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Gadriel hadn’t let himself process it. After Elion, he had pushed all the hurt and loss and grief into a small corner, where it had fermented into anger. And he’d channeled most of that into fighting, everything that came near him. Tyranids. His own Lieutenant. It had blinded him until he’d shoved it even further down.
He had pushed it inside, and it had been easy to do so because of the operations-tempo. There was never any time to think, to let the bitter losses steep into him, to penetrate deeper than the awareness of the tabulated battle losses. Everything stayed on the surface–the next move, the next practical.
In a moment, a breath, he’d asked to be transferred, but even as he’d said it, he knew it for futility. Transferred from his squad? From the dead men? It felt like a betrayal, but he had wanted, irrationally, the distance from that reality.
Now there was nothing to plan or fight to hold up as a bulwark against it: They were all dead. His squad. Lyreo. Altareus. Elion. All dead. And he had been there to witness NONE of. Been there able to prevent NONE of it. Unable to avenge a single one of them. And he couldn’t shake the thought, unworthy as it was, that if he had been allowed to lead, to make more decisions, they would still be here.
Though honestly, and he knew this, the blame would have been different. When a man dies under your orders, you feel it, the heavy weight of responsibility, the knowledge that your decisions were not trivial, but had a cost paid in the blood of brotherhood.
But when they were under someone else’s orders, it felt worse somehow, like a burden slipped and uneven.
The very air seemed to taste like gall, and as he finally stripped off his armor in the armoring chamber, he could still taste the sour stink of it over the sweat of battle and death, and there was no place to go but to his squad’s quarters. All those empty rooms. He couldn’t bear to think of it but he couldn’t ignore it anymore.
He tried to console himself, as he crossed the ramps, reminding himself of sections of the Codex Astartes , that spoke of the honor of warriors who gave their lives in service. He reminded himself of the Chaplain’s colloquy. They had done their duty. He should be satisfied, almost envious of them.
He could not summon either emotion. He felt like his stomach had been hollowed out and filled with something heavy and caustic that seemed to slosh with every step he took closer to Sixth’s billeting. It made him feel like a failure as an Astartes.
He saw the candles, dozens of them, probably a hundred or more, on the floor outside the empty rooms and it felt like his hearts, both of them, stopped and restarted. Chairon had slowed behind him, in his own mourning, but he was a Brother to them, and Gadriel had been their Sergeant, the one who was supposed to be in charge of them, take care of them, train them to fight and survive. Those guttering lights felt like failure to him. He’d been so proud–too proud, perhaps–of his rank, of his men. He’d ceded it to Titus because he had to, because the Codex required rank be respected. But they were his men. His.
His mouth pulled into a frown and he smashed his lips together to hide the trembling. He couldn’t bear to join the small crowd of men clustered around each impromptu shrine. He couldn’t, right now, bear to hear his men praised for their valor and duty. Not that they didn’t deserve it. In time he would add his own. It was just that now it was too raw to think of them as past the point of more honors. The past tense felt like daggers in his heart.
He had felt loneliness before, the colder side of solitude, as one of the awakened Primaris Marines, as one of those who slept for ten thousand years and woke up to everything far different than when he’d been sent under.
This was worse. This was running a race with your brothers, and suddenly, you were running alone, only your own footsteps pounding forward into a suffocating, bleak future.
He stood, staring at the row of empty doors until his pain pooled icy in his feet, and then turned, slowly, to his own billet, his grief too private to bear being seen.
[***]
Cyprian rose as Gadriel entered his quarters. He’d been waiting for the younger man, had given his tributes to the dead hours before. Every Astartes understood mourning for the dead. Few understood mourning for the living.
Cyprian did.
Gadriel wasn’t ready to deal with anyone, not this close. He wanted to be alone, where he could put down the burden of having to move and walk and manage his face as though everything was all right. He didn’t want to see anyone, even Cyprian, especially the Veteran, who would doubtless judge him as weak and wanting. He shook his head, and turned to go.
Cyprian grabbed Gadriel’s wrist, with reflexes honed by centuries of combat, and yanked him back, pulling him in and wrapping his arms around his shoulders. Gadriel stood rigid, so tense he was shaking, the other man’s arms around his shoulders.
It wasn’t until he felt the warm sting of tears against his neck that his own tears came, scalding hot on his cheeks. He felt a bubble of pain rise in his throat, like a wail, and all he could think was that he didn’t want anyone outside to hear, to know, and he buried his face against Cyprian’s shoulder, biting down on the heavy muscle, enough that he felt the scorched copper taste of blood in his mouth. His hands clawed at the other man’s back, as if all he could do in his own hurt was to hurt others.
