Work Text:
The ship was quieter in the small hours, the endless hum of its engines a kind of heartbeat that few ever noticed, but Abelard always did. He’d made a life out of listening to machinery and men alike.
The wardroom was never empty; a thousand officers with service mandates spread across every rotation of the chrono, there was always someone seeking sustenance for the next watch or a restorative after the last. The lack of life in the officers' mess primed Abelard’s senses, a silence that shouldn’t be.
He reached the open hatchway and spotted the cause: a swathe of crimson near the viewport, staring at the open void beyond. Of course. There was nary an officer on board who would willingly breathe the same air as an agent of the Inquisition. Given the choice, an empty belly was the obvious preference.
Abelard was the rare exception.
His bulk filled the doorway, silent as a breath. He saw the moment his presence registered, whether by sorcery or instinct. Heinrix’s shoulders stiffened, the hands clasped behind his back gripped tighter for an instant before the psyker forced calm upon himself.
Heinrix’s head turned, expression set in its usual stoic mask. His chin dipped in a curt greeting. Abelard did not return the nod. He studied the other man, his rigid posture, the too-loose fit of his inquisitorial garb, notable changes since his return from…
“...Janus,” Abelard lied to himself. The truth of where the Interrogator had been, and with whom, still crushed the air from his lungs, threatening to drag him to his knees.
Abelard took a breath, watching himself being watched. Heinrix didn’t look away. He stood like a shadow among shadows, trying to disappear, too still, like a cornered thing, deciding whether to fight or flee.
Abelard’s jaw tightened. “Spit it out, Van Calox. You’ve been circling me like a carrion bird since we made dock.”
Heinrix didn’t flinch, but he didn’t quite meet Abelard’s gaze. He had the good sense not to skirt the matter.
“If you think me a threat to him, I will step aside. Whatever passed between us in Commorragh… it should not continue. It was circumstance. Weakness.”
That word, weakness, landed like an insult.
Abelard crossed the breadth of the bay in a dozen strides. The chain at his belt clinked softly with each step, silencing abruptly as he planted himself in front of Heinrix with all the immovability of a fortress wall.
“Weakness?” he spat. “You will not insult me thus. You will not insult him!”
He leaned in, voice dropping to a growl. “I’ve known since the day you set foot aboard this vessel that he’d have you in his bed. You weathered temptation longer than I managed to, I’ll grant you that. But don’t you dare pretend it meant nothing. Don’t you dare discard him like something used.”
Heinrix’s composure cracked, just a hair, just for an instant. His lips parted as if to reply, then shut again, at a loss.
Abelard’s gaze didn’t soften; instead, it sharpened, not with anger, but a grim, unyielding protectiveness. “All that matters to me is that he found his way back from--” he choked on the name, “that he’s alive. For that… for whatever hand you had, you have my thanks. But hear me well, Interrogator: if you disrespect him, you’ll answer to me. And I do not mean with words.”
A silence fell between them, heavy as iron. Heinrix swallowed. His voice, when at last he found it, was tentative. “You… approve?”
Abelard huffed, not quite a laugh. “You ask as if my disapproval would sway him." His remaining eye hardened with ruthless candour, the augmentation flashing. "Do not mistake me, if I’d thought for even a moment that you were a threat to him, you would have found yourself unfortunately close to a malfunctioning airlock many a watch ago. What is at issue here, is that you stood with him when I could not, that you returned with him with all your limbs attached, and that he sees something worth pursuing in you. If you want him in return, if you have something to give… then give it. But do it honestly. He deserves more than feints and half-measures.”
Abelard hesitated, then clapped a hand onto Heinrix’s shoulder. Not unkindly, but with weight enough to embed the warning in his next words. “Remember this, Van Calox: he belongs to himself. Not to you. Not even to me. Don’t mistake the way he surrenders for weakness. He is stronger than either of us.”
Abelard released the Interrogator. He turned and strode from the wardroom, the hunger that drew him there forgotten.
Heinrix remained, just beyond the lumens' glow, veiled in the darkness of the Expanse.
The Seneschal’s words thrummed in his mind, soft, yet transforming, like a stilled heart resuming its rhythm.