Days passed, and Apprentice quickly got used to the routine - it was the same, every day and night. First thing every morning, his master would quiz him with the exact same questions; then, his master would deal with junkies all day; then they would go to the Z gathering; then they would raid a graveyard, where Apprentice would do as much of the digging as he was physically capable of; then they would find a dumpster in which to spend the rest of the night, and his master would test his ability to see in the dark before they both went to sleep.
His master took alternative payment frequently - sometimes several times a day - and every time, Apprentice forced himself to watch, working to get past his revulsion. It was a losing battle; after all, the reasons why sex was disgusting were still as valid as they had ever been, and Apprentice's only motivation to make himself think otherwise was sheer necessity - and not even immediate necessity, at that. All he could manage was to desensitize himself - his desire (or lack thereof) refused to shift even slightly.
One morning, about ten days into his apprenticeship, Apprentice and his master woke to a dark, cloudy day.
"It looks like it's going to rain," Apprentice commented when the morning quiz was done.
His master coolly raised an eyebrow at him. "So?" he asked.
"So…does that have any potential effect on the raid tonight?" Apprentice asked.
"Well, let's see," his master said mockingly; "if it rains, the ground will be softer, so you won't have to work so hard when you dig for me; and due to the thick clouds, it will be especially dark tonight, so we'll be safer."
This wasn't what Apprentice had meant, but he knew that his master knew that, and he accepted the answer.
The day progressed. It didn't rain that morning, but the clouds seemed to get thicker; it looked like a full-blown storm was brewing. At five in the evening, it was almost as dark as night out. In the dark, while his master was out in the crowds waiting for a junkie to make contact, Apprentice dozed against a wall. Necromerchants really did have to steal whatever opportunity they could to rest, and Apprentice had been getting better about rousing himself quickly…
When he heard his master approaching, he hurriedly stood up straight and looked to see him and whatever junkie he'd just met coming…and blinked.
The girl following his master wasn't one he had seen before. For that matter, she looked nothing like a junkie. She still wasn't quite pretty, but she didn't look nasty at all. There was something...different about her, that Apprentice couldn't quite place…
She caught up to the necromerchant and stopped him.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said when he turned around to face her; "I thought you were someone else."
All junkies said that, always - it was part of the ritual. From what Apprentice could tell, though, this girl sounded like she might actually mean it; she blushed slightly, and took a nervous step back.
Apprentice smiled at her apparent nervousness; it was strange that he almost enjoyed her discomfort, but seeing a girl not flirt shamelessly with his master to get a drug hit was…nice. Refreshing, almost. It felt good, to see some reminder that not everyone left in the world was disgusting.
"That's okay, sweetheart," the necromerchant crooned, smiling at her. "Maybe I can help you?"
"Um…" She smiled back nervously, hesitating.
"Did you want something?" Apprentice's master pressed, stepping towards her.
She took another step back, swallowing hard. "I…uh…" she stammered. Apprentice wondered if her contacting his master might not really have been a genuine mistake, but he didn't think it would be a good idea to interfere.
"It's okay," the necromerchant said; "don't be afraid." The words would have been reassuring, if not for the eerie smile on his face.
"I…I'm sorry to bother you," the girl said, and she started to turn away. "I'll just..."
Apprentice's eyes widened as his master's hand darted out and caught her arm. "Come now, my dear," he said, "I won't hurt you. Isn't there something you want?"
"I…" she stammered nervously, though she didn't try to pull away.
"Don't you want this?" the necromerchant asked, reaching into his belt with his free hand and pulling out a vial of Zydrate.
The girl's eyes widened when she saw the glowing vial, though Apprentice couldn't tell if it was because she did want Zydrate after all, or because she had only just realized what she'd accidentally stumbled into.
The necromerchant told her how much a hit cost.
"Oh." She flushed. "Um, you know what? I don't think I have that much…"
"That's okay," the necromerchant told her, his wicked smile widening; "I don't only trade in money."