Cyprian held him, still, his own hands soothing on Gadriel’s back, gently rocking him from side to side as they stood. He had endured far worse pain than the bite, and he felt the wail that was trying to force its way out get ground into his flesh.
He accepted it.
And he accepted Gadriel’s weight when his knees gave out, and he lowered them both, gently as he could, to the floor, until Gadriel was kneeling, ribcage wracking with sobs.
He knew. He knew how much it hurt to lose one’s brothers, how loneliness and blame suppurated in one’s soul. He knew how empty the squad room felt, filled with only ghostly echoes of the sounds of voices, as if the speaker had just stepped out or spoken from another room. He knew how Gadriel would see, for days, for weeks, corner-of-the-eye glimpses, of where someone sat, or rested, like they were there, and then gone, and each time would rip his heart open again with the loss.
And he knew he could not take away Gadriel’s suffering, and even if he could it would dishonor the memories of those lost to do so. But he could witness it, and honor it, and be with him through it. Maybe it would help. He had never had one for him, and he remembered only that enduring it alone felt like drowning, felt like every time he surfaced his was a little less alive.
He wanted no one else to endure that.
After what felt like hours, the wracking, hiccoughing sobs subsided, and Gadriel sat back, tipping his head to the ceiling, sucking in breath in huge pants as though he had been racing, but he kept one arm on Cyprian’s shoulder, as if for balance.
He made a wet sound, trying to clear his throat to speak. He hated how highpitched his voice came out, squeezed thin under tension. “They’re gone.”
Cyprian nodded.
“And I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything.” The last syllable of the word collapsed, and he ground his eyelids shut.
Another nod, and Cyprian began rubbing the front of Gadriel’s shoulder, anchoring him here, now, to his body, in this room. Cyprian understood. He knew. And Gadriel knew in the echo of his own words that he knew he was speaking to one who had been through it.
Gadriel paused, sniffed some of the wetness back, and tried to force his voice lower. “I. I couldn’t even let myself think about…about it.”
A third nod. Cyprian knew this too, how you would watch a brother fall and part of your mind filed it away that moment of death vivid and crisp and acid etched in memory as nothing else in battle would be, as something for later, if there was one for you, at the same time dreading that that later might come. It was how you survived in battle.
As long as you never stopped fighting, it worked.
But when you did, it felt like the ground subsided under your feet at the same time a cresting wave of darkness slammed into you.
Cyprian was here to try to keep Gadriel’s head above water.
“Why does this hurt more?” It was not the first time Gadriel had lost Brothers, or even those under his command. He knotted his hands on his lap.
Cyprian braced himself to speak. “Sometimes it does.” He had never figured out the logic of it. Sometimes it was just a numb scar, already welded over and sometimes it felt like a raw wound that got torn open with every breath. He exhaled, then spoke again. “You honor your brothers by remembering them.”
Gadriel nodded, but he didn’t entirely believe it. He sucked in a deep breath, exhaled and then tried again. “I know I will fight with other men. And they will become as brothers to me.”
Cyprian nodded. And took up the rest of Gadriel’s question. “You will not lose your memory of them. It is not finite.” Cyprian sometimes wished that it were–the burden of hundreds of brothers he had lost through his decades of fighting pressed on him as he slept sometimes, suffocating him with their memories. But at other times, he would rather die than forget a single one of them, his memories like precious jewels–heavy enough to crush, but beautiful.
Gadriel scrubbed his arm across his face, blinking, startled, when he saw the blood, and traced it to the arcing wound on Cyprian’s trapezoid. “I am. I am so sorry.”
Cyprian shrugged. It was nothing. It had helped Gadriel. It was worth it.
Gadriel didn’t want to let it go. “Veteran, I am–”
“It will heal,” Cyprian said, flatly. That was what mattered. It was already healing, scabbed over, no longer trailing blood across his collarbone. If Gadriel could focus on that, he was improving. Maybe through the worst of it.
Cyprian stood, taking Gadriel’s hands and guiding him to his feet, and pushing him toward the thin mattress. Gadriel needed the cushion of sleep. It had to happen some time, when today’s loss slides behind in time and becomes a thing of yesterday, and that was agonizing, sometimes, to feel time move on like a smooth river when you desperately wanted it to stop. It had to happen. Better to happen now.
Gadriel shook his head. “I cannot.” But it wasn’t resentment in his voice, only dread.
Cyprian tilted his head at the bed again, like an order, knowing Gadriel would obey him if only because of his rank. Gadriel perched on the edge of the mattress, as if close enough. It was a start.
