Alex panted as sounds returned to the forest. He could still feel Tristan kneeling over him. He was still inside him. He had no idea what had just happened, well, other than the obvious.
He cracked an eye open. Tristan was looking at him. The warmth in his brown eyes made them glitter slightly, He closed his eye tight. This couldn’t be right. Tristan didn’t care. He didn’t submit like this. This was a trick, a game, a mask.
“It’s okay, Alex. This is real.”
Of course he knew what he was thinking. Tristan knew him that well. Tristan moved off him, and the breeze on his exposed body made him shiver, that, and the immediate sense of loss he felt. As difficult as it was to believe this had just happened, he didn’t want it to be over. He didn’t want things to go back to the way they had been.
Tristan lied on his side next to him, and pulled him close, until they were pressed front to back, His muscular arm draped over Alex’s side. He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he kept his questions to himself, enjoying Tristan’s warm body against him.
In spite of his doubts, he relaxed enough to open his eyes and look around. He didn’t want to move so all he had to look at was the metal cage and the trees behind it. “Did he really put you in there?” He felt Tristan’s head move and saw his muzzle rest on the side of his arm from the corner of his eye.
“Yes.” The word was flat, devoid of emotions, very much like Tristan should sound, but he felt him tremble.
“For how long?”
“Until I got myself out of it. It was the first lock I picked.”
“How could anyone treat his child like that?”
“My father felt it was the only way we would learn to be self-reliant. He thought that having anyone to depend on made us weak.”
“That explains why you fought so hard to make me leave.”
“Yes.” This time the word was filled with emotions. Tristan kissed his arm. “Thank you for being stubborn.”
Alex couldn’t stop the tension at the praise. “I’m terrified this is some game you’re playing.”
“I—I understand. I never gave you a reason to trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
“No. You trust that I’m going to do what’s best for me. That so long as that includes you, I’ll keep you by my side. That’s all I’ve ever shown you. That’s how I’ve treated you. And I know that this won’t mean all that much right now, but I swear to you, Alex, it is different. I don’t want you as my weapon, as a thing I own. I want you as my lover. I want you as my equal. I—I don’t know how I’ll do that yet. This is as new to me as it is to you. My father never taught me anything about how to care for someone, and what I taught myself is all about using others. I know what to do to make someone care, but I’m still sorting out the emotional aspect of it.”
Alex closed his eyes and shivered slightly. Tristan moved away, but before he could get far Alex grabbed his arm, and froze. Tristan stopped moving.
Alex let go of the arm, and when no reprisal came he said, “don’t go, please.”
“I was just getting your jacket. You’re getting cold.”
“I don’t mind it. Just keep holding me.”
Tristan pressed against his back, tightened his arm around his stomach. “I’m never going to leave you Alex. If you don’t believe anything else, believe that.”
Alex nodded, wanting to believe it. Wanting to believe he deserved this. “You said ‘we,’ when you said your father was teaching you to be self-reliant. He did the same to your brother? To Justin?”
Tristan didn’t answer immediately. When he spoke, his voice caught. “Yes. He treated us the same. My father never understood that what worked with me had a different effect on Justin.”
“So he put him in that cage?”
Tristan nodded. He nuzzled Alex’s neck.
“I can stop talking about this.”
“No. I want you to talk about anything you want. This is just a little hard than I thought it would be. I haven’t processed Justin’s death, or my father’s.”
“How? How did you father die?”
“I killed him.”
“You killed him?” The surprise didn’t last long. Of course Tristan would have killed him if for no other reasons then having put him in that cage. Alex would have killed him for that too.
“It’s what he taught me, Although I doubt he expected to become a victim of his own teaching. ‘Remove anything that stands in your way.’ He stood in mine. Once I decided he couldn’t teach me anything I set my sight on space. There’s a clearing not far from here and I’d go there, look up and see the trails of ships in the atmosphere. He wouldn’t let me go. Claimed I had to stay with him, that we could only survive together. Even back then I saw the contradiction in that, but now I think I understand him a little better. Even with his beliefs about having to be alone to survive, he didn’t want to end up alone.”
“I’m sorry you had to do that.”
Tristan buried his muzzled in the back of Alex’s head and breathed in. “Thank you, but I’m not. I didn’t feel anything when I strangled him. I still don’t. I understand him better, but that also lets me understand that he wasn’t a good man. Maybe he didn’t deserve to die.” Tristan shrugged. “But I doubt the universe would have been a better place with him in it.”
Alex had trouble understanding how Tristan could say that about his father. Alex might not always like his father for kicking him out, but to say he should have died? Alex wouldn’t ever go that far.
“Justin didn’t seem to be like you, or your father. From what I saw on the Sayatoga, he surrounded himself with people.”
“He was always better at dealing with people, being around them. That’s how he’d get himself out of the cage. He’d convince me to get him out. Of course that meant that once my father found out I’d end up in there in his place, but Justin would always be able to convince me the next time.”
They were silent. Tristan breathing in his hair, Alex relaxing against him. He took a breath to ask his next question, but Tristan spoke first.
“I wish Justin wasn’t dead.”
“How can you say that? He tortured you, I’m pretty sure he tried to have you killed a few times before that.”
