Page 13 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded (Rogue Bonds #2)

Dax

“J esus Christ, why are you burning the toast?”

Predictably, my master was in a foul mood the following morning. I stopped, the blackened slices dangling from my fingers as I went to put them on the plate. “Because you always burn your toast,” I said, cringing internally. Wasn’t that the way he wanted them? I’d watched him make breakfast a dozen or so times in the year I’d been here – given that he didn’t eat it all that often – but when he did, grumpy and hungover, he’d invariably burned the slices, but eaten them anyway, slathered in butter and tilfruit jam.

“No, that’s not because I… Fuck.” He slammed his hand down on the counter, then stomped out of the room. A moment later, I heard his bedroom door slam.

I massaged my temples for a moment, trying to ease the tension in my neck and shoulders by taking three deep breaths. It was difficult to figure out what was actually going on here. Was he just lashing out because he’d had a bad night, or was I actually doing a bad job of making breakfast? On a hunch, I activated my comm and typed in ‘Toast for breakfast’, and then hit the image option on the search. A dozen pictures sprang up onto the holographic screen… and I groaned as I saw the repeated golden-brown slices, topped with everything from plain butter to herb-sprinkled piles of cheese and eggs. That was certainly nothing like what my breakfast looked like. I tossed the burned slices into the bin and set about inspecting the controls on the toaster, in the hopes of making a second batch that was more palatable.

Five minutes later, breakfast was ready, but my master had not yet returned. I crept down the hall and knocked tentatively on his door. “Sir? Breakfast is ready. I’ve made some more toast. It’s not burned this time.” Perhaps I should have made eggs to go with it. We’d both eaten eggs at the café with Kade and Aiden, but I had little idea how humans liked them cooked. The Basuba ate them raw, which I was fairly sure humans didn’t do, and the Anicrians ate them whole, with the shell still on, which was certainly not the way the café had prepared them.

I returned to the living room and sat down at the table, helping myself to a slice of toast and a spoonful of the chopped fruit I had prepared. I didn’t know whether my master was going to come back or not, but I hoped that setting the example of eating would encourage him to do the same. While he was drinking, it was common for him to eat very little, and it was worth trying to break that habit early in this new routine we were attempting to set up.

A minute or two later, I heard his bedroom door open, and he slouched back into the room, a scowl on his face. I’d carefully moved the puzzle pieces to the side and set the table with a variety of condiments, along with the toast and fruit, intent on observing which items my master ate, so that I could more accurately cater to his desires in the future.

He sat down and picked up a slice of toast, slathering it with a cinnamon and nut butter, before shoving half the slice into his mouth. Hm. He was still in a bad mood, then. He only ate like a barbarian when he was angry.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you last night,” I said, to break the heavy silence. I had angered him, and no matter how much I might tell myself I had been trying to help him, the end result had clearly not been the desired one.

His right hand reached for something, opening automatically… and then closing again, as he set his wrist down on the table. “I don’t need a fucking apology,” he groused. “You just…” I waited, but he didn’t finish the sentence. I thought he was going to say something to the effect of, ‘You must never come into my room again.’ But he said nothing. Did he realise I’d been trying to help him, and didn’t know how to admit it? Or was he genuinely still angry and didn’t know how to express it? I decided to say nothing about the whole thing, and hopefully avoid making him any angrier.

As we were finishing the last slices of toast, I braced myself for the next challenge of the day. “The weather’s nice this morning,” I said with deliberate nonchalance. “It would be a good time to go for a walk.”

“I don’t want to go for a fucking walk,” he snapped at me, stabbing his toast with his butter knife.

“Yes, sir,” I muttered, ducking my head and hunching in on myself. His hand reached for something again… and this time, I noticed it was shaking slightly. Damn it. In my agitation about last night and the burned toast, I’d forgotten his tablet.

I got up, abandoning the last of my toast, to go and fetch one, but before I reached the door to the kitchen, my master abruptly said, “Sit down. Finish your breakfast.”

Like a marionette on strings, I sat, obediently guiding the corner of the slice into my mouth. “Would you like some coffee?” I asked, once I’d swallowed. Yes, he’d given me a direct order to sit down, but if he gave me a different one – to get him some coffee, for example – then I wouldn’t technically be breaking his first order. “Or some juice?” I offered next, when he didn’t respond to my question.

“No, I want a fucking glass of vodka,” he snarled at me.

I paused to consider my own actions for a moment. I’d been trained to pick up on the slightest nuances of my master’s behaviour – a sideways glance, a smile that might indicate a preference for one style of cooking or another, hints of annoyance about which tasks were completed sooner, rather than later. So my master’s current mood was like being screamed at, emotions lit up in neon pink and electric blue.

