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beckyninja · 14 days ago

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Desecration

Pairing: Demetrian Titus x FemOC

Warnings: A lot of dark implications in this one, Leandros is almost at the depths of his corruption; mentions of surgery

The Vengeance Squad is on the way! But will they be in time?

Find the previous parts of this series on my Masterlist. Comment and ask to be added to/removed from the Taglist. And remember, my DMs and Asks are open!

Something is wrong.

Titus felt it the moment he stepped from the Thunderhawk’s ramp, back into the hangar of the Resilient. Everything looked as it had when he departed. Tech adepts labored over machinery, chanting as they worked. Servitors shuffled and clanked. Serfs bustled about on a thousand different tasks.

None of those serfs were Sera.

Unsurprising. From the expressions on my brothers’ faces, it seems no one expected my return.

Rationality declared he had no reason to expect her presence. But something else… something deeper… snarled.

Something is wrong.

Titus began his march toward the Apothecary. Reports to Captain Acheran could wait. His twin heartbeat spiked, with anticipation or anxiety he could not tell. He quickened his pace until his armor creaked in protest. A few Ultramarines called out as he passed. He ignored them.

“Little Healer.” He rumbled. “Sera.”

Throne, it has been too long!

Too long since the sound of her sweet voice. Too long since her soft arms twined about his neck. Too long since he inhaled her intoxicating fragrance.

Titus ached.

And still, the nagging thought.

Something is wrong.

He turned a corner, nearly trampling a pair of techpriests, and came into sight of the Reclusiam.

Blood.

The scent jerked him to a halt. Every detail of his surroundings burst into sharp definition. Red spattered the floor just outside the great, gilded doors. A group of cleaning serfs huddled off to one side, whispering, their shoulders hunched.

“She wasn’t supposed to be here! Who even was she?”

“I don’t know. She traded places with old Gaius.”

“Why on Holy Terra would any serf want this duty?”

“I’ve never seen… him… that angry.”

A collective shudder ran through the huddle.

“What happened here?”

The serfs flinched at Titus’s booming question. Almost as one, they dropped to their knees, heads bowed. A few trembled.

Titus frowned. A simple question, and these serfs acted as if he’d threatened them with chainsword revving.

“You need not cower. I mean you no harm.”

Finally, a woman with a nose that had been broken sometime in the recent past, spoke. “It is our great shame to tell you, my Lord, that one of our number angered the Holy Chaplain, and he visited his righteous wrath upon her.”

Titus clenched his fists, unease settling in his gut. “Who?”

“I don’t-”

“Wait,” a younger man, missing one eye, broke in, “I think I saw her once, in the Apothecarion.”

Titus didn’t wait for more. With a speed that no being of his size should have attained, he raced for the nearest lift.

Please, God-Emperor. Not her.

***

Chairon paced the Apothecarion. Back and forth. Back and forth. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. He’d never liked this place. The stench of chemicals and antiseptics irritated his sinuses. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

His eyes fixed on the door leading to the surgical room.

“I must return to duty.” Gadriel had said. “I will… make an excuse for you, Brother Chairon. Inform me when the medica is able to speak.”

If she is able to speak.

The thought hurt worse than it should have. The image of Vesta laying there, choking on her own blood, replayed over and over again in his mind. It sparked faded memories of a childhood long gone. Of a boy running through the chaos of the Word-Bearers assault on Calth, finding a burning home.

And the slaughter within.

He’d never forget the choked groan from Apothecary Callistus as he knelt over the writhing body. Never forget the look in his eyes as he gathered her up and tore back to this Apothecarion, Chairon and Gadriel close on his heels.

Once again, Chairon’s eyes darted to the door. Behind which, a team of baseline medicae fought to save a life, overseen by the Apothecary himself.

He resumed pacing.

Warp damn me, we should never have allowed this to happen! We sent an innocent into danger. Alone… unprotected….

