Rawne his hand.

Rawne ignored it. He dragged himself upwards, forced his injured leg to support his weight, until he was eye to eye with Gaunt again.

Gaunt lifted the corner of his cloaks.

Rawne slipped back underneath without a word, bracing his arm back around Gaunt, and they set out towards the towering glacial spires together.

The sound of screaming welcomed them back into the safety of the glacier. It wasn’t human. The wind ripped through the narrow gullies that split the glacier, its whistle twisting and amplifying into a banshee wail. The valley was a funnel for the wind, not a shelter.

But there were other, narrower cracks within them, capillaries from a vein, and if you chose one right it would open up into a sheltered hollow. A stomach for the glacier to swallow and hold you.

Rawne picked the first offshoot he saw and shoved Gaunt into it.

After Gaunt’s noble burst of strength— trying to offer Rawne his hand— he had declined sharply. Now he was dead weight. Rawne wasn’t sure if he was conscious, but he could still feel Gaunt breathing, the rise and fall of his ribs pressing against Rawne’s side.

Rawne fought unconsciousness himself. Needles pressed into the backs of his eyeballs, like his brain had liquified and was trying to dribble out his skull. For the last kilometre, he had only been able to hold onto one thought, like a mantra: make it to the caves. Make it to the caves, and then… He hadn’t gotten that far yet. Then everything would work out. Then they would be warm. Then they would live.

The floor of the offshoot was slick without snow to cover it. It forced Rawne to shuffle, bracing himself against the wall, to keep from falling headlong. If he fell, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get up again. At least Gaunt’s lifeless body would be comfortable to lie on.

The farther they travelled, the warmer it seemed, although warm was a relative statement. It was still below freezing. But without the cutting wind assaulting his every sense, the tunnel became much more hospitable to life. The wind’s howl was replaced by the occasional creak of the ice surrounding them shifting.

The crack narrowed, claustrophobic, walls closing in around them. He had to squirm his way sideways to fit through it, nudging Gaunt ahead of him with his shoulder. For a brief, hysterical moment, he thought the crevasse would end, and they would either be wedged in and stuck, or he’d have to drag them both back out into the biting storm. He wasn’t sure which appealed less.

Then, wonder of wonders, it opened up into a hollow, large enough to lay down comfortably. The ice walls seemed to glow dimly with bloodstained light, washing them in a sickly red. The air was stale and damp, but at least it didn’t hurt to breathe. It reminded him of an animal den.

He dumped Gaunt onto the floor, then hovered, glancing around the tightly enclosed space. They’d made it to a cave. Now what? He was still cold, so cold, and Gaunt looked like a corpse, lying there with perfect stillness. His thoughts slipped through his fingers, head swimming in fog.

He wanted to be dry, warm and dry. He pulled the wet, frosty scarf from his face and watched his breath fog; like clouds, like smoke. Smoke, smoke… smoke, like fire. Fire!

He dropped his pack to the ground and tore it open, pawing through the meager contents in search of the hazard-orange packaging of standard munitorium issue chemical fire starters. Ammo, a few tins of slab, half a litre of purified water, but not a single block of lifesaving chemicals. With a growl he tossed the pack to the edge of the cave and lunged for Gaunt’s.

Gaunt’s corpse made a small sound of protest as Rawne stripped his bag. So he wasn’t dead. Rawne wished the sound hadn’t sent a heady flush of relief through him. It was a disgusting emotion. But it meant he wasn’t putting in an effort for nothing, yet. There was still a chance to win.

Gaunt’s pack held slightly more: a tactical data-slate, the nearly empty medkit (no morphia. Sigh.), and an emergency blanket folded tight in its foil packet— but no fire starters. They must have used them all last night, or else abandoned them in their hurried escape.

Rawne swore and pulled off his hat and goggles so he could scrub his hands across his face and hair. The stinging pins and needles that shot up his skin at the contact helped centre him. Of course there were no fire starters. That would’ve been too easy. Nothing in this life was ever easy.

He returned to Gaunt’s pack and fished out the emergency blanket. The foil crinkled in his grip. If this was all he had, then he would force it to work. He still had one heat source left. He glanced at Gaunt’s still body. Well, two, technically.

He unclipped Gaunt’s outer, ice crusted cloak, and spread it snow side down on the floor. Then he tore open the foil package and unfolded the emergency blanket. It looked like an extension of the packet— shiny and crinkly, designed to reflect your body heat back at you. Military grade tinfoil. It was large enough for the both of them if they got cozy.

With a sigh and a prayer to the God-Emperor for extended shore leave, or at least for Feygor to never find out about this, Rawne bent down and started unlacing Gaunt’s boots.

He had a vague idea of the proper procedure for hypothermia treatment— something something stay warm and dry. The emergency blanket checked off warmth, but they still needed to achieve dry. And that meant shedding the layers of snow encrusted gear before it started to melt.

He set the heavy combat boots aside and untangled the second, inner cloak from around Gaunt’s shoulders. Even shielded from the worst of the wind by the outer cloak, it was dusted with a layer of snow, like white ash from a flamer. Rawne pulled off his own gloves to get a better grip on the buckles of Gaunt’s webbing and heavy parka. Gaunt struggled feebly as Rawne pulled his arms from the sleeves— it was hard to tell if he was trying to help, or fight Rawne off. One of his flailing hands caught Rawne in the chin. Feth, the noodly bastard packed a punch even when half dead. Rawne caught his wrists and held them safely away from his face.

“Stay still,” he ordered, trying to sound authoritative instead of angry. He didn’t quite succeed.

“‘M cold,” Gaunt complained, straining against his grasp.

“Who cares? I gave you an order, soldier.” Rawne squeezed his wrists until the bones ground together. Gaunt let out a gasp.

“... Sir?” His tone was unsure, but Gaunt stopped struggling. When in doubt, follow your commanding officer. Well trained instincts, if not smart ones.

Rawne kept him in line with a firm hand on his chest as he continued stripping him. Speed and efficiency, that was the best way to do this. No need to linger. He ignored the sensation of Gaunt's sternum rising and falling under his palm as he breathed. How cold his skin was in the brief moments when bare flesh brushed bare flesh.

Hat, scarf, goggles. Gaunt’s grave-dark eyes squinted muzzily up at him. He blinked slowly, eyebrows drawn down, face creased in confusion. Ice crystals clung to his eyelashes, sticking them together in long, wet spikes. His ears and cheeks were flushed a painful red that matched the cave’s walls.