“I will not be able to sleep,” Gadriel protested. He licked his lips, tasting Cyprian’s blood on them still, “I don’t want to.” He didn’t want to leave them in tonight which would become, all too soon, inevitably, yesterday.
“Eventually.” Cyprian croaked.
Eventually, Gadriel had to. The worst part of grief was that you wanted to stay in it, hanging in it like suspended animation tanks, but time tore that out from under you. Slowly, but inexorably.
“You don’t have to stay,” Gadriel said, softly.
Cyprian shrugged. He would stay. Not because he wanted to, not because he took any pleasure in it, but because sometimes sharing grief took the worst of the pain away, like someone deflecting a bladestrike with a shield.
[***]
Gadriel had fallen asleep, eventually, curled on his side in a ball, like a child, and Cyprian had moved behind him, draping his weight on him like a heavy blanket, feeling the worst of Gadriel’s shivers ebb. Cyprian breathed lightly, barely enough that Gadriel could feel it against his back, letting the weight of his arm rest on Gadriel’s shoulder. Gadriel had fallen into rest, his breath becoming soothed and even, and Cyprian lay, just feeling him breathe against him and taking his own comfort from the warmth and contact of another.
And he felt when Gadriel woke, when the gentle tide of breath became unsteady again, the ribs squeezing to smother a sob.
Cyprian traced his fingers down Gadriel’s arm, to rest it on the back of one of his hands, signalling that he was awake as well.
“Veteran?” Gadriel whispered, staunchly refusing to turn his head, staring at the way the flickering light from the corridor licked at his knuckles. Cyprian squeezed his hand in response, waiting. “How do you go on?”
Cyprian nodded, leaning closer, his breath soft against the other’s cheek. “We are living reliquaries of our honored brothers. With each breath we take, we keep them alive in memory and devotion. When we flag in combat, it is they we think of, they who come to us and spur us on. They strengthen us when we need them. We live, to honor them. We live because when we die, they perish again with us, and we do not yield their memories willingly. We live for them as they died for us.”
He sighed, as though the words exhausted him. It hurt to speak, through the wound that had killed him before his Rubicon surgery. It would always hurt. And pushing words like this through the pain of his voice felt like dull fire. And maybe they were a truth in the world, or maybe they were just the truth as Cyprian had come to know it, and as flawed as his own broken understanding of the world. But it was the deepest truth he knew, and saying it felt like tearing open some deep wound in his own chest. He had lost so many. Friends, subordinates. Leaders. All brothers. All having some tiny fragment of themselves kept alive in his memory. It had to be worth something. It had to be meaningful or else it was just unnecessary pain.
Gadriel’s hand squeezed his back. “I will.” For as long as he could, he would stay alive, letting their valor, their sacrifices live. But those were in the Archives, and would survive without him. What he could keep in his heart was the deeper memories–the thousand details of intimacy and kinship–the way one smiled, the pitch of one’s laugh, the steady assurance of knowing who was at his side, the hundred stories, and teasings and jokes that came from living and fighting and dying so close to each other, wearing each others rough edges satin smooth, leaving traces upon traces on each other’s souls.
He let a breath sigh out of him and it came out clean, no hitches, no tears, just breath moving like a river around a deep heavy pain that felt huge but…manageable, heavy and bitter but also sweet. He took comfort in the heavy weight of Cyprian against him, resolving to carry the memories of his men as though they were a banner he would defend.
[***]
Gadriel had the vaguest recollection of Cyprian leaving, the Veteran sliding off of him with a stealth he would have thought impossible. Gadriel still had duties, but with his squad decimated, what was the point of any of them? How could he run training drills with specters? How could he weapons check men who were not here?
He rolled to his side, staring at the blank wall, his eyes feeling raw like formic acid. A shadow filled his doorway, for a moment, then left, and he was alone again, and he was fine with it. Better to be alone than to endure loss. Here, he could hold the memories of them intact, sacrosanct. Here he could sink in, wallow, in memories, in the past, where everything was already looking gilded and soft.
Another shadow in his doorway, and he ignored it as he had the first, until a hand clamped on his hip and hauled him off the berth, dumping him onto the floor. Gadriel scrambled up, outraged, flailing and turned to face–-
–-Cyprian, in his armor, helmet magna locked to his hip. Cyprian didn’t wait, seizing Gadriel’s wrist and dragging him bodily out of the room, stumbling to keep up, before flinging him down on one of the ammunition crates that served as a seat in the dayroom, before a ration of food.
Gadriel shook his head. “I can’t.”
Cyprian pointed. He’d positioned himself blocking the door, so there was no way Gadriel would get past him without a fight. And he knew Gadriel wouldn’t fight him. Not him.