Shame wrapped icy fingers around both his hearts. First the Lieutenant’s serf. And now sweet Vesta. Vesta with her eyes that reminded him of springtime on planets long lost.

He should have protected her. He should have protected both of them. He’d failed. And all because of… him.

Rage burned in Chairon’s chest. Clawing to be set free. The same rage he’d felt when he witnessed the cruelties of the Thousand Suns upon Avarax. And again when they fought the Sorcerer on Demerium.

Even if you are not Chaos-corrupted, Chaplain, you are a traitor. One who preys upon the innocent is a traitor to all our Chapter stands for!

And he still had the Lieutenant’s Sera in his clutches.

“Enough!” Chairon turned to leave the Apothecarion. “I can do nothing here. But I can avenge-”

The door hissed open.

“Where is she?”

***

Only an hour had passed since the Thunderhawk unloaded its passenger onto the Resilient, and rumors reached even the innermost chambers of the Reclusiam. A candelabra shattered against the wall, followed by a sparking servo skull. A cherub was snatched from the air and ripped in half.

Bestial snarls sent Sacratium serfs scuttling for safety in the darkest alcoves they could find. They whispered prayers to the Emperor and rubbed aching scars, marks of their Lord’s previous bouts of temper.

“Alive?!” The roar ripped through the incense-clouded air.

Leandros stood, bare-chested, in the midst of the ruin he’d wrought. Wild eyes darted, searching for another vessel for his wrath. They fell upon the blind servitor he’d assigned to the Harlot’s cell, creeping along, blood-stained bandages clutched in its skeletal hands. A moment later its head rolled to rest at the foot of a shrine.

Titus, alive?! How? No!

He’d been so sure. So sure the mission would bring about the Heretic’s fall. A cleansing of his soul through glorious death. Or, better, a spotlight revealing the depths of his corruption.

Either way, an end to Demetrian Titus.

But, now….

Leandros raked his hands over his face. Control. He needed to regain control! Surely this was a test of some sort. Surely the Emperor would provide clarity if he just listened hard enough, focused hard enough, believed-

The thought slipped into his mind like cool silk over fevered skin.

You tried to pass your task on to another.

He stilled.

Did you not feel it when your whip scourged her tender flesh? The rush of… purpose… when your touch made her gasp in cleansing shame?

Deep, deep within the man Leandros used to be, warning bells rang.

Punishment is your right, your privilege, your duty.

“I see….”

The Heretic returned so you could inflict the punishment that is your due. And what better way to punish him, than to take that which he calls his own?

“I… I have….”

Have you? Have you taken her? In all the ways you dreamed, alone, in the dark?

The warning bells grew louder. He pushed them away.

Images filled his mind. Images he’d barely allowed himself to dwell upon. The Harlot, broken, bloodied, bare, splayed upon his cot.

Punish the Heretic by ruining the Harlot. Desecrate the desecrated. Only then will you be able to purify her soul. And the pleasure you will feel? Your Emperor-given reward for being so, so faithful.

Don’t you want your reward, Chaplain?

Leandros eyes turned toward the cell. His body burned. Hardened.

“I do.”

***

Ultramarines were supposed to be rational. Logical. In absolute control of their emotions.

Titus stood like the marble statues so prevalent upon Macragge. He neither frowned, nor snarled. No bared teeth. No gasping breaths. Still and silent.

He’d never felt more out of control in his long life.

Not Sera.

The sheer relief he’d felt at Chairon’s reassurance. Followed by confusion. Then consternation as his battle brother revealed who did lie near death, in that surgical room. Questions had followed.

Then… emotions. Wild and mixed and nothing like any Ultramarine, any Astartes, should ever feel.

Horror. Grief. Shame. Rage. Horror, grief, shame, rage. Horrorgriefshamerage.

Chairon was apologizing, his voice cracked. Titus barely heard him.

Sera.

He should never have left her behind. Calgar would have understood. Why didn’t he explain? Why didn’t he try?