Gaunt grabbed Rawne’s wrist in one mittened hand and Rawne nearly jumped out of his skin at the freezing press of melting snow against the tender flesh.

“Is the inquisitor still here?”

Rawne froze. The memory of a long, equine face, backlit by a halo of surgical light, washed through his mind with such clarity he could feel the leather restraint against his wrists. No, that was— that was just Gaunt’s hand. He yanked his wrist free from Gaunt’s weak grip.

“Give me that.” He grabbed Gaunt’s hand and unwrapped the strips of fabric that served as gloves with perhaps more force than necessary. “The inquisitor is dead. Mad Larks killed him.”

Surely he was dead. The wet, wheezing, gurgle he’d made, crumpled in a heap on the infirmary floor, blood matting the fur on his throat— That wasn’t survivable. It couldn’t be. He’d felt the monster die inside his brain, like an icepick through the eye.

“Hmmm?” Gaunt’s head lolled. “No no, the other one… What was his name? Defay. Mustn’t forget.”

The tension drained from Rawne. Of course. Gaunt was still off in dreamland. He was safe. Rawne ignored his muttering and unwrapped his other hand. His fingers were still corpse white and waxy, but they weren’t any worse than when he’d first seen them. He pressed the hand between both his own, trying to rub circulation back into it. The defrosting must have been working, because Gaunt’s hand suddenly seized against Rawne’s own like a vice. His grip had twice the strength it did before.

“Oktar wanted me to talk to him… I have to do it, before he leaves… Need to tell him about the girl…” he started thrashing, agitated, pulling himself free from Rawne and levering himself onto one elbow. His whole body shook from the effort. “He needs to know I figured it out. She was right. She was right about everything. Right about uncle—”

He’d made it halfway up by the time Rawne got his hands on his shoulders and muscled him down onto the blanket again. He fought Rawne for every inch, desperate and dirty in a way that shot a thrill up Rawne’s spine. He would’ve relished it in other circumstances. Gaunt scratched and kicked, threw his elbows and knees into every soft spot he could find. Rawne slung his leg over Gaunt’s squirming body and used his weight to keep him pinned. Gaunt bucked his hips upwards like a mustang and nearly threw Rawne. He clenched his thighs tight around Gaunt’s waist to stay on.

“Stop it,” Rawne hissed. “Am I not Oktar? You don’t have to go anywhere. Lie still.” He punctuated the last two words with a firm push on his chest.

Gaunt paused, staring at his face. His eyes were the size of saucers. Then Ibram Gaunt, celebrated and feared colonel-commissar, liberator of Fortis Binary, destroyer of Tanith, giggled.

“You? Oktar? Ha, what a funny suggestion. Who would ever believe that?”

Rawne had no more patience left to give. He tore the itchy, insulating fleece over Gaunt’s head and threw it aside. “Well, Oktar doesn’t have time for you right now.”

That shut him up. Gaunt stayed still and silent even as Rawne clambered off of him to unbuckle his holster and scabbard and shimmy off his thick snow pants.

All that was left were his undershirt and wool pants. Rawne had hoped to leave them, but the clothes were damp with sweat— from fear or exertion. Stripped and wet, Gaunt shivered so violently the emergency blanket crinkled in rhythm with it. Without Rawne touching him, he collapsed in on himself, hands hugging his sides. He looked… very small, curled up like that.

Rawne threw the other half of the emergency blanket over him and shed his own layers. Webbing, parka, boots, belt, snow pants, fleece. He wasn’t putting off stripping Gaunt, he was… he was going to have to strip himself too, eventually. Might as well do it now. Spare himself a few seconds of staring at a naked Gaunt.

He pulled his own undershirt over his head and peeled off his wool pants. Dried blood had glued the pants to his thigh, and he had to painstakingly pull and scrape to separate fabric from skin. He gritted his teeth every time he pulled too fast and pain lanced up his leg. Once it was off, he took a moment to inspect the wound. It actually didn’t look half bad— the edges were holding together, covered by a heavy clot, and the skin wasn’t inflamed or swollen. The sutures he could see looked intact— he must have only popped a single stitch. It hurt, but only enough to complain about if he was feeling annoying. He gave it a wipe with his pants to get any loose crust off. Good enough.

Gaunt’s turn. His breath steamed in the air as he kneeled there in his underwear, staring at Gaunt’s outline. The cold air pricked needles in his skin, making him hyperaware of every exposed inch. Wrapping in that thermal blanket seemed very appealing now.

Rawne wanted to say he was about to be closer to Gaunt than he’d ever imagined. That’s what he’d tell any of the ghosts, if they ever found out about this. But he’d be lying. He had dreamed of Gaunt almost every night since Heldane had operated on him; both fantasies and nightmares. The difference was that in them Gaunt was usually red faced and begging, entirely at Rawne’s mercy. Not pathetic and limp and hallucinating. There was no pleasure in it when he didn’t fight back.

Rawne pulled back the edge of the emergency blanket and bundled himself inside, pressing close against Gaunt’s lean body so he could tuck the edge of the blanket back underneath them. He piled their discarded clothing overtop of them in a haphazard nest. The weight of them already felt warmer.

Then he twisted around to face Gaunt. He still had his arms clutched around himself, fingers twisted into the damp fabric of his undershirt so tightly it looked painful. Rawne pried the fingers free one by one. It took several tries, as Gaunt kept digging his fingers back in, until Rawne’s frustration peaked and he grabbed both hands in one of his own, pinning them above Gaunt’s head. He pulled the undershirt off one handed with what he regretted to admit was practiced efficiency.

Gaunt’s bare chest looked different than it did in Rawne’s nightmares. It was strangely comforting, to know that there was something his subconscious was making up. That of everything Heldane had implanted in his mind, a prophetic knowledge of Gaunt’s naked body wasn’t one of them. Gaunt’s body had the lean, functional muscle of the guard, too much exercise and not enough food; dusted with light hair spattered with silver. His flesh was pockmarked with scars like a well used but poorly loved knife. Rawne stared openly at the long, puckered scar cutting a trench through the hair trailing down his stomach, the edge of skin chewed and ragged with the trademark carnage of a chainsword. He’d only ever seen that kind of wound on limb stumps— or corpses. That would’ve been a disemboweling blow. He wondered in fascinated horror how much of Gaunt’s intestines had been resectioned.

