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It maybe doesn't bode well for Perturabo's day that he finds Magnus halfway fallen off the couch with hot sparks fizzling out between their fingers. He can almost fit it into a perfect rhythm in his head as he watches — a flick, a hundred differently-hued sparks, a moment as they drift and then fade away — except Magnus keeps flinching whenever one alights onto the softest skin at the center of their inner wrist. It's throwing off the rhythm, off-kilter like their shoulder pressed into the edge of the seat cushion or their knee curled nearly against the wooden upper frame of the sofa. Their eye is closed but their presence has whirled around Perturabo since he set foot aboard the Photep, all hot sand and crashing waves, as intense in their friendliness as a particularly poorly trained dog, so at the very least he knows they're not sparking out like a dying machine.
"Magnus," He says, and nothing else, and they immediately burst into giggles.
They're still giggling as they draw out a long, "Hiiiii~!", turning towards the door. Their right elbow and upper back meet the cushion almost in unison and they slide a little closer to the floor for their efforts.
It takes a lot for Perturabo not to make his response, "You sure are," but he must think it clearly enough because Magnus only laughs more, breath catching against their soft palate in an undignified, gasping snort. It's halfway like a sob, to Perturabo's ears, and he moves just far enough to let the doors slide shut behind him.
"Yuh" — Perturabo frowns at the slurred word — "I got some of the gooood stuff. Real good. Nice n'- n'... good." Their right arm flops behind them, some kind of boneless fling that ends with their wrist bent against the arm of the sofa, and Magnus slides another inch off the cushion. They seem to realize their proximity to the woven rug at that moment because a psychic hand twists its way into the fabric of Perturabo's chiton like they intend to use it for assistance. They grunt with effort, sitting up halfway, but at that point the drugs must take vicious hold of them again because they proceed to fall face-first off the couch. The dull thump of their entire body follows, leaving them sprawled prone with their left arm trapped under their chest.
(He notes the scars running along their free arm, precise and surgical and still visible. He wants to throttle Leman Russ, a broken neck far more deserved than some others have received. He can't right now, though, and Magnus is still stuck on the floor. Priorities.)
Perturabo doesn't do pitiful, but the long, low whine muffled against the rug concerns him enough to cross the room and turn them over. Sibling-he-actually-likes privileges, he reasons. Magnus's actual hand, flesh and blood this time, clutches his tunic loosely. When they don't move beyond that, he sighs and lifts them, depositing them neatly on the blue cushions. Their hand remains where it is and Perturabo resigns himself to it.
"What happened to you?"
Magnus's eye closes again and they give a wobbly little hum before offering, "Weed. I was- was doin' something with Horus." They cut off their sentence there to mutter darkly in Prosperine before continuing, "Horus is- he's doin' shit and he shouldn't be but whatever I took his weed. Asshole. And-anddddd…" They fall silent for just long enough that Perturabo would wonder if they had fallen asleep mid-sentence if it wasn't for their presence fluttering like a hummingbird's wings, and he takes it as a chance to clarify:
"You took Horus's weed."
Magnus sounds a tad too proud of themselves as they hum a peppy, "Mmmmm-hm!"
Well, that explains a lot. "You are aware that was probably Mortarion's, then?"
The change from proud to paranoid is immediate and tangible. "Oh Gods, you have to stay here." Magnus cracks their eye open, gaze roving around the room like Mortarion will materialize any moment. Their presence dissipates like a fine mist, sweeping out briefly and then crashing back against Perturabo. "Fuck he prolly- probably planted it. That's- because then if I took it I'd be so high and- that's why it's so bad and I can't move and-"
Perturabo cuts off the rambling with a squeeze over the hand twisted in his tunic. "I believe Mortarion just has stronger drugs than you."
Magnus makes a small, sad noise in response, wordlessly tugging at the yellow fabric in their hand until Perturabo promises, "I won't leave you, regardless of whether or not this is Mortarion's plot to kill you with drugs. Alright?"
Magnus sits up, managing a upright slant until Perturabo sits down in the new space, and then immediately flops sideways. With inordinate effort, they shuffle their knees and hips towards the other end of the sofa until they can sprawl with their head in his lap, arms wrapped around his legs as if to trap their brother there.
Magnus seems content to lay there for quite a while, picking at an oil stain near the bottom hem of Perturabo's chiton and rambling half coherently about some thesis on material objects in warpwork, though they do apologize. Perturabo can only catch half of it, something about his usual aversions to both sitting idly and cuddling, and he doesn't know what to say in response so he just sets his attention to a complicated plait.
Well. That settles Perturabo's fate for the next several hours.
…
Magnus's back hurts. It naggles at them like an itch they can't scratch, shoots electric fire up the right side of their back and down their legs whenever they move too much or lay wrong. This is a terrible combination, because they keep having to move to find something more comfortable and moving keeps screwing with their right lung. Maybe. The weed certainly says the nerve pain is the only thing stopping their side from collapsing inward and taking the lung with it.
