41. Onyx #2
“I was eleven when I started training,” Onyx offered tentatively. “I… wasn’t really a fast learner.” Not at first. He’d had to work and work hard. But he’d done it, and it had gradually gotten easier. “You’re a better teacher, though.”
Though he couldn’t deny that Paul and Marcos had been effective, that was for sure.
He hesitated, not sure he wanted to offer anything else.
Every time they talked, really talked, something went south.
But he sometimes wished he had someone who cared about him and his past. Because Dominic didn’t see him as a person; he saw him as his doom, or his pet, or something in between.
He rarely tried to get information out of Onyx about who he’d been or what he’d been, and Onyx wasn’t going to volunteer anything that could make it easier for Dominic to manipulate him.
Not that Dominic needed extra ammunition, but sometimes…
Sometimes Onyx just wanted to talk about it.
He cleared his throat. “Will you show me how to do that one again?”
“The one we were working on?” Shane nodded.
Going back into the starting position, he went through the kata again at half speed, each movement crisp and defined.
Onyx watched intently, though his thoughts were divided. He wanted to tell Shane about some of the bullshit, but about some of the good moments, too.
He wanted to tell someone.
Tears threatened to well up at the corners of his eyes again, but he didn’t dare let those fall. Dominic would lose his shit, and he’d never understand why Onyx was as upset as he was even though it was all his fault.
So he focused on the motions instead, and he stepped into the first of them, taking his time as he worked through the kata and let Shane correct him and position him.
They’d gone a good bit over their usual lesson time window, but since this was Onyx’s “free time” and he wasn’t in any kind of hurry to stop, they kept working and going through each of the movements until they’d reached the end of the second kata.
By that point, Onyx’s movements had started to falter and he’d lost the precision that he’d started with.
Shane called a halt to their lesson. “You’re picking these up really fast,” he said approvingly. “We’ll go through a few more katas and then we’ll start doing some half speed sparring in a few more lessons.” He held his hand out for Onyx’s staff.
Onyx was reluctant to stop, but at the same time, he recognized that he’d gotten tired and that he was starting to get sloppy.
He was sweaty to boot, and while he was happy with the languor that had seeped into him as a result of the lessons, he was afraid of where his thoughts might drift without the distraction.
It would almost be time for lunch, though — and his days revolved around food, didn’t they? — before he’d be expected to seat himself at Dominic’s feet.
He handed the staff over, then did a few stretches to wind down before grabbing waters for both of them and draining his all at once.
“Thanks,” Onyx said sincerely.
“Of course." Shane smiled, accepting the water bottle and drinking it quickly. “It’s about an hour to lunch. Back to the rec room?”
Onyx nodded. “Shane,” he began carefully, “I really am sorry. For… you know, the whole thing. It’s just that it’s hard because I keep forgetting things changed, because they could go back to how they were at any minute.
You know?” He bit his lip, fiddling with the empty water bottle in his hands. “It’s not like things are stable.”
“I’m sorry too,” Shane said just as carefully. “I shouldn’t have said anything. You’ve got more than enough reason to be upset about any of this. All of this. I was outta line.”
Onyx shook his head. “I want… I want to be friends. And I don’t have much experience having friends, but from what I remember, friends disagree sometimes.
And sometimes they say things you don’t want to hear.
” He crushed the water bottle, still staring down at it.
“You’re the closest thing I have to a friend, the closest thing I think Dominic’s gonna let me have.
I don’t want to lose that just because of some stupid comment. ”
“I want to be friends too. I don’t have too many of those myself. And it ain’t the first time I’ve had a row with a friend over something someone said,” Shane mentioned with a wry grin.
Onyx looked up at Shane, feeling fragile and vulnerable but hopeful, too.
He knew that this could ultimately backfire, and he didn’t want that.
But he was so damn lonely, and in the wake of the day before, he wanted someone to talk to more than ever.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I just want to talk about the past. But it’s not like I can do that with Dominic. You know?”
“Yeah,” Shane agreed, hesitating before asking carefully, “Was there something you wanted to talk about now?”
Onyx debated. He wanted to, but he was aware of just how much surveillance the house was under. If Dominic knew they were talking, he’d want to know what was being said. He didn’t think the Bancroft witch would understand that Onyx felt like he could talk to Shane about things like this.
