Ficlit of an AU: It needs a name
"They think I'll usurp you," the words left his chapped lips fast. They rode his shortness of breath and left him gasping at the end but he had said them. His tongue lapped at his lips, trying to find relief in the chafing rash that was starting to take over the bottom of his face. It was useless and caused the irritation to get worse.
His head rolled with litte control to look at the illusion that was sitting at his bedside.
Illusion might be a strong enough word, a ghost would be too strong, and hallucination might be the best fit, but Roboute liked to think he wasn't that far gone yet. So illusion was the best.
The illusion that sat next to his bed was a man that should have been on the same throne he had had been on for the last ten thousand years. But he did not look like the Living-Dead God of Humanity. He was not bones, and decaying skin that was stretched too tight, with veins that popped out and could traced so easily. He was not a man who's bottom jaw had to wired shut and he was not the man who was kept alive by a machine with wires and tubes.
The man next to him was alive, with skin that was a healthy tan and whole with fat and muscle underneath it. He had both eyes -- a kind of amber that was glowing in the dark room they were in -- and he was alive.
Alive.
He couldn't quiet wrap his mind about it.
Alive.
He knew, knew with all his hearts, that this was a dream. A kind of dream that was cast upon his mind to keep him complacent and calm, and anything else that they -- Nurgle, it was Nurgle, it had to be -- needed to do to him or needed him to do.
He fought to rip his hand free of the blanket that were loaded on top of him.
He couldn't do it.
He hand fell back to side.
He signed heavily, with his breathing getting shorter and shorter, before it became a chest raddling cough.
"Oh?" The Illusion aksed.
"Yeah," Roboute whispered. "I can see it -- it in their eyes. They don't speak it, but the fear." He panted. "I can smell it. I know."
There was silence.
No, that wasn't right.
There was the beeping of machine to the side of him, the one that didn't have the Illusion, the rustling of dataslates and clothes. Of fan and vent running. Of his airless breaths.
He knew was getting air. He had to be to talk and be alive. But it didn't feel like it. No matter how much he tried to steady himself, to calm his breathing, to let his self control training kick in. Nothing was working.
Nothing at all.
"I won't," He added.
No, that was wrong too.
'Won't' meant that there was a chance that he could. Like it was an option that he could take, a path that was laid out, planed, and just needed to someone to walk it. Needed him to walk it.
"I can't."
'Can't' that was better. 'Can't', 'Can Not', those worked well because they were true.
There was no path, no option, where he would betray his father. Where he would perform a usurpation of any type.
"It's how Dad died." His sight was blurry and was swimming in a way that made room spin and spin and his stomach roll. "I --," Words failed him as tears fell.
Nurgle had made the Illsuion of the Emperor, his Father in his prime, of Mortarion untouched by chaos and plague, and had laid him low in a bed with an illness that could take him to where the slain go to feast with the Emperor.
Would Nurgle make an Illusion of Konor? Or Tarasha?
"I want to see them again."
Was that bad? To wish that Nurgle could craft their images in a such a way that he could make himself believe that were alive?
The Illusion turned to him, it sat a dataslate down on a table, before reaching over and a blessedly cool hand touched his fevered skin. It pulled away for a moment, making him whine, before returning with a wet rag that was ran along his neck.
"You want to see who?" Nurgle even captured his voice just the way it was during the crusade.
"Mother and Dad." He whispered.
"'Dad'? Not 'Father'?"
That was a stupid question. "Dad is Dad, Father is Father, Emperor is Emperor."
He didn't know that there was a difference between a Father and a Dad. Not until he lost his Dad and met his Father.
Then, he knew, there was a line in the sand.
A 'Dad' loves you, raises you, cares for you. Watching you mess up and helps you pick up the piece of every broken thing you have done.
A 'Father' is distant, a love that is both there and a cold in a way. He watches from afar and you watch him as well. A 'Father' could be a 'Dad', a 'Father' also never take the steps to be a 'Dad' and remain a 'Father'.
Konor was his Dad, the man who raised him, who loved him, who picked him up and protected him.
The Emperor of the Cursade was his Father. He was man who made him into being, the man who had his loyalty, the man that he marched to war with. He was the man that he craved the approvel and the love of.
You didn't earn the love of a 'Dad' but you did with a 'Father'.
The Emperor that was on the Throne, the Emperor who made him Regent; he was nothing but a tool for. He was not a son. He was not something be loved, only to be used for the greater good of the Imperium of Mankind. Used and discarded when all was he could do was done.
Roboute had long since come to terms with that at least.
The Illusion kept running the rag along his neck. That chill was something he both craved and flinched from.
"Roboute," The Illusion spoke. It's voice was light and less intense then he remembered his Father being. But it had been ten thousand years and in the few hundred they knew each other, it had been nothing but war campaigns in an endless tide. "Who says that you will usurp me?"
He shouldn't say anything.
This was Nurgle using whatever illness he had inflicted on him and the weakness that it caused to information out of him.
But --
"The Custodes." He feel the contempt that they had for him. It simmered underneath the skin and there were times he was sure that it was them that would do him in. But at the same time, "I understand them though. They never liked us either."
The rag paused before resuming. "Do you have names?"
Roboute snorted, then sneezed, and then gasp from the pain it caused. The cramp in his stomach damn near sent him seizing. All he could do was wrap his hands hand in the bed sheets and wait the pain out.
The rag stop moving and a hand gripped his arm firm but not too tight.
His muscles relaxed soon after and he sagged, carefully, scared for more cramps, and so tired. "No names." Like he would give Nurgle the names of his Custodes Guard.
The silence was back again.
"Anyone else?"
"So many." And there was. The High Lords of the Terra had the fear. Different Chapters to his many brothers thought so too. He knew Daemons had tried to plant the seed of the 'Usurpation Plan' and it worked in a way. And if he went back far enough? His own brothers had made jabs about it. "I have Ultramar and that seems to be the reason." he paused again and looked over at the Illusion. "I swear. I can't take the throne from the Emperor. I can't."
"Roboute, are you --" The Illusion stopped speaking. "Go to sleep, my son." A warm, large hand, was placed over his eyes. The hand was soft in it's touch and it cradle him in a way that he hadn't felt since he was still a child. "You'll feel better when you awake."
"I won't."
And he wouldn't.
Because Nurgle would never let him get well.
---
What the Emps was trying to say: "Roboute, are you seeing me? Do you know i'm at your side or are you seeing someone else in the end?" And "Who is 'Father'? Konor is dad, I am the Emps, so who is 'Father'?"
So here's a ficlit of one of the Aus I came up with the other day.
The basic idea is: 40k!Robu is sent back in time and into his younger body, 30k!Robu, with all his memories. He gets very sick from the time travel do to a toll that the time travel takes of him. He doesn't act to save the future so much as the butterfly effect does all the work for him. He has to be taken care of by his brothers and father and Mal and by the Custodies.
The ficlit is Robu laying bed with Emps at his side.
Because he's so sick, he thinks it's Nurgle's fault, and that everything he is seeing isn't real. And because it's not real he vents a little. Lets thing's he wouldn't say aloud out.
Thoughts?
