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“Oh. Cool. Well. No worries, I can teach you. It’s just going to take a little longer.”
It took a lot longer.
Tristan was not in the house when Mort returned, feeling much more adept and capable when it came to caring for his needs. Tom had given him a plastic bag as a starter first aid kit. It contained several bandages, some medical sticky tape, and compression wrap.
The pen was on the table, being batted at by the kitten. The paper was crumpled up beside it, not so much as a scratch of ink on it.
“You are such a naughty boy,” Mort purred beneath his breath.
Tristan had not carried out his task. He had shirked his punishment. Tristan wanted to be made to obey. He was never going to just do as he was told. Perhaps that was why the forgotten god had abandoned him.
Mort left the house and walked around to see if he could find any signs of Tristan. He was not an accomplished tracker. In his line of work he usually ended up wherever he needed to be.
It was fairly obvious that Tristan had left in a huff. He could imagine him storming down the stairs off the porch and going… where? He looked around. The goat farm next to Tristan’s home didn’t seem like it would draw him. Perhaps he’d gone to the…
Mort realized, heavily, that he did not know where Tristan had gone, and that led to a very uncomfortable feeling he had not experienced before. The world, or the part of it that mattered most to him, was out of his control.
He did not like that feeling. He could also do nothing about it. Nothing that did not involve summoning another supernatural and asking them to track Tristan for him, and that would be humiliating.
So he waited.
It took several hours for Tristan to return, barely a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like an eternity to Mort.
He was not used to having to wait. He was especially not used to having to worry. He did both in stoic, static silence while sitting at the kitchen table, the kitten curled up in his hood, occasionally extending a tiny sharp claw into the back of his neck.
Tristan came up the stairs as dusk was falling, like a child coming home for dinner when it got dark. Probably a subconscious routine, something he’d done for years when he was a kid.
Did he come home looking this guilty, sad, and angry then too? From what Mort knew of him, the answer was probably yes.
“Hey,” Tristan said as he came in the door.
Mort felt a welling of relief and a surge of irritation. He wanted very much in that moment to grab Tristan and physically punish him, but Tristan was still wounded, and more importantly, Tristan was testing him. How he reacted now would shape their relationship for many eons to come.
So he said something gentle, and something true.
“I was worried about you.”
Tristan had known he would be in trouble when he got home, and seeing Mort sitting ever so still at the kitchen table filled him with a nervous energy. Then he spoke. Tristan already felt guilty as all hell, and Mort’s mild rebuke, cloaked in care, only made that guilt flare.
“What? You think I can’t be alone for a few hours without killing myself? Is that it?”
“If I thought that, you would never be alone.”
Tristan scowled. He was in a petulant mood.
“That would get in the way of hanging out with Tom every chance you get,” he said. “Don’t want to inconvenience you. Are you going to go through every single guy in town, or just the ones on this block?”
“You’re cute when you’re jealous,” Mort observed.
“Fuck you.”
Mort sighed.
“But you are also rude, and coarse, and absolutely begging for a beating.”
Heat touched Tristan’s cheeks.
“I don’t know why you came here. I don’t know why you’re still here. And I don’t…”
Mort stood up. Tristan fell silent.
“None of that is true,” he said, his voice cool and calm. “I have told you why I am here, because you are mine. Because I intend to claim you and keep you, preserve you against the world. That is why I was not here this afternoon. I requested Tom teach me first aid, so I might be able to patch you up when you inevitably hurt yourself.”
Tristan stared at Mort, wrapping his arms around his shirtless, bandaged body in a gesture of self-defense. Guilt was written all over his handsome face. “You were learning first aid?”
“Yes,” Mort intoned. “I was. And you, meanwhile, were supposed to be showing me submission by following orders and taking your punishment.”
A slight shrug of a muscular shoulder. “I’m not submissive.”
“I know,” Mort said. He stepped closer to Tristan, ran fingers beneath the rough stubble of his chin, and tilted it so Tristan’s eyes met his. “That is why it will mean so much when you do submit to me.”
