The silence wasn’t absolute, there was his breath, sounding loud in the helmet he could hear the shuttle working the vibration traveling through the sole of his boots as he walked over the hull. He looked up into the darkness and felt the universe stare back at him. He felt its cold hatred for him.

“Keep trying,” he told it, known no one but the two of them would hear the words. He’d disable the suit’s comms leaving only the incoming message notifier active. “You sent the whole of the mercs to kill me and I’m still here. You think I’m afraid? I’ve survived everything, and I’ve made them all pay.”

He reached the panel where the repairs were needed and knelt.

“And don’t think I don’t know what you’re planning with him.” He looked toward the front of the shuttle. He hadn’t meant to, he’d thought of Alex and his head had turned on its own. He snapped it back to the panel. “It isn’t going to work. I’m going to take him from you. I’m going to break him. I’m going to make him mine. He is going to be a tool I will use to ensure I survive anything else you send at me.”

It didn’t respond, but he knew what it thought. It was laughing at him. Even after all these years, it thought it would best him. It thought that Alex would worm his way inside his life, change him, make him weak. Like everyone who had set out to kill him it would fail. The only difference was that he couldn’t strike back at it. All he could do was keep surviving everything it threw his way.

He removed the panel and focused on what he needed to do. He’d said what he had to say, now he had work to do if he wanted to be sure he’d survive what the universe might throw his way while he was under cryo. His warning programs could only work if they could see properly.

A few hours later the message notification blinked. “Yes?”

“Tristan?” It was the boy. “Are you going to come in to eat?”

“In a while Buddy. You cooking?”

“There isn’t much to use. We left most of the good stuff in the woods. Alex said he came make us something decent.”

Alex. He still had to figure out how to accomplish what he wanted with him.

“If you’re hungry, you go ahead. If there’s nothing left I’ll grab a nutrient bar.”

“But I want us to eat together.”

Tristan felt his annoyance rise, but he controlled it. How much of the mask did he need to maintain? He could just throw the boy in cryo and forget about him until they were at their destination, not that he’d decided where that was yet. What was the harm in indulging him just a while longer? He could get back to this after he’d eaten. Maybe put the boy in cryo when he was asleep.

“Tell me when the food’s ready and I’ll come in.”

“Thanks!” 

Tristan disconnected and went back to work, amused at how easy it was to please the boy.

An hour later he was back inside, seated with Alex and the boy, eating. The food was indeed good. He’d noticed that Alex could always make flavorful meals, even when there wasn’t much. Tristan didn’t care how flavorful food was, so long as it provided the energy he needed.

He knew how to cook, his father had seen to it. A survivalist had to be able to cook his food, he couldn’t depend on others for that, but the only time he cooked anything but the bare basic was when it was required by the mask he wore.

The meal was quiet, with the boy looking at him expectantly a time or two. He also looked at Alex the same way, but the human shook his head. Tristan wondered what conversation he’d missed when Alex had woken up.

When they were done eating, Tristan didn’t go back outside. He sat in the cockpit and searched the net for Alex’s history. He’d done a search already, but it had been casual. What he’d seen of how he fought told him there was more to it. Someone didn’t become that deadly without leaving trails.

It was slow going. Alex’s skill at coercion made it easy for him to hide his movements. He had traced him to the Golly Yacht, a ship that claimed to be a merchant, but Tristan could see it’s real history in what wasn’t there. Life among pirates would explain some of what he could do.

He found indications Alex had traveled to core worlds, as well as less technological ones. On most of them he found Warrants form the local Law for someone that matched his description, if not exactly. Mostly it was for minor things, all related to information theft, but almost everywhere he’d been there had also been people who’d gotten hurt in eerily similar ways. Cuts, a lot of cuts. Alex did love his knives.

Very few people died. When he’d said he didn’t like killing, Alex hadn’t lied. As much as he enjoyed it in the moment, he didn’t want to reach that point. But there were three massacres the Law hadn’t linked to him. They hadn’t even linked them to one person, they figured it was rivalries between gangs that had resulted in them, but Tristan saw the resemblances. Again. Almost exclusively done with a variety of knives. Few of the dead had been killed at a distance, knives thrown at them. Alec had gotten close and somehow managed to keep them fighting close.

Tristan sat back. This wasn’t the cubicle jockey he’d met. He wasn’t even the hardened criminal Tristan had thought him to be. Alex was a weapon. A deadly weapon to be wielded with care, as all weapons needed to. He wasn’t perfectly honed yet. The safety was still on at times when he couldn’t be on.

Tristan smiled. He knew weapons. He knew how to get them to do what he wanted. He wouldn’t take the safety off Alex, but he would take control of it. He already knew of an easy way to do it. Make him fall in love with him again. Alex had turned himself into this weapon for someone he loved. If he loved Tristan, what else would he be capable of doing?