Apprentice made his decision then; he couldn't take it anymore. "That's enough, Master!" he said, stepping forward and breaking his master's surprisingly gentle grip on the girl's arm. "Leave her alone!" He stepped between the two of them, facing the necromerchant, and turned his head to glance at the girl. "Go!" he told her. "Run!"
She blinked, apparently surprised, but didn't move to go. "Wh…?" she started to ask. Then, her eyes found something over Apprentice's shoulder, and she stepped back fearfully.
Too late, Apprentice turned to look at his master, and saw a fury on the necromerchant's face he could never have imagined. A split second later, the necromerchant's fist collided with Apprentice's jaw.
The blow was like getting hit across the face with a wrecking ball, and it sent Apprentice spinning 540 degrees and to the ground, face-first.
The girl screamed and ran.
Fighting not to lose consciousness, Apprentice tried to push himself up, only for a boot to press down on his back, driving him mercilessly back into the ground.
"How DARE you?" his master roared. "How DARE you get in my way?" As if to punctuate the necromerchant's fury, thunder rumbled in the distance.
"She wasn't a junkie!" Apprentice cried. "You were scaring her!"
"She was a junkie!" his master snarled, pressing down on Apprentice's back harder. "She was just new! They're always nervous the first time! Can you blame them?"
"No, I can't - not if you treat them like that!" Apprentice retorted, then cried out as his master pushed him down harder.
"I wasn't going to let her go because that's part of the job!" the necromerchant snapped. "Rule number five: If a new customer starts to get cold feet, do not let him or her walk away! They always try, so we have to be assertive!"
"I didn't know that!" Apprentice protested. "You never told me!"
"I told you to follow my lead!" his master shouted furiously; lightning cracked the sky. "I told you that the first fucking day! Damn it, kid! You DO-"
He lifted his foot, then kicked Apprentice hard in the side.
"-NOT-"
He kicked him again, harder; Apprentice cried out from the force of the blow.
"-QUESTION-"
He kicked him again; Apprentice prayed his ribs wouldn't break.
"-ME!" his master finished, and he kicked Apprentice a fourth time with what felt like all his strength, then planted his boot on Apprentice's back again. "YOU GOT THAT, KID?" he snarled.
"I'm sorry!" Apprentice gasped, in total agony. "I'm sorry, Master! I forgot!"
"You FORGOT?" his master shouted. "Since when do you forget ANYTHING I teach you?"
"I'm sorry!" Apprentice exclaimed again, fearful.
"'Sorry' won't bring that girl back!" the necromerchant roared. "Do you think she will ever approach me again, after this? You didn't just cost me a sale - you cost me a customer!"
"I'm sorry," Apprentice whimpered. "I'm sorry, Master. Please…I'm sorry…"
"Don't you dare cry!" his master snapped. "Do that much right and don't cry!"
"I'm sorry," Apprentice said again, softly, his voice starting to fail him.
The necromerchant ground his heel into Apprentice's back. "Damn it, kid," he growled; "I should just stop teaching you right now. I should declare you unable to be a necromerchant and end this, now."
"No!" Apprentice begged. "No, please! Please! I'm sorry! It won't happen again, I promise! Please don't kill me! Please! I'm sorry!" He squeezed his eyes shut, fervently praying that it wouldn't end like this.
Neither of them moved for a minute. Thunder rumbled in the sky, and lightning flashed every now and again.
"You're pathetic, kid," the necromerchant finally spat. "Aren't you even going to try to defend yourself?"
"Master…you and I both know that it would be pointless for me to try and fight you," Apprentice gasped. "You're too strong; I'd lose, no question. My only chance is to lie still and pray you don't kill me."
"To do what?" his master growled, pressing down with his boot again.
"Hope!" Apprentice corrected himself. "My only chance is to lie still and hope you don't kill me!"
