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Tristan didn’t care about the scars, or the pain, or even the fact he wasn’t allowed beer on the doctor’s orders, and Mort had thrown it all out on arrival. He did care that Mort wouldn’t talk to him. He was starting to freak out.
“Are you… just going to bounce, or what the fuck?”
It wasn’t the most diplomatic way of asking the question, but Tristan wasn’t the most diplomatic sort of guy.
Mort was sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the window, just a hint of skull shining in daylight. When he turned to look at Tristan, shadow covered his very handsome, very human-looking visage. He was breathtakingly beautiful and solemn and Tristan felt so keenly in that moment that he absolutely did not deserve a man like this. Mort was far more than a man. He was a psycho… something. He was supernatural. And he had no fucking reason to be here. So it made sense that he’d leave.
“You almost died,” Mort said.
“So? What does it matter?”
That was the wrong thing to say. Tristan saw pure rage build on Mort’s face. It took several minutes for Mort to contain himself enough to speak.
“It is a one way trip,” Mort said. “If you die, you and I would not be reunited. You would forget everything about your life, including me.”
“I could never forget you.”
“You could never remember me. You wouldn't have a mind, boy.”
Tristan frowned at that piece of news, and at the moniker he’d been given. Not Tristan or the more familiar Tris. Boy.
“Did you just call me boy?”
“Yes. I did. Because that is what you are.”
“You think I’m some spoiled little shit who…”
“You have never been spoiled a day in your life,” Mort interrupted, standing up to walk over to Tristan. He leaned down, one hand on the arm of the couch, the other pressed against the cushion next to Tristan’s head, boxing him in. They were practically the same height, but in that moment Tristan felt like Mort was twice his size at least. The dark gaze of death’s deliverer seared into his soul.
“You have been neglected, bullied, abused, and degraded,” Mort said. “You have been led to believe that you are worthless, and so you treat yourself as if you do not matter… Tristan!”
Tristan’s eyes snapped back to Mort’s, as he forced Tristan to meet his dark gaze with a sharp utterance of his name. “I call you boy because that is what you are to me. You are my boy. Understand? MINE.”
Tristan lowered his head in shame, and to avoid the intensity of the moment. Mort did not allow it.
The reaper’s fingers took hold of his chin and tipped his head back, carefully angling it so Tristan met his dark gaze. There was no escaping him. “But you are only mine as long as you live. Which means you have to live, Tristan. Completely, fully, and for a long time. Do you understand?”
Tristan allowed himself the smallest of nods. He was in trouble, but not the kind of trouble he was used to, the kind that got him rejected and made an outcast. This was a different kind of trouble. A trouble that pulled Mort closer and gave Tristan nowhere to hide. He felt very guilty, very ashamed, and very small. All those feelings were clearly evident in his nearly squeaked response.
“Yes, sir.”
He’d never called anybody sir in his entire life, but now felt like a good time to start.
Mort got fucking hard when Tristan called him sir. It meant so much more coming from the lips of a man who never allowed anybody else the satisfaction of feeling better than him. Tristan was usually a scrap it out, bring ‘em down to his level sort of guy.
He didn’t want to be distracted by how hot Tristan was right now. He wanted to make sure he’d been understood. Truly. Deeply.
Tristan was trying, but Mort had the feeling he wouldn’t get it for a while. Not really. He was mistaking insight for pity, thinking that there was something wrong with him.
“I’ll do anything…” Tristan whimpered. “Just don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mort said firmly.
He knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Tristan had no idea how to be obedient. He didn’t follow laws, he just managed not to break them out of coincidence most of the time. He was a law unto himself, and that meant he had a lot to learn about submission.
It might very well not be possible, Mort considered, running bone fingers through blond locks. Some creatures were dominant, most were submissive. Most people he had encountered were looking for a leader. But perhaps even in those who craved a dominant figure, the ability to trust had been so very broken it was impossible for them to let themselves surrender. Tristan might be one of those theoretical people. And if he was, what could Mort do? He was painfully aware that he was not God. He could not bring life. He could only bring death, and death would be the end of Tristan.