Great Ocean, this weed is fucked up.
Yeah, their arm hurts too, but at least pulling energy through it to flick little sparks soothes the muscles. They don't trust the cables and struts sheltering by the bones, which is fine because Magnus doesn't like them either. But they can't have their muscles all spooked, so they have to soothe them. Like a startled horse, like Jaghatai showed them that one time.
The idea of patting their bicep and offering it grains from a flat palm makes Magnus laugh so hard they snort again (Sob? They ran out of tears some time ago, so definitely not a sob. Shut up, brain.). Perturabo just kind of pets their hair, which is nice.
And then they start purring, somehow, as the staccato snag-release against their soft palate softens and stretches from a snort to an extended purr. Every time they breathe, it's accompanied by a feline's soft rumble. When Perturabo asks them what they're doing, ("Are you purring? Like a cat?") they can only manage to explain that their biomancy might have taken a little liberty with their vocal cords after two tries.
Great Ocean, this weed is fucked up.
Everything, recently, is fucked up. Mistake after mistake after mistake.
Perturabo pats their hair to indicate that he's done with the braid, which means they've been laying here for a lot longer than they'd realized, so Magnus rolls onto their back to see if that feels a little less like their lung is going to collapse. They can't flick sparks from this angle so they settle in to think while their current favourite brother is still willing to deal with having his legs squashed, pushing and pulling psychic energy between their fingertips and shoulder like water in a bucket.
And Magnus likes to think they're a good brother, the kind who notices when their brothers are upset. And Perturabo is their favourite brother and not recognizing weird would be wrong. And not recognizing pain would be worse.
He jostles their thinking spot twice in under five minutes, restless, and they crack their eye open to scowl at him. Except he's got his own eyes closed, which wouldn't be weird if it weren't for the tightness in his jaw and the occasional measured breath. It could be a headache — sometimes having a bunch of metal cables in your head messes with things — but a cursory biomantic sweep rules that out. Magnus's brain helpfully reminds them that they've filled it with mind-altering drugs and they might need to take this in smaller steps and so their next attempt to find the cause is more thorough and just slow enough that Perturabo must notice.
He furrows his eyebrows, blinking down at Magnus, and opens his mouth to say something.
It's at about that point that Magnus's check reaches his mid-back.
Perturabo jerks so hard he almost kicks Magnus off the couch with a sharp and passionate Olympian swear. That has Magnus sitting up immediately, concern temporarily dunking their high underwater to be dealt with later. They reach out again with a mental hand, wanting to solve the mystery.
"Fucking Eye, Magnus, keep your damn-" Perturabo starts to snap, cutting himself off partway. Magnus pulls their presence back, letting it circle their arms restlessly, and fights to just… sit there as Perturabo takes another measured breath. Inhale, exhale. His tone is palpably softer when he speaks again.
"You're projecting."
Oh.
"You should have mentioned."
Perturabo opens his mouth, just barely, shuts it. (Takes a moment to try and envision a world where he cared so much for his planet and people that their deaths felt as though they were his own. Where the cleansing of Olympia was anything more than an insult to him and the time he had spent on it. He can't do it.) He opens his mouth again and says, kind of lamely, "It didn't hurt much until you went poking at it."
Magnus is not high enough to believe that in the slightest, but a quick nudge at Amon and the returning statement is enough to believe that they haven't been projecting it across the Photep, which just leaves them to this concern.
"You need to tell me if I do that. I didn't realize my grasp on my presence was that loose." They grab his arm, shaking it for emphasis, and Perturabo stares, deadpan.
"Do you have a secret history of inadvertently melting people's brains?"
Without quite meaning to, Magnus tightens their grip. He needs to listen. "Perturabo."
Perturabo sighs. With it comes the sense of the petals of a flower unfurling, a shield comprised of intricate clockwork releasing. That was one of their own teachings to their brother, early on, and it brings some measure of comfort that he hasn't forgotten and is indeed using it when necessary.
"I'll tell you if it happens again," Perturabo assures.
Magnus allows their presence some manner of freedom again, no longer held so tightly to themselves. When they release Perturabo's arm, he simply lifts it, tilting his head.
"You know, being all nice and cuddly isn't all too convincing on the 'you didn't melt my brain' front," Magnus mutters. Still, they take the invitation, sprawling across his lap again.
Perturabo huffs and doesn't say anything else.
…
"What are you drafting?"
"What?"
"I know you. You're drafting your latest idea in your head. You always are. What is it?"
Magnus allows their eye to shut, building a little model in their head as he speaks. And okay, yeah, maybe they spend a not inconsiderable amount of brain power on envisioning it being used to kill Leman Russ gloriously and violently. And hopefully leaving just enough intact that they can burn up his other heart with Warp fire in front of all of his sons. But Perturabo just snickers and keeps explaining, throwing in a line about Russ's charred corpse under tank treads, so it's probably not much of an issue.