The necromerchant was silent for a moment, then lifted his foot off of Apprentice's back. "Right you are," he said.
Shakily, Apprentice pushed himself into a sitting position, wincing at the pain in his side where he had been kicked. He gingerly touched his jaw where his master had punched him, flinched, then carefully lifted his shirt to look at his side.
The necromerchant rolled his eyes. "Stand up, kid," he spat.
Apprentice looked up at his master with disbelief. "Do you even know how strong you are?" he exclaimed. "You might have broken something!"
"I didn't break anything, kid," his master scoffed. "There'll be plenty of bruising and swelling, and it'll hurt like hell for a while, but I didn't do any permanent damage; I was careful. Believe me, I could have kicked you a lot harder."
"I find that hard to believe," Apprentice grumbled, but he forced himself to his feet, not daring to test his master's patience further.
"Then you're the one who doesn't know how strong I am," his master said icily. "Now come on; you just cost me a customer, and if you cost me another deal as well, I'll have to punish you again."
"Yes, Master," Apprentice said in a small voice, and he followed his master towards the next daily dealing spot as the first drop of ice-cold rain fell from the sky.
As the freezing rain started coming down in buckets, soothing the pain in Apprentice's throbbing jaw, it crossed his mind that he now knew all of the rules of the necromerchant business.
Everything else is up to me, then, he thought.
~X~
Fortunately, it turned out that his master had been careful not to break Apprentice's ribs, though the bruises on his side and jaw were very swollen and painful. Naturally, his master didn't go easy on him or give him a break in any area of his training, and acted as though they were to proceed as though the beating had never happened. If only because of fear of what his master could do to him, Apprentice didn't dare complain. The injuries healed eventually, without any sort of permanent damage or scars.
About three weeks after he first apprenticed himself to the local necromerchant, Apprentice was walking down a street with his master, only to be stopped by the sound of a voice calling him by his old name…a voice he knew well.
He turned, just in time to see his mother running towards him.
"Oh, sweetheart, there you are!" she cried, throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly; he could tell she was on the verge of tears. "I've been looking everywhere for you! I was so worried! You scared me so much!"
He wanted to hug her back, but he knew his master was watching, so instead, he struggled. He'd gotten a bit stronger since he'd left home, but he still wasn't strong enough to break out of her frantic grip. "Let me go!" he exclaimed...meaning so much more than just for her to release her embrace.
Suddenly, Apprentice's master stepped in, grabbing his mother's arms and pulling them apart, then pushing her away.
"Ma'am, this boy is my apprentice, and I would appreciate it if you let him go," he said firmly, stepping between her and her son.
"You!" Apprentice's mother exclaimed, her eyes wide as she stared at the necromerchant. "You took my boy from me!"
"No, Mom, it wasn't like that!" Apprentice exclaimed.
The necromerchant turned his head slightly, giving his apprentice a look out of the corner of his eye.
Apprentice swallowed. "I mean, uh…" he stammered. He took a breath, then looked his former mother in the eye with as much coldness as he could muster. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
His master stepped out of the way but raised an eyebrow at him.
Apprentice glanced at his master, then turned back to his ex-mother. "I…I don't know who you are," he forced himself to say, though it broke his heart to do so.
It broke hers, too - he saw it in her eyes. "You know me! I'm your mother!" she exclaimed, tears welling in her eyes and spilling over.
Apprentice wanted to cry, too, but he swallowed his tears and shook his head. "No," he said. "I…I have no mother."
"No!" she wailed. "Don't say that!" She called him by his old name again.
"That's not my name," he said firmly. "My name is Apprentice - that's my only name."
She sobbed, then turned to the necromerchant. "You!" she shrieked. "What have you done to my boy? Let go of him, you freak!"
The necromerchant raised an eyebrow at her coolly. "This boy came to me," he told her, cool as you please. "He asked me to train him, and I agreed. He follows me of his own free will."