But the need to talk was still there, and Onyx nodded slowly.
“I don’t know if you realize how good of a teacher you really are,” he began quietly.
“I learned from the leaders of the rebellion, and they were… Well. They call supes monsters, but the things they did weren’t exactly great either.
Their training was more like torture sometimes.
” His eyes grew glassy, but he wasn’t going to cry even if he was emotional and on the edge of losing it for reasons that really had nothing to do with what he was talking about.
“Punch ‘em until they learn how to fight back types?” Shane asked sympathetically. He took a seat on the training ring floor, inviting Onyx to do the same with a gesture.
Onyx nodded, sitting down across from Shane after tossing the water bottle into the recycling bin.
“Then I thought I was going to die, you know? I thought it would be over, and I ended up here. Dominic used to whip me bloody, give me vampire blood to heal, then do the same thing over again. He says he was trying to make me hate him, and I did. I do. But I still didn’t kill him when I had the chance, and I—” He realized he was rambling, and that he was saying more than he’d intended.
He bit his lip, giving a slight shake of his head because he couldn’t keep going without losing his shit.
Shane nodded, and Onyx appreciated the quiet, non-judgmental attention the wolf was giving him.
He wanted to keep talking, but he was scared that what he said would visibly upset him. Dominic would walk in and think that Shane had done it and destroy what little, fragile thing he had by taking it away.
“I should’ve done it,” Onyx whispered. “I don’t know why I didn’t.
I got so scared, I guess. I don’t know how to do anything.
I was eleven, Shane. I barely know how to take care of myself.
And it’s not like Dominic is teaching me life skills.
I don’t think he’d let me learn even if I wanted to at this point because he’d know what that meant. ”
“‘Should’ is a tough thing to say,” Shane said, his voice still cautious.
“When I was doing the MMA circuit, I saw all kinds of shit. The guys there… Well, it wasn’t the kind of thing that appealed to the most upstart of people, you know?
Their wives, their girlfriends… they weren’t always treated all that well.
But they wouldn’t leave. They’d stay, come back even.
Sometimes things would be better; sometimes they wouldn’t.
Minds do shit, you know? It doesn’t always make sense. ”
Onyx looked down at his callused hands, flexing his fingers as he thought over Shane’s words.
He could read between the lines on what Shane was and wasn’t saying: Dominic didn’t treat Onyx well, but Onyx had gone back to him anyway, and that was apparently what people did.
It was a reality he’d never really known before; he’d been largely sheltered before the takeover, and when he’d been with the rebellion…
“I’ve never had a choice,” he said. “There’s never been anywhere for me to run.
I get why you can’t help me. I’m not asking you to, either.
” Even though he’d been pissed at Shane for getting in the way of his suicide attempt, he understood it.
“I’m a slave, and I know what that means.
Unless the Council was to intervene…” He laughed, bitter sound that it was.
“I don’t think Dominic would let me go even if they told him to. ”
“Yeah,” Shane agreed. “I don’t think he would either.”
No. Not with the absolute way Dominic said that Onyx belonged to him forever and always.
Onyx glanced back up at Shane, forcing a smile that didn’t linger.
“I wonder if he’d get me an audiobook about how to deal with psychopaths.
" He wasn't entirely sure he was joking. “He wants…” He couldn’t talk about the things Dominic wanted. It was too personal, too private. But he murmured, “He wants things from me I don’t want to give. And it’s inevitable, it’s all inevitable, and I don’t even know why I fight against it anymore. ”
Shane’s return smile was barely more than a flicker. He nodded slightly. “Sometimes,” he replied, still so very carefully, “if you can’t control the if, you can still control the how… and the when.”
Onyx considered that. It was what he’d been trying to do, even what Dominic had told him to do, so he knew Shane wasn’t wrong.
But it was also difficult because Dominic was much smarter than he was.
He knew when Onyx was trying to manipulate him, and it was only a matter of whether he was going to allow it or not.
“I don’t think I can control it,” Onyx admitted. “Not unless I get a lot better at manipulating people, and I don’t think I can. But I can maybe influence it some?” He grimaced.