He didn’t suppress the compulsion to run his fingers over the scar. The skin was tight and shiny, the hair soft.

“You are a cockroach,” he breathed.

Gaunt squirmed under his touch. “No, it doesn’t work as a third hole.” He looked up at Rawne through lowered eyelashes. They were long and dark, almost feminine. “Or are you hoping to rub off on me?”

The image came to mind unbidden: rutting against Gaunt’s stomach, how the ridge of scarring would feel against the underside of his cock. How his cum would look spattered in the hair on Gaunt’s stomach and running into the troughs of his scars.

He flushed from his face down to his chest. Gaunt didn’t have enough brains to fill a teaspoon right now, but he still felt like he was being mocked.

“Excuse me?” Every word was clipped and precise.

“I think it’s all I’m good for tonight. I’m sorry.” Gaunt’s hands flexed weakly against his grasp. “I can’t feel my… anything, really.”

Rawne dropped Gaunt’s hands, scowling. His heart pounded. “And who do you think I am now?” Who did Gaunt dream of bedding? What was Gaunt’s weakness?

Gaunt’s eyes were glazed and unfocused, struggling to track him. His lips moved, caressing the syllables of a name Rawne couldn’t decipher. “...no, that’s not right…”

Rawne leaned closer, straining to hear his slurred words. Gaunt raised a cold hand to Rawne’s face, thumb tracing a point of his starburst tattoo, pulling gently at the skin of his lower eyelid.

“...Rawne?”

Gaunt’s face screwed up in confusion, but his eyes cleared, finally focusing on Rawne. He slumped back against the blanket, all the tension drained out of him. “Feth, not this dream again.”

Rawne stilled. This was better than he ever could have imagined. Better than discovering Gaunt’s old flame. Better than the letter he’d stolen, back when he’d first joined the ghosts. Here was the rough edge of a scab, and he wanted to pick and pick until he revealed the whole rotting, exposed wound.

He fought to keep his voice neutral. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Gaunt sighed. “Of course not.”

He waved a flippant hand towards his stomach. Rawne realized one of his own hands still rested on the scar.

“Go ahead. Disembowl me.”

Rawne smiled coldly. “I thought you’d never ask. I’d love to warm myself with your entrails. If only I had my knife within reach.”

Gaunt looked away. Rawne watched his throat bob as he swallowed thickly. “What, don’t feel like using your hands this time?” His own hand found the scar, searching and prodding, as if to make sure he was still sewn up.

Their fingertips brushed, and Rawne pulled his hand away. He lowered it to the waistband of Gaunt’s pants. “Do I haunt you, Gaunt?”

“No.” Gaunt’s hand twitched towards his, then aborted the movement, flattening across the span of his stomach. “Tanith does. You are simply her ghost.”

“You say that as if it will hurt less when I stick her knife in you.”

Gaunt went very still as Rawne peeled the sweat-damp pants off of him and bundled it into their nest of fabric. His wary, shuttered expression was undercut by his violent shivering. Goosebumps covered his body, except for those taut, shiny patches of scar tissue.

Rawne settled himself on top of Gaunt, pinning his hands between their stomachs. Rawne folded his own onto Gaunt’s chest and rested his chin against them, examining Gaunt’s face through lowered eyelids. He looked nervous. Rawne liked that.

“What do you want from me?” Gaunt whispered.

What a loaded question. For him to live, body and mind intact, by the virtue of Rawne’s efforts. To admit he owed Rawne. To shut up. To stop pretending to be the perfect, blameless commander. To struggle in vain as Rawne peeled him open after all, to shudder and weep and bleed as Rawne fingered the writhing eels of his intestine. To yield under Rawne’s hands, completely at the whim of his desires. To fight him every step of the way. To beg for mercy and find none.

They lay in silent contemplation, Gaunt a tense and bony bed beneath him. His chest rose and fell under Rawne’s palms. The nest heated up, defrosting them both, blood returning to his extremities in prickling waves of fire. Gaunt’s hands warmed between their stomachs until they weren’t two blocks of ice pressing into his skin. Slowly, Gaunt relaxed under him, muscles unwinding, melting into the blanket. Rawne’s breath slowed, thoughts unspooling as exhaustion settled its heavy blanket over him and pulled down his eyelids. He settled into a more comfortable position, head falling to nestle in the crook of Gaunt’s neck. He smelled of sweat, meltwater, and the chemical tang of the fatty imperial-issue soap everyone used.

Gaunt didn’t deserve to know what he wanted. To voice it was to hand someone a knife and ask them to gut you. Instead, he closed his eyes and said nothing.

The air in the operating room was cold. The surgical lights were blinding. They whited out most of the room, so when Rawne tried to look anywhere but directly in front of himself it was as painful as staring at the sun. The only thing in perfect clarity was the metal gurney in the centre of the room.

Rawne knew every screw and strut of that gurney. He knew its squeaking wheel, its rusted supports, the caked-in blood along its seams like he knew his own skin. He knew the body on the gurney with the same intimacy.

He padded towards it, the soles of his feet sticking to the cold tiles. He picked up dust and hair with each step, filth worming between his toes. The room stank of formalin and vomit, so thick he could taste it. Something scuttled in the corners. When he tried to look he was blinded by the surgical lights, purple and black spots wheeling across his vision.

He was right next to it now. His stomach churned, restless energy squeezing his lungs and twisting his intestines. Excitement, or fear? Was he savouring the moment, or putting it off?

What did it matter? He knew his duty.

He stared down at the body on the gurney. The body stared up at him with perfect serenity and smiled.

Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, turned out in full dress uniform, medals polished, peaked cap centred, lay chained to the gurney by his wrists and ankles.

That’s stupid, thought Rawne. That uniform’s going to end up soaked in blood.

“Are you trying to make a statement?” he asked.

“It’s a sign of respect.” Gaunt swept a long, slow look up and down Rawne’s body, frowned, nose wrinkled in disdain, eyebrow cocked. “Not that you would know anything about that, it seems.”

Rawne glanced down and realized he was naked. Hot shame flushed across his skin, humiliatingly obvious without any clothes to hide the blood rising to his chest and neck. One hand spasmed into a fist as he aborted the urge to cover himself. He couldn’t let his control slip, couldn’t let Gaunt take it away from him—

He snatched Gaunt’s cap and smashed it onto the floor. “Brave words. Trying to hide your fear?”