Tristan chuckled. “Multiple times, but he’s still my brother. He’s the only family I have. I never admitted it to myself before, but for all the trouble he caused me, I still loved him. That’s why I didn’t kill him.”
“Is that why you didn’t kill Victor?”
“Yes, well, maybe. I didn’t feel for him what I feel for you, but I did care, still do I think. Something else I need to process.” He licked Alex’s ear, making him shiver. “This is why I locked all these emotions aways. They’re so complicated. But I’m not going to replace you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You say you love me.”
“I do.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did you know?”
“Alex, I—”
“Never mind, it isn’t important.”
They were silent again.
“Alex, I can’t tell you when I fell in love with you. I wasn’t equipped to deal with that emotion back then. I can tell you that by the time I abandoned you, I had feelings. It’s why I let you live, even if I told myself it was because you were too insignificant to bother with. It’s why I kept your hologram. I never looked at it, but I always wore it. I can’t tell you what lie I told myself, but I always wore it.”
Alex felt Tristan’s hand between them, in the area of his collarbone. “I think I knew I loved you, even if I didn’t admit it, around the time we went after the Priam’s brother. It’s why I was acting so erratic. When I gave you the cure, that’s why I did it. It’s why it drove me insane. I couldn’t accept that you were more important to me than my own life.”
“I didn’t mean to cause that.”
“Don’t. Alex, don’t take the blame for this. It’s on me. You did nothing but be yourself. Your wonderful self. I was just too stubborn to see how good you were.”
Alex closed his eyes and turned around. He had to put what Tristan was saying to the test. If this was a game, he needed to know now. He looked into those beautiful brown eyes, saw the smile on Tristan’s lips, a human smile, no showing of teeth.
He placed a hand on Tristan’s chest, dug his fingers into the fur, rubbed. Tristan continued looking at him, his expression didn’t change.
“You hate it when I touched you.”
“No, Alex. I love it, I always did. That’s why I wouldn’t let you do it. Your touch makes me want you.”
Alex raised an eyebrow and looked down between them.
“Yes, that way, but also just having you in my arms, having you in my life, and that need for someone else ran contrary to everything I was. So I pushed you away. When you wouldn’t leave, I made sure you knew I was in charge, that I would decide when we touched and that I would be the one touching you. And then fought the impulse has hard as I could, until it was too much for me and then I—Fuck Alex, I abused you so much.”
“It’s okay, I wanted—”
“No, Alex, you never wanted that. You settled for it because that’s all I’d give you. You deserved so much more. Why Alex? Why did you let me do that to you? Even then, you were strong enough to at least make me stop long enough for you to leave. Why didn’t you leave?”
“Do you remember Jack?” He gazed in Tristan’s eyes as he searched his memory.
“Was that the mask I wore so I could use you?”
“Yes. I fell in love with him, with that version of you. That’s who I was looking for when I tracked you down. I’d convinced myself that he was somewhere inside you, that all I had to do was draw him out and we’d be happy again. By the time you finally made me understand he didn’t exist, I didn’t have anything to go back to. Then there was the thing with Emil, and to keep him safe I gave myself over to you. Somewhere in there, I decided that if I couldn’t have anything else, I’d be okay with having you, as little as you were willing to give me.”
“I’m sorry.” Tristan licked his cheek. “You deserve so much better than me, I can probably give you Jack, if that’s who you want. You’d have to remind me who he was but—”
Alex placed a finger on Tristan’s lips. “Don’t say that, please.” Tristan raised an eyebrow and took the finger between his lips. Alex had to fight not to chuckle. “I don’t want him. Not anymore. I don’t think I could love him now. Or even back when I found you. I had to change to find you. I wasn’t the starry-eyed corporate slave anymore. I had to be harder. Hard enough to survive you. Too hard for someone like Jack. I want you. I wanted the hard, uncaring monster who treated me like the weapon he made me into.” Tristan opened his mouth, but Alex replaced the finger on his lips to keep him quiet, this time surprised when it worked. “That’s who I wanted, who I was willing to settle for. If you’re offering me more, I’m willing to find out what that means.”
Tristan nodded. “What if I don’t know what that means? What if processing my emotions means I can’t do what I used to? That I’m no longer the hard monster you wanted?”
“Tristan, I will take whatever you give me. I’ll adjust; we’ll adjust to who you become together. I just want you, whoever that is. That’s all I ever dreamed of having.” He buried his face in Tristan’s chest and tried not to cry.
Tristan held him. “Okay, I can do that. I can give you who I’ll be, whoever that ends up being.”
“What are we going to do now? Jacoby is set on taking you back.”
“I’m not going back there. The town’s compromised. I should have moved on after the Emil job, but I was busy training you. I don’t know where I’ll be going. Probably a place like this.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” There was hesitation in Tristan’s voice. “I think that no matter how hard I tried to leave this place behind, I never left it. All the hideouts I have are in, or close, to forests. A house with my workshop and little more. So it’ll probably be something like that again.”
Alex rested his head on Tristan’s chest. “That sounds nice.” He yawned. “I don’t care where we go. So long as I’m with you.”
Tristan kissed the top of Alex’s head. “Always. I’m never letting you go.”
Alex smiled, falling asleep in the arms of the only person he wanted.