But that wasn’t to say that those emotions were completely without nuance. I’d figured out very quickly that my master had both a hero complex, and a self-destructive streak. At the moment that I’d met him, he’d been bleeding onto the cargo bay floor of his ship, poisoned and in pain, but he’d forbidden me from treating his wounds until his crew mates were taken care of. And he’d ordered me to retrieve the alcohol from his crewmate’s bunk, even when he knew it would be a bad idea, given his impending need for surgery.

In the back of my mind was also the keen knowledge that my master hadn’t actually instructed me to do anything to look after him – not giving him his tablets, not taking him on walks, not waking him from unpleasant dreams. I was following Aiden’s orders, not my master’s. And while I wasn’t technically disobeying my master, I was taking an unprecedented number of liberties with my interpretations of his wishes.

The problem was that hiding meekly in corners and staying out of his way had achieved exactly nothing for the past year. Meanwhile, cooking dinner unannounced and opening puzzle boxes without permission had gotten him to eat and distracted him from his own self-destructive habits – albeit temporarily.

My trainers had taught me to obey my master. But at the same time, they had taught me to love him. Though I wasn’t entirely sure whether he would ever love me.

I shoved the rest of my slice of toast into my mouth, chewed a cursory number of times, then swallowed. Okay, I’d finished my breakfast. I’d completed my master’s order.

I stood up, gathered my plate and the now-empty bowl that had held the fruit, and ferried them both to the kitchen. Then I took a glass out of the cupboard, filled it with water and marched back to the dining table, setting it down more noisily that strictly necessary in front of my master.

He looked up at me in surprise. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Vodka,” I told him. “You said you wanted a glass.”

He eyed the glass like it was a snake about to bite him. “We got rid of all the alcohol,” he said, sounding less certain now. Less like a bear growling, and more like a puppy whining.

“Yes, but there was some hidden in one of the cupboards.” That wasn’t actually a lie, though I was certainly twisting the truth. There had been some, hidden in the bathroom cupboard; the bottle I had disposed of yesterday.

My master looked aghast. “Are you fucking serious?” he asked me, a different kind of anger rising.

“No,” I said, deciding I’d drawn this lesson out long enough. “It’s a glass of water. You haven’t taken your pill yet.” I plucked the container out of my pocket, where I’d hastily stashed it while I was in the kitchen, and popped the lid open. I set the pill down next to the glass, then simply waited.

My master glared at me. Then he dipped his head, just slightly ashamed of himself. And then he picked up the pill and washed it down with a few quick swallows of water. “Why did you do that?” he asked, when he was finished.

In hindsight, I could come up with a dozen different reasons, and if I’d been more concerned about being punished for my misbehaviour, I might have spun a more compelling story – something about him needing to realise by himself that he didn’t want to drink, rather than being forced not to. But the truth was far simpler. “I was hoping I could jolt you out of your bad mood.”

He peered up at me, eyes narrowed, as if trying to understand a particularly complex mathematical problem. “This is not the way Aiden says dimari are supposed to behave.”

That came as a shock. It wasn’t a reprimand, but at the same time, I felt a rush of shame. I was not a good dimari. I had been sold for a particularly low price. And a year of isolation and regret hadn’t changed that a bit.

“No, sir,” I said in the end, because what else was I supposed to say? Aiden said this was the correct way to look after my master. But whether or not my master himself approved remained to be seen. Then again, it was hard to believe that he was ever going to thank me for pushing him around and finding covert ways to scold him. Not knowing what else to do, I finished clearing away the breakfast things.

Ten minutes later, I arrived back in the living room with a pair of socks in one hand and a pair of sunglasses in the other. “It’s a nice day for a walk,” I told my master, holding out the two items. He was still sitting at the table, staring at a little collection of puzzle pieces, no doubt convinced that they fit together somehow.

“Jesus Christ, you don’t give up, do you?” he said. But even as the words were leaving his mouth, he was reaching for the pair of socks. He bent over to shuffle the first one onto his foot. “Not a long walk, though,” he said, and there was enough real apprehension in his voice that I took notice. “It’s not… I’m really not…”

“Just down to the park and back,” I said, my tone gentler now. “That’s all.”

He nodded and finished putting on his socks and shoes.

It only took five minutes to walk to the edge of the park, and as we arrived, I slowed. I wanted to keep going, to look at the pond, to see some of the other people who were out and about, and maybe exchange a cheery ‘Good morning!’ with a few of them. After a year of not speaking to anyone, I would take whatever opportunities I could get. But I knew there was a fine line between prompting my master to make small improvements to his life, versus pushing him too hard and ending up doing more damage. I’d told him we only needed to go to the park and back, and given how the morning had started, getting this far seemed like an achievement already.

Apprehensively, I asked, “Do you want to go back?”