“Not particularly.”

Rawne ripped the medals from his chest. They hit the tiles with the clang of bullet casings ejecting from a rifle. He fisted the front of his dress uniform and jerked him upwards to slam him down, hard, against the gurney. Gaunt’s skull bounced off the metal with an echoing crack. Blood seeped from the back of his head, pooling into the seams of the gurney, covering old scabs with fresh pain.

Gaunt tutted. “I thought you needed my brain intact for this?” He smiled up at Rawne with patronizing pity. “It’s a little pathetic how easy it is to get to you.”

Rawne grabbed him by the jaw. Gaunt’s stubble scratched at his palm like sandpaper. He had a familiar, long bladed scalpel in his other hand (surely it had always been there, these things didn’t just appear when convenient) that glinted in the surgical lights, as battered and filthy as the rest of the suite. Rust spotted the blade. It was warm to the touch, like it was alive.

Something hot roiled beneath his skin, clawing up his spine and down his fingers. Here was Gaunt pinned, helpless, at his mercy, and the man still made him feel like he was the one begging for recognition.

“Enjoy your mocking while you can. You’ll be a witless servant soon enough.”

He positioned the scalpel at the meeting between brow and nose, keeping his grip tight on Gaunt’s jaw to hold him still. A spot of blood beaded where the scalpel’s tip met flesh. Rawne’s own brow tingled in sympathetic memory.

Gaunt met his eyes, uncowed. Their deep, dark depths drew Rawne forward, two graves wanting nothing more than to be filled.

“A witless servant? Am I stealing your job?”

An electric spear of rage lanced through Rawne’s chest, whetting his purpose back to a razor edge. He dug his fingernails into Gaunt’s skin and fought to keep it on a leash. He was in control here. Nobody was going to ruin this for him, not Gaunt, not himself.

“It doesn’t matter what you think of me.”

Rawne drew his blade across Gaunt’s brow. Hot blood welled up, trickling down from the cut and into his eye, filling one grave. But his commander’s pull was no less magnetic.

“It doesn’t matter how fething long I waited.”

He pressed until the tip of the scalpel hit bone, the grating resistance vibrating through his fingers. It made an awful scraping sound that set his teeth on edge. Gaunt didn’t flinch.

“It doesn’t matter that everyone else is too weak to do what needs to be done. That I have to do everything myself."

He slid his fingers into the cut, prying the edges apart. Blood gushed from the wound, slicking his hands and making it hard to get a grip. Gaunt’s skin, his slippery layer of fat, his sliver of skull, and Rawne’s fingers all drowned in blood. Its metallic stench overwhelmed the room, smothering him, climbing down his throat and into his lungs. He couldn’t see where he ended and Gaunt began.

“I am going to dismantle you and finally have my revenge. So insult, taunt, jeer all you want. It doesn’t make you any more free.”

The corner of Gaunt’s lips twitched, the same way it did when meeting a particularly out of touch lord-general. That, more than anything, unsettled Rawne. He was missing something. All the officers had held a meeting and he’d been kicked out to guard the room. He shook his head to clear it, so violently it made his eyes ache. But it was too late. Gaunt had wormed his way into Rawne’s skull with those lips, and now he wouldn’t leave.

It was supposed to be him in Gaunt’s skull, damn it. In every sense of the phrase. He pressed his thumb into the corner of the incision and wiggled deeper, maggot-like, into the wound. His searching finger separated skin from bone with a sinewy stretching— resisting at first, then giving way all at once in a cascading tear both satisfying and shocking. He could see his thumb through the taut flesh, stretching it outwards, testing the limits of its elasticity. Gaunt didn’t even flinch. The lack of reaction bit at Rawne like a swarm of insects. He should have been screaming by now. Weeping, begging. Rawne had, Rawne had…

He withdrew his hands with a jerk, the hot sticky mess of viscera suddenly overwhelming. The scalpel clattered to the floor, tumbling from numb, shaking fingers. He shook his hands to try and dry them, splattering blood across the gurney and his own body. A drop landed right on his lips, worming its way into his mouth and onto his tongue. It tasted no different from his own blood, when he’d bitten his tongue from screaming. Blood still dripped from his hands, pooling in the lines of his palms, congealing under his nails. He wiped his hands on his thighs without thinking, smearing blood across more of his skin rather than removing it. It seemed to dry instantly, pulling at his hair with every movement, itchy and tight and unbearable. There was no way to get clean. Panic lunged up his throat. His face burned with a latticework of phantom scalpel cuts. He reached up to his cheekbones and temples with trembling fingers, certain he’d find them gaping, bleeding, flayed skin hanging in tattered pennants.

Heldane’s guttural laugh echoed through the suite. His shadow fell across both surgeon and patient, consuming them. The surgical lights guttered under the strength of his darkness. His fetid breath caressed the back of Rawne’s neck. Cold sweat erupted across Rawne’s back, trickling a frigid stream down the hollow of his spine, as every hair stood on end.

“Poor Rawne,” said Gaunt, dripping blood and sympathy. “Revenge won’t make you free.”

No. He was lying. Rawne was the one in charge here. He wasn’t the one on the gurney. He dug his fingernails into his face until the crescents of pain replaced the memory of scalpel cuts. Gaunt wasn’t going to get to him. Nothing was going to stop him from seeing this through. For Tanith, for his honour, for his own catharsis.

He picked up his scalpel and the surgical lights roared back to life. He fell upon his work with a manic zeal. So long as he held the scalpel, Heldane’s presence fell away, though he could still feel his shadow guiding his hand as he cut and tore and sliced.

Gaunt did not struggle, or beg, or weep, even as Rawne clawed his face open like a child opening a pomegranate, desperate for any reaction. He pushed in harder, deeper, climbing over Gaunt onto the gurney and straddling his chest for better leverage. This was his moment; he wouldn’t get another. And Gaunt was ruining it. He didn’t even care.

“I know this hurts. Tell me it hurts.” Rawne meant to yell the words, but his voice cracked with exhaustion halfway through, turning it more into sob. His limbs trembled with exertion. “Beg for your life. Beg, damn you!”

Gaunt tilted his head towards Rawne. He was nothing more than a bloody skull nestled in a wreath of oozing flesh, his mocking grin now a permanent feature. “Revenge is about catharsis. You’re never going to get that.”