"It's true…ma'am," Apprentice said. "I chose this life. Actually," he amended, deciding he could still safely tell her a piece of the truth, "this life chose me…when I was nine years old."
She turned back to him, and he saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. "Is this about your father, sweetheart?" she asked him breathlessly. "I told you-"
"It doesn't matter," Apprentice said, knowing what she was going to say and deciding it would be best to respond before the words came out, so his master would never know them for sure. "The point is, I'm living my life as I choose." He allowed his expression to soften. "I'm sorry," he told her, meaning the words with all his heart.
She blinked, still tearful. The necromerchant gave his apprentice a look.
"…But you must have me mistaken for someone else," Apprentice finished, seeing his master's glare. "For your sake, I hope you are…because I have no mother. Not anymore."
The necromerchant nodded. "Now, ma'am, if you'll excuse us," he said; "I have a business to run, and my apprentice has training to do." He started walking away. Apprentice's mother was too stunned to move.
Apprentice started to follow…then stopped by his mother's side for a moment.
"I'm sorry, Mother," he whispered to her, "but this is the way it has to be. Goodbye."
And he walked away, leaving the one person he had left from his old life behind forever.
~X~
That night, Apprentice hacked at the ground with his shovel, moodier than usual.
"You okay, kid?" his master finally asked.
"Like you care," Apprentice grumbled.
"Are you thinking about your mother?" his master asked him, his tone oddly gentle.
Apprentice stopped what he was doing to glare up at his master; that was answer enough.
"You did the right thing," his master told him.
Apprentice laughed humorlessly. "You say that like you wouldn't have beaten me senseless if I'd done it any other way," he said, turning back to the ground and continuing to dig.
His master was silent for a moment.
"You did it another way at the end anyway, though," he finally pointed out.
Apprentice paused in his work again to looking up at his master, wide-eyed.
His master raised an eyebrow at him. "You think I didn't hear what you whispered to her after I walked away?" he asked sarcastically. "I told you, kid - I trained my ears for two years to get this job, and I can hear a guard sneaking up on me in the middle of digging before the guard even knows I'm there. I heard you."
Apprentice swallowed but said nothing.
His master chuckled. "I'm not going to beat you for it," he told him; "you did what you had to. In the end, you turned your back on her, and that's what really matters. If you had to soften the blow to both of you like that…well, I guess no harm done."
Apprentice turned back to the ground and went back to work. There was silence for a minute.
"Thank you," Apprentice finally said. "I guess."
His master said nothing.
Apprentice paused again and sighed. "It's just that…I didn't realize I had a third option in life…until I lost it today," he said.
"What?" his master asked him, sounding confused.
Apprentice looked up at him. "Fuck or die weren't my only options - at least, not before today," he told his master. "There was a third way things could have gone."
"Oh, really?" his master asked him, raising an eyebrow. "Pray tell."
"I could have gone home," Apprentice said, ignoring the pun; "that is, if something happened to you."
The necromerchant blinked.
"The only thing keeping me stuck in this position, before today, was you," Apprentice went on. "If you had died, I would have been able to go home."
"Are you threatening me, kid?" his master asked him, narrowing his eyes dangerously.
"No, Master," Apprentice replied. "I…I honestly don't think I could ever bring myself to hurt so much as a fly, never mind a person; and even if I could, you and I both know you could easily overpower me. I'm just saying, if something had happened to you, I would have been free." He turned back to the ground and went back to work again. "Not anymore, though," he said; "not now that I ended things with my mother like that. I could never face her again, now."
"I think she would forgive you," his master said. "Isn't that what mothers do?"
"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Apprentice asked incredulously, looking up at his master once more.
His master gave him a twisted smile. "Maybe," he admitted.
Apprentice rolled his eyes and kept digging, and again there was silence, save for the sound of shovel on earth.