This entrance was up on a hill, giving a good view of the park, the pathway where people were wandering around the lake, and I was a little surprised to see there was a kiosk at the far end. A few children were running around on the far side of the pond, and I resolved to keep our distance from them. After his bad dream last night, the last thing my master needed was over-excited children running into him.

“Let’s just go sit on a bench, or something,” he said, sounding none too enthusiastic about it. “May as well while we’re here.”

The decision came as a relief. And I supposed that Aiden had probably expected something like this. Often, the hardest part of any activity was starting it. But once we were out the door and on our way, meandering another hundred metres down the hill didn’t seem like such a big deal.

We made our way down to the edge of the pond, choosing a seat a few metres back from the path. And then I pulled a small packet out of my jacket pocket and handed it to my master.

“What’s this?” he asked… and then snorted in amusement as he opened the top and peered inside. It contained two slices of bread. “You want me to feed the givarids? What am I, five years old?”

Givarids were small, furry creatures that lived in shallow burrows amidst the ferns that grew in clumps under the trees. They’d originated on a distant planet in the Delva system, and being small and quiet, they’d managed to accidentally stow away on hundreds of ships, eventually spreading to dozens of planets across the galaxy – including both Eumad and Rendol 4. And yes, feeding them bread or nuts was a popular pastime of young children, no matter what species they were.

“I thought it might be entertaining,” I told him. I’d thought it might be one small step in helping him see that there were still things in life that were worth enjoying. But if I told him that, he would find it patronising.

He snorted, but I was pleased to see there was as much humour in the expression as annoyance. “Fine.” He broke off a corner of one slice and tossed it over near the ferns. There were no givarids in sight, but as everyone knew, all you had to do was toss a few scraps of food about and…

And there it was, a small, pink nose emerging cautiously but hopefully out of the scrub. They had long whiskers and large back legs that they hopped on, plus a big, bushy tail that curved up over their backs. This one paused with his head sticking out of the ferns, looking around warily. He spotted us and examined us carefully. We both sat still, waiting… waiting… The givarid eyed the bread again, then us, then the bread… and then he finally came creeping out of the ferns. But rather than taking the food and running away, he sat there and ate it, his little teeth in rapid motion, until it was gone. And then he sat up on his hind legs and looked hopefully in our direction. Obligingly, my master broke off another piece of bread and tossed it to the creature.

He continued until the bread was gone, by which time there were five of the little creatures sitting there begging for another piece. “Sorry, folks,” my master said gently, holding up his empty hands to show them there was no more. “Some other time, okay?”

It looked like he’d enjoyed the distraction. So it came as something of a shock when he turned to me, a scowl on his face. “I’m not a fucking child,” he said, his mouth tight. “I’ve got issues, I realise that. But I don’t need to be led around by the hand like I’m a fucking toddler. So don’t patronise me, don’t play games with me, and don’t treat me like a child. And yes, that is an order. You got that?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, ducking my head and keeping my eyes on the grass at his feet.

“I walked through hell and fought the big bad for long enough to come out the other side still alive. And yeah, now I have nightmares and a drinking problem. But I’m not stupid.” He shoved the empty bread wrapper at me and stood up. “Walks are fine, if that’s what Aiden’s insisting on. But we’re not doing this again.”

All the way home, I contemplated the new dilemma in my life. I still had to help my master look after himself. I still had to encourage him to do things he inevitably wouldn’t want to do. But according to the new order he had given me, I wasn’t allowed to use subterfuge or gimmicks to achieve those aims.

To be honest, he might have been right; I had been treating him a bit like a temperamental child. But given his general moodiness and lack of cooperation, I hadn’t seen much other option. Clearly, I was going to have to lift my game. I still wasn’t getting any clear signs that he was happy with my efforts, though he seemed willing to give me time to fumble my way through a few more attempts at getting things right. But how long that would last before he lost patience with me entirely was anybody’s guess.

I followed him through the front door, when we got home, and then immediately turned to my next important task. “You asked me to remind you today to call Aiden,” I told him. I was about to say that he’d had some questions to ask him… but thought better of it at the last moment. I was used to my master being incredibly forgetful, but perhaps that had been the influence of the alcohol, more than anything else.

“If he comes over, I would like to ask him a few questions of my own,” I dared to say. It was imperative that I talk to Aiden, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity, but I was also dreading the possibility of my master asking what I wanted to talk to Aiden about. The whole point was that these were questions I couldn’t ask my master.

My master looked sideways at me. “We’re both kind of fumbling through this, aren’t we?” he said, but there didn’t seem to be any real reprimand in his tone. “Fair enough. I’ll tell him you want to talk to him.” He activated his comm, pulling up a connection to Aiden, and I headed for the bathroom, intent on scrubbing the shower and working through another load of laundry.