The problem was that it would require a mask. And Tristan wasn’t going to wear one around Alex. Tristan would be himself and no one else around him. So it would take longer, Tristan could deal with that. Tristan had time.

He pulled the earpiece out of his pocket. That was one of the control he could exert of the human. He should destroy it. He had no real way to know what Alex would do the next time he used this. Even if it was for a job. He worked so fast that Tristan couldn’t follow. He’d have to verify after the fact if he’d made changes to his computer again. And by then it could be too late.

He put it on the board. He didn’t have to decide yet, and he was tired. He watched it for a moment, looking at how errand fur stuck to it, then stood and went to the hold to sleep.

* * * * *

When he woke, Alex was already up. He’d gone to sleep hours before Tristan. The first thing he did was grabbed a few nutrient bars and sit in the cockpit. He looked at the earpiece as he ate. It hadn’t changed, hadn’t moved, every strand of fur was where it had been. Alex had managed to exert enough control not to use it, hoping Tristan wouldn’t notice.

He still did a thorough scan of the computer, just in case Alex was cleverer than he’d seemed. When he confirmed his system was clean. Tristan went back to work on the repairs, taking breaks for food and as something to change his mind, he decided to take the earpiece apart. He hadn’t decided what he would do with it yet, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. This was one piece of technology he’d never bothered studying before.

Alex gasped when he saw it in pieces, and Tristan almost laughed at the anguish in his face, but the boy had been there, looking at them, studying them, so Tristan hadn’t shown any of the amusement he felt. The boy didn’t ask about it. Tristan got the impression he had resigned himself to the two of them having a less amicable relationship than he’d first experienced.

After four days, the shuttle was back to full working status. He’d have to overhaul almost everything when he was back home, unless he decided not to bother with that and just get a new one. He’d see what was at their first destination. Once he decided where that was.

He’d finally decided what to do with the earpiece, and its components were gone from the board where he’d been studying it. Alex had asked, almost pleading, but Tristan had just fixed his gaze on him until he stopped and went back to his station.

The boy was under cryo, and Tristan was trying to decide where he wanted to go. If he wanted a decent chance to get a new shuttle, a more recent one, he needed something closer to the core worlds, but that meant a longer trip, there as well as back home afterward.

He saw Alex’s reflection on the screen. He looked even more miserable than the previous times. Tristan readied himself to remind him that he was in charge and that the human had no say as to what he’d done to his earpiece.

“Please don’t kill him.”

Tristan turned and raised an eyebrow.

“He’s just a child, he isn’t a threat to you.”

Tristan crossed his arms. “And what do you expect me to do? Adopt him?”

Alex shook his head. “This life isn’t for someone like him. He deserves better. He deserves an actual life. Tristan, can’t you see that? He isn’t like you or me. This has been rough on him, but he’s going to get over it, if the right people look after him. He’ll never come back to haunt you. I swear.”

“You sound like you’ve already arranged everything.”

“Not everything. I created a new identity for him.”

Tristan raised an eyebrow, his ears twitching in concern.

Alex shrugged. “It wasn’t easy, it took me all this time to be sure it was perfect. I could have done it under an hour with my earpiece, but it’s done. No one will ever find him, I promise. No one will be able to use him against you. No one will even know he’s been in our company. And yes, I know the people who can look after him. I haven’t contacted them, but I know they’ll take him in. They’re good people.”

Tristan considered the offer. Looked at the potential dangers of it. The main one being those people. “Who are they?”

“My grandparents. They raised me after my dad threw me out over loving—well, you know. I already told you the story, back then.”

“Do they know what you’ve become?”

“Some of it. Every time the Law issues a new warrant for my capture, someone gets in contact with them trying to get them to admit they know where I am. I never tell them. I just send them the occasional message letting them know I’m okay. I haven’t contacted them since I found you.” He let out a humorless chuckle. “I haven’t known if I’m okay since then.”

Tristan leaned back. “I need you to understand something. If I do this. If I agree with letting them take the boy in, shelter him. I do it for you, for your conscience, not for me. And there is a price.”

Alex closed his eyes, but nodded. “What?”

“No more arguing. No more believing that you’re your own person. You are mine. You do what I say, when I say. You coerce and you kill when I say. you want the boy to have his life, that’s fine, he is nothing to me, but in return, I want yours. In its entirety.”

Alex didn’t move for a few minutes. Tristan waited. He would give him all the time he wanted, he already knew the answer. That was one of the first things he’d have to get him to abandon, this need to put someone ahead of him.

When Alex finally opened his eyes and looked up, there were none of the emotions Tristan expected. No resignation, no fear, no doubt. His eyes only contained steel.

“Fine. You give Emil his life and I’m yours, body and soul. I’ll steal and kill for you. I’ll massacre anyone you want me to. I’ll be the monster you want me to be.”

Tristan smiled. “You already are the monster I want. You just need some fine tuning to become the monster I can use.”