"There is one thing I'm curious about though, kid," Apprentice's master finally said: "You're willing to turn on your mother like that, but you're not willing to fuck? You can't tell me that being cruel to your mother isn't a sin in Christianity."
"It is a sin," Apprentice admitted; "a terrible one. It's not, however, the reason I joined Christianity in the first place."
"You became a Christian because you think sex is a sin, and you think sex is a sin because you're a Christian," his master mused. "Am I missing something here?"
"I think sex is a sin because Rotti says it's the meaning of life, and Rotti is evil," Apprentice stated. "I follow Christianity because it says sex is a sin, and because Rotti tried to do away with any religion save the worship of sex, surgery, and him."
"Ah," the necromerchant said. "I see. But of course, you mean you used to follow Christianity," he added.
"Yeah, yeah," Apprentice muttered; he had no intention of letting go of who he was. He handed his master the shovel. "I'm done," he told him.
His master hopped down into the hole he'd dug and took the shovel. Apprentice watched his master open the coffin, and he tried to get a glimpse of how Zydrate was harvested, but as always, his master positioned himself so that what he did was completely hidden from Apprentice.
"Are you ever going to show me how that's done?" Apprentice asked, exasperated.
"Not for a while, kid," his master replied; "you're not ready."
Apprentice sighed but didn't bother trying to force the issue. After a moment, a quote from the Bible crossed his mind.
"Leviticus 20:9," he whispered under his breath: "'For anyone who curseth his father or mother shall surely be put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.'"
His master glanced back at him. "That's pretty grim," he commented. "I don't suppose extenuating circumstances are taken into account for things like that?"
Apprentice shook his head.
"Well," his master said, turning back to his work, "you are doing this for your father."
"True," Apprentice admitted, "but that doesn't make what I did to my mother today any less of a sin."
"Well, for what it's worth, kid," his master said, straightening with a fresh vial of Zydrate in his hand and turning to look him in the eye, "I'm proud of you."
Apprentice blinked; the words seemed strange coming from his master. "You are?" he asked.
The necromerchant nodded, meeting Apprentice's eyes steadily. "You did what you had to do," he said. "You even risked going behind my back, even though you were afraid of me, to tell your mother goodbye; and you turned your back on her - and your old life - in the end. I couldn't have asked for more from you…nor could I have done so well myself."
Apprentice felt his face get hot; he had never expected to hear nearly so much praise from his master, ever. "Thank you, Master," he choked. "That…that means a lot to me."
The necromerchant rolled his eyes, cold once more. "Don't get all sappy on me, kid," he said; "I'm just telling it like I see it." He sighed, then muttered something.
"What was that?" Apprentice asked.
"I said, damn you," his master said, louder this time.
Apprentice blinked. "Why?" he asked, confused.
"Because you-" He stopped, cocking his head slightly, an intense expression on his face.
"Master-?" Apprentice began, alarmed at this sudden change.
His master quickly raised a hand to silence him. He cursed under his breath a second later, and before Apprentice could blink, his master grabbed him, putting one gloved hand over his mouth, picked him up, and started sprinting away from the recently dug-up grave.
Less than a minute later - just as they crossed the graveyard boundary - an alarm was sounded and a lockdown was called; the graveyard they had been raiding had been one of the better-guarded ones. The necromerchant stopped a little further on and pressed his back to a tree, still gripping Apprentice tightly, and peered around to look at the guards that were swarming on the borders.
He let out a breath. "We were talking too long," he told Apprentice, releasing his hold and turning to him.
Apprentice found his footing and took a step back, crouching among the foliage. "How did you know?" he asked his master softly.
His master smiled at him. "I told you," he said; "I can hear a guard sneaking up on me before they even know I'm there. I heard one coming, a second too late; I knew there was no way we'd be able to fill in that grave and move out of the way before he found us, even if we worked together, so the only choice we had was to immediately run." He glanced back, then turned to Apprentice again. "You have to make judgement calls when you're in this business, kid," he told him; "you know that."