He laughed, blood gurgling up his throat, and it sounded like Heldane.

Rawne awoke drenched in sweat. A claustrophobic tangle of sweaty skin and reflective fabric bound him tight, stuffy and hot as a furnace. For a second he thought he was pinned to a gurney. He thrashed, heart pounding, chest heaving as he gulped stale air. The body fused around him gave a soft oof as he threw an elbow into its stomach. He clawed himself partially free of the cocoon, blood roaring in his ears. The cold air of the cave washed over him like a bucket of ice water across a drunk man in a ditch, the world snapping into sharp and unpleasant clarity.

His face tingled. Scalpel, digging into his skin, blood running down his brow, into his eyes… His body wanted to bolt. Rawne forced every limb to be still and aborted the automatic motion to throw himself across the room through sheer willpower.

“Major, can you please stop digging your fingers into my arm? You’re hurting me.”

Rawne very calmly and nonchalantly unpeeled each finger from around Gaunt’s forearm and settled back into the nest. Despite his thrashing, they were still pressed together from shoulder to thigh, their legs tangling around each other. There wasn’t room for anything else, as much as Rawne would have preferred to be able to look at Gaunt without being two inches from his face.

His face, groggy and concerned and whole. His eyes were clear and alert, his skin warm and pink and healthy. Only slightly scruffier than usual, with his two days worth of stubble and sleep-tousled hair. Somehow, it contributed to his general sense of alive-ness.

Rawne didn’t know if he should be grateful he had one of his nightmares, instead of his wet dreams. The ones where Gaunt forced his cock down Rawne’s throat and he woke up confused and angry and hard.

“So you survived the night.” Rawne did his best to keep his voice cool and level.

“Yes. Do I owe you now?”

Rawne paused to do the tally in his head, then scowled. “No.”

Gaunt’s eyebrows raised the barest fraction. Rawne felt as though he’d accidentally flashed his hand of cards and revealed the best he had was a seven. He’d assumed Gaunt had been keeping track as well.

Time to stop talking about that. “And you’re in the right place and time too. Dorden will be pleased to hear about such a miraculous recovery.” He slid his hand up Gaunt’s arm, over his shoulder to press his palm into the centre of his back, fingers spanning the gap between his shoulder blades. “Although I’m sure you’d prefer Oktar here instead of me.”

“No.” Gaunt said empathetically. Rawne noted the button for further pressing. “No, that would be… He was like a father to me.”

“What? We’re just two men sheltering from hypothermia with the tools available.” Rawne wound his leg more tightly against Gaunt’s, pulling him closer. “One of your Hyrkans, then?”

“Major, I know I was…” he looked away, and Rawne tracked the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed. It was the pause of a man who knew how he could finish the sentence and was trying to abort mission partway. “Not myself. I’m sure you’ll have a good laugh about this with the ghosts, if you can get any of them to believe it. At least you’d improve morale.”

And just like that the admission of vulnerability was neatly sidestepped. Rawne couldn’t stand it. He had been there, he had seen the breakdown, he knew, and Gaunt thought it would be so easy to drive him off? These things had prices.

“Haunted by the past, Gaunt?”

“Something you’re familiar with?” Gaunt snapped, then sighed. “Sorry. That was cruel.”

The sympathy in Gaunt’s voice made Rawne freeze. This conversation shouldn’t be going there. He had been deliberately leading it away from there.

“Especially right now.” Rawne listened with mounting horror as Gaunt kept talking. “I know things have been difficult since you were captured by the Jantine.”

Rawne’s face burned. He thought he’d been hiding it so well— or, if not hiding, then pointedly pretending it wasn’t happening in a way that told everyone else they should ignore it too, if they knew what was good for them. And now Gaunt wasn’t even using it to twist the knife, but he was bleeding out anyways, and Gaunt was staring at him so earnestly. He couldn’t stand it.

“Shut your mouth,” he hissed, blood roaring in his ears.

“I know you don’t want to talk to me, but Dorden would be happy to—”

“I said shut it, you fething bastard!” Rawne lunged for Gaunt’s jaw and pressed his fingers hard across his mouth. Anything to get him to stop talking. Liquid rage poured across his skin, setting every nerve alight. He dug his nails in. That was the only way people listened. You had to use force to get through to them.

Gaunt bit down on his fingers, hard.

Rawne jerked back with yelp. “You child!”

Gaunt had the audacity to laugh. “That’s hypocritical.”

Rawne opened his mouth for a cutting reply, but choking, animal anger stole his voice. He couldn’t string two words together. He could only stare at Gaunt and his totally calm, controlled expression, mouth softly downturned in a concerned frown but his eyes alight with vicious humour. Bare chested and furnace-hot, his long legs tangled up with Rawne’s, and he looked like he thought this was the tactics room, where he had Corbec and the rest of the shit-suckers to back him up. Like even if Rawne flayed the flesh from his skull, he’d be the one laughing.

Rawne wanted to destroy him.

Gaunt opened his mouth— no doubt to say something else unbearably sympathetic. There was a smudge of Rawne’s blood on his lips.

Rawne grabbed him by the neck, surged forwards, and bit him back. On the mouth. Gaunt jerked, full body, but Rawne’s grip was iron. There was nowhere for him to escape. Gaunt’s lips were soft and pliant against his teeth, caught half open in the act of speaking out of turn. Rawne devoured every word from his mouth, swallowed them down to where no one could hear them. He pulled roughly at Gaunt’s bottom lip and let go, laving his tongue over it like he was soothing it. Really he wanted to taste the blood. Gaunt whined in the back of his throat. Rawne tasted that too, electric heat surging through his chest down to his thighs.

He pressed Gaunt down into the ground with the full weight of his body and bit into him again, sliding one hand to fist into the short hair at the back of his neck and hold him in place. Their mingling sweat stuck their skin together, chest and arm and thigh. Pinned together so tightly, Rawne could relish the way Gaunt’s stomach spasmed against his own with every gasp for air. His disemboweling scar dug a rough line into him on each inhale. Maybe he did want to tear it open and climb inside. Let the past kill him.

Gaunt’s mouth stayed soft and open for him, panting, as Rawne kissed him with as much punishment as he could manage. Shockingly, he didn’t fight back. There was no elbow to the ribs, knee to the dick, clawing fingers to the eyes. He lay there, tense and shivering, hands trapped between the press of their chests and balled into fists, and took everything Rawne had to give him. Rawne was almost disappointed.