Gadriel took a mouthful–it tasted like cardboard, bland and sticky and he thought he’d choke before he got it down, but he looked up, resentful. See? I did as you asked, he thought.
Cyprian kicked another crate over, and seated himself on it, folding his forearms on the crate that served as a table. He rested his chin on his forearm, watching.
Gadriel sighed in frustration, but took another bite. It still tasted like life itself had been drained from it. Ultramarine rations were never known for taste, but this tasted like ashes and nothing. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to do anything as life-affirming as eating, or anything that moved the future closer. If he couldn’t go back in time, he wanted to at least stay frozen in the present of their loss, and not in the future where their traces thinned.
But he ate, because Cyprian had that look on his face that he would shovel it into Gadriel’s face himself if he had to. This was not the fight he wanted to pick, after last night, after breaking down in front of the Veteran. He was almost surprised the other wasn’t disgusted in him.
When he’d finally finished, Cyprian rose, allowing him to stand. “Armor. Training room. Thirty,” the Veteran said, with the weight of an order that would not be refused.
[***]
After he had left Gadriel, in the night, Cyprian had gone back to the First Squad billets, auspex in hand, and sat down next to Quartus.
“What.” Quartus’s voice was not much better than Cyprian’s–gravel from Voxing in the heat of battle.
Cyprian offered the pict screen–reports of Damocles’s actions on Demerium. He’d taken the few seconds to find and highlight Gadriel’s name, and then flag the names of the dead. It saved needless words. Quartus would understand what he was asking.
Quartus did. After a long moment he looked up, his optic augment focusing on Cyprian’s face. “Why not you?”
Cyprian would have to speak for this. Quartus deserved an answer. “His anger is too hot for mine.” Cyprian had always been two blades, all close contact, fast and violent. He was a cyclone in battle. Gadriel would burn up like a firestorm. Deadly but short lived. He did not want that for him.
“You would teach him stability, temper his rage. Balance him.” He had thought of keeping Gadriel himself, training him with his own weapons, but his own anger was iced fury, cold and precise. Quartus was better. Quartus would steady Gadriel’s moods.
“I will not be easy on him,” Quartus said. Which was a warning, but also an acceptance.
“I know,” Cyprian said. The words were unnecessary, perhaps. The gratitude in them was not.
[***]
Moving felt like every step he took was through heavy water. Everything felt slow and unreal, even though the food in his stomach took away the worst of the shaky rawness. And he hated that. He wanted, part of him, to feel as miserable as possible, to suffer the loss physically, as well, to make surviving feel worse than the dead.
But he obeyed Cyprian, and trudged to the arming chamber, and redonned his armor–at least cleaned and polished. The armor he had been wearing when they died, cleaned of all traces. It felt like sacrilege.
He pushed that thought aside several times as he walked to the training room. He did not know what waited for him there. Cyprian, no doubt. He didn’t want new men assigned to him. Not yet. It would happen but just…he hoped the war would give him a day. Just one day devoted to mourning.
Maybe just Cyprian in an attempt to get him to move on. Cyprian was wise, Gadriel thought, but not infallible. He didn’t want this today. He wanted to go back to his billet, curl up, and cocoon himself in grief, let memory stab him again and again.
It was Cyprian, and another Veteran, the white pauldrons unmistakable at this distance, standing together at the far end, making Gadriel have to traverse the entire room as they watched his approach. They seemed to be studying him for…something. A day ago his curiosity would have been fired, but today everything felt tepid.
He came to a stop before them, offering a salute.
“Gadriel,” Cyprian said, and then, “Quartus.”
Quartus raked his gaze up and down, looking for flaws. He kicked one of Gadriel’s boots, knocking it a half a degree back in line, and moved around Gadriel, studying him as he went. When he’d made a full circle, Quartus looked back at Cyprian and nodded in some communication Gadriel could not follow.
Then Cyprian turned to the wall behind him, and handed over a shield to Quartus–the heavy ornate Storm Shield he carried into battle. A Chapter relic, older than any of them. An honor to touch, much less to wield.
And Quartus handed it to Gadriel.
Gadriel felt its weight settle against his arm, his fingers curling around the handle. It felt new, awkward but…right somehow. Another time and he would have trembled at the prospect of even touching one of these relics, cowed by the magnitude of the honor. Now….
“Are you ready, Brother?” Quartus leveled his gaze at Gadriel.
…now it was a recognition, an honor, not of the relic, but of him. Of all he had endured, all he had lost, and how deeply it cut. They were inviting him to join their ranks, become one of them, a Veteran, belly full of grief and teethed with vengeance. They had studied him and found him worthy, even disheveled, even raw from loss.
“I am ready.”