Gifts From the Sea [Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo] - Part 25 (rough draft)

A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

A/N: Warning for more suicide/depression-related triggers.

o.o.o

Hours later, Bruce gradually blinked awake, stared at the ceiling for a while, then frowned in confusion when he heard clinking sounds. Suddenly remembering the little octo-mer, he sat up.

The room looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Most of the books in the lower shelves had been pulled out and spread across the floor, as had a pile of newspapers and magazines; torn loose pages were strewn about. Baskets had been upended, their contents scattered; the couch pillows and throw blankets were all over the place; cabinets were open and empty because none of their contents were inside them anymore; there was water and cooking oil EVERYWHERE.

In the middle of it all, the ten-limbed child lay on his stomach, staring intently at a video playing on an old tablet. His hands were still, but two of his tentacles were working at a Rubik's Cube; another was flipping through a set of measuring spoons; two more were tugging gently at Dick's cherished toy elephant; one was squirming in a bottle of olive oil; and the last two were playing through a tangle of electrical cords that, thankfully, were not plugged into anything.

Bruce made a strangled noise and the mer casually looked up. Then he must have interpreted Bruce's gobsmacked expression as angry, because the child's eyes widened in what was probably alarm. Swiftly, he backed away and undulated under a pile of debris, drawing more objects over himself until he was completely buried. His tentacles withdrew out of sight, and the pile concealing him went completely still.

It was...really freaking cute. The minute the thought came to mind, Bruce felt a stab of grief because there were two other children who would never again make him smile with their adorable antics. He had to press his hands over his face to stop himself from crying, except it didn't work, so now he really was crying.

After a long time, when he'd stopped sobbing and was now just sitting there with tears leaking slowly down his cheeks, he felt a touch on his knee that startled him.

The octo-mer's little face was peering cautiously up at him. The measuring spoons were still clutched in a tentacle and another tentacle was playing with a remote control to an outdated machine, but most of the mer's attention was on Bruce. One of the free tentacles slid across his shoulders; a hesitant finger reached to poke gently at the tear tracks. The mer stared at his finger for a moment, then poked at Bruce's face again.

"I'm crying because I'm sad. I'm sad because I lost my sons."

The mer signed something.

"I don't know your language." Bruce sighed heavily. "This is mine, though." He said in ASL, "I am very sad."

The mer stared, eyes widening and tentacles going completely still for a moment. Then he resumed his usual slow but constant motion and attempted to copy the ASL.

"I am very sad," Bruce repeated, both verbally and with his hands.

"I am very sad," the mer imitated.

Bruce rested his face in his hand. "Why am I teaching you this? I can't teach you this. You don't need to know it, because you're going home soon."

He tried ignoring the mer for a while, which eventually worked. The boy slithered away and picked up more random objects with his tentacles. The limb with the measuring spoons lowered in front of his face, and intent eyes watched as the suckers adeptly maneuvered the spoons around and around and around the ring that held them together.

Bruce eventually found the strength to get to his feet and start cleaning up. He worked slowly, and there was something very slightly soothing about the mindless work. It was at least an hour later when he discovered that the mer had fallen asleep in the kiddie pool, having pulled a blanket over the top. It couldn't have been for warmth, because the mer wasn't snuggled into it; it was simply draped over the pool like a shield, the rounded lump in the middle rising and falling with each breath.

After far too long, Bruce finally remembered how the mer had squinted in the bright light outside. He thought of deep, dark waters where octo-mer apparently liked to hide. Slowly, he reached for the blinds of the window he'd stupidly parked the pool right in front of, and he closed them.

Nothing changed, of course, since the mer was asleep, but the dimness made Bruce feel a bit better, in any case. He resumed cleaning.

Half an hour later, he suddenly remembered that this was his chance. Tense now, Bruce cautiously put his arms around the mer, blanket and all, and lifted him up. Water came cascading down his legs, only about half of it landing in the pool, but Bruce didn't care. He laid the wet bundle in the wagon and pulled it outside.

Once he'd reached the edge of the sea, he looked and found that the mer was awake, sitting up but with the blanket still draped over him like the world's lamest ghost costume. When Bruce removed the makeshift sunshield, the mer flinched and covered his eyes with his hand. Bruce picked up the boy and carried him into the ocean.

The water came nearly up to his chest when he finally stopped. Two tentacles came to settle securely around him.

"No," Bruce said in exasperation, "you're supposed to swim away. Just let go and go home, it's not difficult."

The mer brought up his other hand and cupped them around his eyes, squinting at Bruce's face from the little shaded shelter.

Bruce was prying away tentacles again. "Go home," he ordered.

A small fingertip reached up and rested on his furrowed brow.

"Stop being so fucking cute when I'm trying to be sad! Get off me!"