He pulled back, panting and lightheaded. Gaunt’s hair was a tousled mess, his lips red and swollen, and he had a startled, wild look in his eyes. Rawne probably looked the same. He loosened his grip on Gaunt’s throat.

Gaunt squinted at him. “Are you feeling alright?” He untangled an arm from the press of their bodies to put the back of his hand against Rawne’s forehead. “There’s no weird symbols carved into the glacier that you’ve stared at too long?”

Rawne bared his teeth. “Feth you, I was the one who dragged your hallucinating ass to safety. I’ve always been in control of myself, even when—” He bit his tongue.

Gaunt caught the slip. Rawne watched him file it away as he moved his hand down to press one eyelid open, his tattooed one, the one he’d touched when he’d finally recognized Rawne for who he was. He moved even closer to check the dilation of Rawne’s pupil. Gaunt’s breath caressed his face, and Rawne fought the urge to grab him again.

“I’m not convinced. You’re…” A tasteful pause. “...acting erratically.”

He grabbed Gaunt by the wrist and drew the hand from his face. “Being trapped in here with you is the only thing I’m suffering from. It was that or rip your throat out with my teeth.”

He squeezed, grinding the bones of Gaunt’s wrist together for emphasis. Gaunt twitched, the only evidence of pain. His eyes darted across Rawne’s face, calculating.

“I expect more self control from you.”

“You haven’t seen me lose control yet.” He pressed Gaunt’s arm into the ground, sliding his other hand up his collarbone to span his windpipe. He felt Gaunt swallow under his palm. “You’re still alive.”

“I wouldn’t have made you major if I didn’t have faith in my ability to manage you in any state.”

Even with Rawne’s hand against his throat, the full weight of his lean, muscled body immobilizing him against the ground, Gaunt didn’t look concerned. Like he somehow thought he was in total control of the situation. Bitter, choking hatred rose in Rawne’s throat. What would it take for Gaunt to break? To stop pretending he was the kind of man who always knew what he was doing, who was too noble for fear, who never made a fething mistake?

“And how are you planning to manage me now? Let me fuck you in the hope that it will make me more obedient?”

Gaunt paused like he was actually considering it. Rawne knew that behind that calm face he was calculating all the ways he could play this, deciding which one was the best to convince him to be a good little soldier. As if he needed to be manipulated. As if Gaunt didn’t already hold all the power over him he could ever want.

Gaunt cocked his head. “That depends. What urge are you displacing by fucking me?”

Rawne leaned down until they were cheek to cheek, Gaunt’s rough stubble brushing his skin, and murmured in his ear: “Ripping your guts open with my bare hands, wrenching your ribs apart, and eating your heart.”

He let go of Gaunt’s arm and slid his hand down, down, to stroke his ragged chainsword scar. He was close enough to watch the goosebumps ripple across Gaunt’s neck. Yes, I know you dream of me. Touching your skin. I dream of it too.

Gaunt’s voice was hoarse. “You paint a vivid picture.”

Rawne pressed his tongue to the hollow beneath his ear. He felt the responding, full body shiver as clearly as if it were his own. I’ve got you. Cruel glee sparked in his gut. Not so distant as you want to be. The thought was intoxicating. All of Gaunt’s fragile illusions of authority and virtue— he could tear them to shreds before his very eyes, here and now. And this time, it would be real.

Gaunt twisted his head to look Rawne in the eye. They were nose to nose. “It seems like you have a lot to get off your chest.”

“Isn’t it your job to help me with that, Commissar?”

Gaunt stared at Rawne through lowered eyelids for a long moment, mouth slightly open. He wet his lips. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Rawne growled in the back of his throat, hungry, and shifted his hand on Gaunt’s neck upwards, grasping his jaw and leaning forwards to bite into his lips again. He pressed his fingers into the hinge of his jaw, forcing his mouth wider, licking into it. Rawne fucked Gaunt’s mouth with his tongue with enough force to make him choke.

Gaunt fisted his hands into Rawne’s hair, pulling hard enough to hurt, fire prickling up his scalp and making him shudder. Then he bit down on Rawne’s tongue. Pain exploded like fireworks and hot blood gushed into both their mouths, its inimitable metal taste sweetening the kiss. Rawne let out a groan that shook him right down to his toes. That was more like it.

Gaunt made a noise like he would’ve said something if he didn’t have Rawne’s tongue between his teeth. Don’t talk with your mouth full. He released Gaunt’s face and slid his hand lower, back to the base of his throat, and bore down. Gaunt’s trachea flexed and shuddered under his palm as he held out, stubborn as a terrier. One moment, two, his face reddening, until he gave in and released Rawne’s tongue, gasping. Rawne pressed even harder for a moment more before backing off, although he kept his hand resting lightly against the skin so he could savour every jump and shiver as he gulped air against Rawne’s soft mouth.

“Not like you’re any good at the other half of your job,” Rawne said around his swollen tongue and the blood pooling in his mouth. He swallowed it back to keep from drooling all over Gaunt. He had standards. “Tanith’s last keeps dying in the name of petty infighting, not the Emperor.”

Gaunt’s face contorted into a snarl. He surged up in one powerful motion, hooking his arms around Rawne’s shoulders and his legs around his ankles and flipping the both of them around. Rawne’s back hit the ground and he gasped, the air knocked out of him. Gaunt’s hands went for his neck, but he intercepted and wrested them out of the way. They rolled around the tangle of blankets and clothes, wrestling and clawing and kissing.

Rawne managed to swing a leg over and straddle Gaunt, pressing their hips close in one long, firm stroke. Gaunt gasped. Rawne bit back a noise of his own, the rough friction of fabric against his aching cock riding the edge of pain and pleasure.

The grinding led him to a thrilling discovery: Gaunt was just as hard as he was, the heavy straining line pressed tight against his own impossible to hide. He had thought he’d have to coax Gaunt into it, tease and stroke until biology took over, but it looked like Gaunt was hungry already. So he was a freak who got off on violence, just the same as Rawne. Good. Rawne was going to tear him to shreds.