The Apothecarion door hissed open again behind him.

“Lieutenant!”

Titus turned, slowly, to face Gadriel.

“Sir, I… we… she-”

Titus slammed him against the door with a bang of metal on ceramite. “She was supposed to be safe with you!”

The Sergeant looked stricken. “Forgive me-”

“Forgiveness? You ask my forgiveness?!”

He drew his fist back, only to have it caught by another.

“Brother, no!” Chairon forced himself between the two of them. “Brother Gadriel and I share blame for this. But you never warned us of the hatred the Chaplain bears you. We did not know!”

The anger bled away.

My fault. If I had been honest with my brothers, trusted them!

And now Sera paid the price for his reticence.

“Leandros….” Pushing away from his squadmates, Titus lunged toward the door. “I will kill him.”

For her, for my Little Healer, for Sera. And Warp damn the consequences!

He sensed Chairon and Gadriel falling in behind him. “This is not your fight.”

“If the Chaplain is so corrupted, it is every Ultramarine’s duty to see him removed.” Gadriel intoned.

“I would kill him for Vesta’s sake alone.” Chairon spat.

“As would I.”

All three of them turned to the bloodstained figure exiting the surgical room. Callistus’s eyes burned with vengeful fire.

Chairon stepped forward. “Vesta…?”

“Lives.” The Apothecary sighed. “We repaired the lung, set the ribs. Now we wait.” He looked down at the blood on his gauntlets and spoke as if to himself. “So small when I took her into the Chapter. I worried she would be crushed underfoot, so I sat her on my shoulder as I worked. A never ending stream of questions rattled into my ear.”

Titus had never seen the veteran smile. Then that smile faded, and he looked up.

“You are not the only one who has failed to protect one dear to him.” Moving to a locker against one wall, the Apothecary removed a chainsword. “Vengeance, brothers.”

“Vengeance.” Gadriel and Chairon growled in tandem.

Titus said nothing.

The four of them stalked through the halls of the Resilient. Serfs fled before them. Ultramarines watched in bemused silence. They shouldered through the doors of the Reclusiam to find it empty.

Good. Titus thought. The fewer brothers who see this, the better.

The door to the Chaplain’s inner chambers was locked. A few kicks and chainsword cuts solved that. Somewhere, an alarm blared.

“No going back, now.” Gadriel muttered.

“Look!” Chairon took a few steps to one side, bent, and lifted what looked like a cleaning serf’s bucket.

Opening it, he revealed a battered servo skull. “Perhaps Vesta managed to record something after all.”

“Keep it.” Callistus grunted. “We will need its evidence when we are tried.”

Titus clenched his teeth. “I care not for trials. I care only for-”

Blood. Again. Stronger.

The four of them moved as one toward the tiny barred cell set into the far wall.

“What is this?” Chairon sounded shocked.

“Hmph.” Callistus leaned forward to peer through the bars. “I have heard of such things for punishing erring Sacratium serfs. I did not know our Chaplain made use of them.”

Gadriel remained silent, fingers flexing around his bolt pistol.

Titus inhaled, and nearly choked. “Sera’s blood.”

The cell reeked of her. Of her fear. Her pain. He took in the manacles… and the shredded robe. A dark suspicion grew.

“Emperor… no….”

“He must have moved her.” Gadriel rasped. “But where? And where is he?”

Titus snapped his head from side to side. The dark suspicion consumed all before it, filling him with sick dread and a sense that they were running out of time.

Then, something glimmered in the candlelight, on the floor next to another, smaller door. He rushed to it.

My laurel leaf. Her laurel leaf.

“No….”

The muffled sob hit him like a bolter round.

“Please… stop….”

“SERA!”

He rammed his shoulder-pauldron into the door with all the force only an enraged Astartes could muster. It shattered.

And Demetrian Titus stepped into a scene from his darkest nightmares.

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