Apprentice thought. "Rule one, part one: Do not take risks," he recited, smiling.
His master smiled back and nodded. "That's right," he said. He turned back again, watching the commotion the dug-up grave had caused behind them. "Come on, kid," he said; "we're done for the night."
"Yes, Master," Apprentice said.
They headed back into town.
"Master?" Apprentice asked after a minute.
"Yes?" his master responded.
"Why did you say to me, 'damn you'?" Apprentice asked.
His master stopped, then sighed, not looking at his apprentice.
"Because you…remind me what it feels like to be human," he replied, his tone indecipherable, "and that's really fucking inconvenient…not to mention annoying."
"What do you mean, Master?" Apprentice asked, confused.
The necromerchant sighed again, then finally turned back to look at Apprentice. "Kid, I've been a necromerchant for years," he told him, "and I can't remember the last time I felt…well, the last time I felt anything. I've been dead inside all this time, as dead as the bodies I dig up for a living. That's not…it's not a necessary part of being a necromerchant, but it happens. It's just easier to be cold." He sighed again. "I know you think I'm cruel, even schizophrenic," he said; "I know exactly what you think of me. I see the way you look at me - like you're afraid I'll be set off without warning and beat you to death. The truth is…well, maybe I am sort of schizophrenic, in that I haven't cared about anyone or anything in years, and I thought I never would again - and I even thought that it was for the best. But you…" He shook his head. "You're…different. You're more alive than most people - maybe more so than anyone left in this fucked-up world Rotti created. You care - you care about people, you care what's right and wrong…You…feel. And in doing so, you occasionally remind me what it's like to feel. It's just hard on me at times…to remember what I lost. Sometimes, I hate you for it…and sometimes, I'm grateful. Sometimes, I'm sorry you have to end up like me; sometimes, I'm so jealous of your heart that I almost feel glad that you're going to lose it." He closed his eyes. "But hatred, gratitude, remorse, and jealousy…those are still feelings, and I thought I'd never have any, ever again. It's…confusing, now, to feel sometimes. It's frustrating."
There was silence between them for a minute; Apprentice didn't know what to say. For a man who claimed to be unable to feel, this was quite a show of humanity on his master's part, and Apprentice couldn't help but wonder if his master had given up on the idea of living too soon. At any rate, he certainly felt the need to reconsider his opinion of the necromerchant…
His master sighed again. "In the end, though, kid, it doesn't really matter," he said, turning back around and starting to walk again. "You'll end up dead inside, just like me - for better,and for worse."
"What makes you so sure?" Apprentice asked.
His master chuckled. "Trust me," he said nastily; the humanity he had shown was gone again, just like that.
~X~
Time went on, and Apprentice's training continued. Knowing all the rules and regulations, all that was left was for him to train his body and senses and retrain his mind, and for him to learn how to harvest Zydrate.
Slowly but surely, Apprentice grew stronger. After a month, he could go an entire graveyard raid without feeling like he was going to fall over when he was done; and a week later, he even started being able to pry coffins open.
His senses didn't improve terribly, though he did try. Eventually, he was able to train his ears to be able to tell when his master held up one hand or two when he tested Apprentice's eyesight each night, or when he didn't lift either and only asked to trick him; in situations where he had to filter out other sounds, however, Apprentice still struggled, and his eyesight didn't improve significantly.
His greatest struggle was in retraining his mind to accept, and even desire, sex. He'd been building a schema for eight years that simply didn't allow for it, and though he worked hard at it, his efforts yielded minimal results. Still, after three months, he could watch his master take alternative payment without feeling the need to puke - though this could have been simple desensitization.
As for harvesting Zydrate, he tried to get his master to show him how it was done - even tried to sneak looks at what his master did to the bodies he dug up - but always without success.
"You're not ready yet, kid," his master kept saying; "you're just not ready."