He got his hands around Gaunt’s wrists and muscled them flat against the ground, Gaunt fighting him deliciously for every inch. He tried to buck Rawne off but only succeeded in rolling their cocks together in another electric stroke. The cut off nngh sound that escaped his mouth drove Rawne half out of his mind. His cock throbbed, heat rising through his belly in a wave. Rawne rolled his hips again, blood pounding in his ears, driving him to keep going, to hold Gaunt down and rut against his lean body until they both came in their underwear.

He sucked a deep breath in through his teeth and forced himself to slow down. There was something he wanted more than to cum, and he wasn’t going to waste his chance by moving too quickly. Eyes pressed shut, he heaved a second breath, then a third, inhaling the smell of sweat and meltwater that filled the cave. The clawing wave of desire ebbed back to a more manageable level.

He sat back, pulling their hips apart, and admired Gaunt below him. His chest heaved as he panted from exertion, angry red lines and livid purple bruises from Rawne’s nails and mouth all across his sides and chest and climbing up his neck. His lips were swollen and red from kissing, his teeth stained with blood. The tendons in his wrists jumped and strained beneath Rawne’s grasp as he struggled to worm free.

His eyes were dark and heavy and focused directly on Rawne. They were still a commander’s eyes, focused and aloof and scheming. That was the crux. The rest was all trappings.

He’d successfully baited Gaunt to anger, but that still hadn’t been enough for him to shed his mask. But he had other tools at his disposal.

He lowered his head to nibble along Gaunt’s jawline, featherlight, his teeth barely scraping the skin. Gaunt tasted of salt and ice. He shivered as Rawne’s breath ghosted against his cheek. With him distracted, Rawne dragged his hands together to capture both of Gaunt’s within one of his own, freeing up a hand. Gaunt almost wriggled free, but Rawne managed to catch the escaping arms and slammed them against the ground.

He brushed his newly freed hand down Gaunt’s side, softly, so softly. Goosebumps rippled in the wake of everywhere he touched. He mouthed lower, sucking lazily against the base of his throat, then lower still, laving his tongue across a nipple. Gaunt gasped and squirmed in his grip, twisting a leg around Rawne’s hip in an effort to push him off. Rawne pricked his ears. He licked again, slow and flat tongued, tasting the sweat on his chest before sucking softly. Gaunt let out a choked groan and the leg around his hip turned into a vise trying to bring their hips together instead of pushing them apart. Rawne could have laughed when he realized Gaunt didn’t have enough leverage to do it.

He returned his attentions to Gaunt’s chest and ran his hand back up his flank to rub his other nipple. He paused to lick his fingers and then rubbed again, slow torturous circles matching the pace of his tongue.

“Feth,” Gaunt gasped. He tried to pull closer, heel digging into the small of Rawne’s back.

“That’s a Tanith oath, use another.” Rawne delicately closed his teeth around Gaunt’s nipple.

“Fuck… Fuck-”

Satisfaction coiled in Rawne’s gut. So now Gaunt would take his orders. No need to pretend to be Oktar anymore. Gaunt flexed and strained under him, like an animal in a snare, helpless and needy. It overwhelmed him with a wave of desire, writhing up his chest, impossible to ignore.

In the same movement he pinched and bit down, hard, on Gaunt’s nipples. Gaunt arched off the ground like he’d been struck by an electric current.

Rawne released his nipple, unable to keep from palming his own dick. It wasn’t enough. Not with Gaunt looking the way he did— flushed, disheveled, a vision out of Rawne’s tangled dreams. But the picture wasn’t perfect yet.

He grabbed Gaunt by the hip and wrestled his underwear down, coming just short of tearing it from his body in his zeal. He chose to believe Gaunt was trying to help him with his wriggling, his body begging when his mouth wouldn’t. It would get there too once Rawne was finished. He threw the underwear over his shoulder into some corner of the cave.

That completed the picture: Gaunt bare and trapped beneath him, his flushed cock curving up against his belly, the curly hair pointing to it like an arrow, begging Rawne to suck it.

Rawne let Gaunt watch his long, lingering once over. He wanted Gaunt to feel his gaze like hands caressing everywhere. Gaunt had his own eyes fixed on Rawne’s face. He wasn’t allowing himself to look at Rawne’s lean body, the hard muscle of his chest that led to the cut vee of his hips that pointed to the silhouette of his cock straining against the fabric of his underwear. He knew he was gorgeous. He had eyes. Did Gaunt think not looking afforded him dignity, or was he into self denial?

He slid his hand up and draped it across Gaunt’s throat. His pulse hammered underneath his palm, strong and vulnerable and alive.

This was everything he wanted, right in his grasp.

“I’ve figured out what I want from you.”

Gaunt’s pupils were dilated. Sweat trickled in a slow line down his temple. “Oh?”

“I want you to ask me.”

“What?” Gaunt’s voice was hesitant and thin, like he wasn’t sure he’d understood, or was afraid he’d heard exactly right.

“Ask me to touch you. Or else I won’t. And you want it so bad, I know you do—” The words ran together in a rising pitch, Rawne practically panting over Gaunt’s body.

“No.”

His blood froze. Though hoarse and scraped over, that single syllable was backed by a poise and authority that demanded obedience. His own voice felt very small and strangled in comparison. “What?”

“I’m not asking you to do anything. Don’t get the wrong idea. I am your commissar and this—” Gaunt snaked his leg around Rawne’s thigh and flipped them both in one neat move, his hands suddenly free to close around Rawne’s dick. “—is part of discipline.”

The teeth rattling impact of his back against the ground in symphony with Gaunt’s five fingers pressing down on his cock through the thin barrier of fabric sucked the air from his lungs with the violence of explosive decompression. His hands went to his own waistband without input from his brain’s higher functions, stripping himself with a desperation that made the rational parts of his brain scream with humiliation. Then Gaunt got his hand around Rawne’s dick properly, his long callused fingers squeezing too hard, clumsy and careless as he fought to keep Rawne down with a hand on his chest, and Rawne had to tense every muscle in his body to keep from coming on the spot. He groaned, fingers digging into Gaunt’s hips, and Gaunt swore.

Gaunt worked his cock with short, efficient strokes, the kind Rawne used when jerking himself off late at night and already half-bored with the task. The rough skin to skin friction made his eyes water and heat coil like writhing snakes through his thighs.

“Is this how you touch yourself?” Rawne asked through gritted teeth. “No wonder you’re always wound so tight. You have to admit I was doing a much better job.”

“If I had let you continue, you probably would’ve bitten my dick off.”

“What, scared?” Rawne lunged upwards, snapping his teeth. Gaunt pushed him back down with a firm hand. Rawne let him, enjoying the weight pressing on his sternum and the way Gaunt’s bicep flexed. “I wouldn’t have gotten the chance. You’d have cum the moment I put my mouth to your dick and embarrassed yourself.”

“You think you affect me like that? I’m only here to get this out of your system. However much time you spend obsessing over me, I promise: I have more important things occupying my mind.”

Shame and anger flushed under his skin. “Is that so?” he growled, raking his fingers up Gaunt’s back and fisting them into his hair, yanking his head back to expose the long line of his throat. Gaunt sucked in a sharp breath. His grip tightened on Rawne’s cock. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you watch me? Constantly? While I shoot, while I shave, while I’m in that stupid fething dress uniform—”

“Watching my back,” gasped Gaunt.

“Then why do you always look so hungry?”

That was a lie. He’d never been able to read Gaunt’s face, only feel the weight of his gaze like a pressing-stone. But now he had new pieces to the puzzle.

He pulled Gaunt’s face to his, so close their noses brushed, and stared him dead in the eye. He’d like to see Gaunt escape now. “You wish I would fuck you. Might as well admit it. I know you’re thinking about how you wish your hand around my cock was your own tight asshole instead.” He kept one hand fisted tight in Gaunt’s hair, but trailed the other one down, down, to rub his asshole. “I’d have to keep you from touching yourself, to stop you from coming before I could finish. But I bet you’d cum anyways from just my cock in your ass. Your lack of self control wouldn’t stop me, though. I’d keep fucking you while you were squirming and tender until I was satisfied. You’d cum a second time, too, like a common whore, even as you begged me to stop.”

Gaunt trembled against him, eyes screwed shut and mouth half open, breathing heavily. He settled his legs wider and Rawne rewarded him by stroking down against his taint. Gaunt moaned low and hoarse, tipping forward to bury his face in the crook of Rawne’s neck. Gaunt’s hand on his chest dug in like he was trying to anchor himself more than restrain Rawne. His stroking fist sped up and Rawne moved into it, hunger coiling tighter and tighter in his hips.

“I know all about your fethed up dreams. You’ve lowered to my level, but you don’t want to admit it, because then you’d have to stop playing at being the perfect commander. More noble, more compassionate, more honourable than any of the other officers. But you want me, Gaunt. Your own subordinate. Do you think Oktar would be proud of you?”

Gaunt stiffened and tried to pull away. “No—”

He dropped Rawne’s cock but Rawne tightened his arm around Gaunt’s shoulders, wrapped a leg around his hip, and pulled them flush. He rocked against Gaunt with short, tight strokes, the head of his cock nestling into the valley of Gaunt’s hip. His finger against Gaunt’s taint turned firm and pressing.

“Maybe you’re into self denial. Do you ever touch yourself after staring at me? Was it like how you touched me— too hard, as punishment? Did you ever imagine it was me doing it?”

Rawne tried to worm his hand in between their hips, but Gaunt pinned it with a frantic hand against the ground. “No.”

“Or do you not touch yourself at all? Do you squirm and suffer and pretend your hard on for me doesn’t exist?”

“Will you cum already?” Gaunt’s voice was desperate. His whole body was taut as a wire, his mouth open and wet against Rawne’s neck as his hips rocked, tiny spasmodic thrusts that he couldn’t seem to control. Moving forward rubbed the slick length of his cock against Rawne’s stomach, and moving back pressed Rawne’s fingers deeper against his taint. Rawne had trapped him.

“Almost,” Rawne panted. He could feel it rising like an undertow, licking up his spine.

Gaunt jerked his head up, eyes wide, and looked down towards their intertwined hips and trembling thighs.

“Oh holy throne,” he muttered under his breath, then squirmed downwards out of Rawne’s grasp and closed his mouth around Rawne’s cock.

The wet soft suction of Gaunt’s mouth overwhelmed him. Rawne shuddered and came. Gaunt choked, tongue straining against his length, but Rawne twisted his fingers into his hair and held him in place as he fucked his mouth through the aftershocks. Gaunt clutched Rawne’s hips so tightly his fingernails drew blood.

Rawne unclenched his hands from Gaunt’s hair, smoothing it back from his sweaty forehead. A trickle of cum trailed down the corner of Gaunt’s mouth.

“I am not,” Gaunt said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “Letting you get our only blanket dirty.”

Rawne stretched out and pillowed his hands behind his head, savouring the last few sparks of pleasure prickling his skin. “That’s a shame.” He dropped his gaze to Gaunt’s own cock, still hard and flushed a painful red against his thigh. “Because I don’t particularly feel like sucking yours.”

That was a lie. He wanted to hold Gaunt down by the hips and suck him until he came, then keep licking and sucking until he was sobbing with overstimulation. But he held out hope for one more chance to make Gaunt beg.

“That’s fine,” said Gaunt, already turning to search their pile of clothes for his discarded underwear. “Are you feeling suitably obedient now that you’ve worked that out of your system?”

His voice was cool and distant, as though he wasn’t affected at all, as if this were all a favour to Rawne. Another tally to be added to the long list of things he owed. But Rawne saw the way his hands trembled, the way he shifted back and forth on his haunches, the way the head of his dick was wet and shiny with precum, and knew that everything he’d whispered in Gaunt’s ear had been true.

He could button it up behind his uniform pants and starched collars, but he couldn’t make Rawne forget the way he’d arched up into him so desperately. Or that if he wanted, Rawne could sneak into his billet in the dead of night and make him swear and tremble and fall to pieces all over again. Even if he never did it, Gaunt would always know that he could.

From the look on his face, Gaunt knew exactly where his train of thought travelled.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, buttoning his shirt cuff.

Rawne could feel Gaunt’s saliva cooling on his dick. “Kill you. Eventually.”

“I’ve bought myself another day, then.” He huffed out a laugh and tossed Rawne his pants. “In that case, let’s pack up. We need to make contact with the rest of the unit and reassess our tactical situation.”

And they were back to business. Rawne pulled his clothes on and went searching for the rest of his kit. And even though he’d never gotten Gaunt to beg, never gotten him to fully bare his ugly centre, he couldn’t hold back a smile. Because this had only been a scouting mission.

Now he knew where the cracks were. Next time, he would dig in and pull.