It soon became apparent that there was no way he and his measly two arms were going to prevail against someone who had ten, two with thumbs and eight with suckers. Furious, Bruce stormed back to shore and then halted, closing his eyes in utter exasperation when he tried to stride across the sand and felt the heaviness of an eight-year-old child dragging in his wake. He looked down at all the tentacles wrapped tightly around his legs, then at the kid, who was simply sprawled behind him looking way too unperturbed at his position.

"This is not normal behavior, you know," Bruce informed him. "For either of us."

"I am very sad?"

"Oh for-" Bruce stooped down and started peeling tentacles off his legs as quickly as he dared to without outright hurting the child. It worked just as effectively as it had the last several times he'd tried it, and his frustration reached its peak. "GET THE HELL OFF ME! YOU DON'T HAVE TO SPEAK ENGLISH TO TELL THAT I DON'T WANT YOU, GO BACK TO THE FUCKING OCEAN WHERE YOU BELONG AND LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!"

He shoved down the guilt because his tirade had worked. The little mer was curled up surprisingly small, tentacles tightly balled up and both arms covering his head, perfectly still, his whole body the same color as the sand.

"There," Bruce muttered in a hollow voice. He stumbled away. "Don't follow me. Go home."

He eventually made his way back to the house, where he curled up in a corner and cried for a while, wanting to die. Then he stretched out his legs and sat there, staring dully at the wreck that was his home. He ought to finish cleaning it up. There was no point in cleaning it up.

He was half-seriously contemplating sleeping pills and alcohol when he shuffled past a window on his way to bed and paused. There was a lump out there, on the beach, about where he'd left the mer. He couldn't tell from this distance whether the mer was still lying there or if it was a bit of debris in about the same location.

Uneasily, Bruce started tidying. He kept pausing so often to look out the window that he started setting a timer, only allowing himself to look every ten minutes.

Most of the living room was picked up when he took his allotted glance out the window and was startled to see an unusual number of seagulls gathering around the lump on the beach. One of them started picking at it.

Bruce ran out the door and down the sand, scattering birds as he came to a halt beside the lump. It was...the mer. Still there. Looking dead.

Horror and panic surged up in Bruce; he fell to his knees and pressed his fingers against the boy's neck, deciding distractedly that if the child was dead, he himself would soon be following.

He felt a pulse. And at his touch, the boy stirred and flinched, digging fingers into the sand, starting to pull away.

"Oh God..." Dehydrated again, probably traumatized because Bruce was a fucking monster, but alive. Bruce scooped up the mer and rushed to the pool with him, kneeling down to release him into the water. The mer drifted for one second, then shot to the farthest end of the pool and huddled as deep as he could get.

Bruce rubbed at his face, cursing himself. Then he went to get some fish.

He dropped one in and watched hopefully, but there was no reaction. Feeling sick with shame and anxiety, he dropped in another, trying to get it closer to the tiny dark lump at the bottom of the pool. After several long minutes, there was some movement, but he couldn't tell from this distance if the mer had actually taken the fish or not.

He didn't dare enter the pool himself, so he dropped another fish in, feeling helpless, trying to aim between the mer and where the first fish had come to rest. He was deeply grateful when the mer moved again toward the third fish, leaving the water behind him empty - hopefully that meant he'd eaten the second one.

Once the fish were gone, Bruce dropped in some weighted pool toys, then retreated into the house. He didn't...feel like doing anything, so he dragged a chair close to the back door and just watched, waiting to see if the little mer would venture out, until he fell asleep.

o.o.o

When he woke up, he was startled to find the mer pressed up against the glass of the back door, staring at him. He got up immediately to open it and the mer retreated, looking frightened.

"Hey," Bruce said gently, kneeling down. "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not going to hurt you."

After a long moment, the mer, who'd gone the same color as the deck he was resting on, held out a trembling hand. In his fist was gripped one of the dead fish.

"Oh - no, kiddo, that's for you. I have my own food in the house. That's for you." Bruce reached to push the fish back toward him, but the mer flinched away. Feeling guilty and ashamed again, Bruce mimed eating. "That fish is for you to eat."

The mer briefly bared his teeth, the ends of his tentacles curling tightly for a moment. Then he held out the fish again and used both hands to pry it apart, exposing its insides. He narrowed his eyes at Bruce, then transferred the fish to a tentacle so he could set both hands on his own chest. He dug his fingernails into his flesh, right over his heart, and made the same motion as if to tear open his own chest. Of course he didn't do it in actuality, but he was still pressing hard enough to leave scratches in the wake of his nails.

"Don't do that," Bruce sharply, reaching again. The mer started to flinch back but then froze and lowered himself to press against the ground, shoulders hunched, staring up at Bruce. "Let me...get..."

Bruce went inside and came back out with the medicine he'd used to use for Dick's cuts and scrapes. The mer, upright now, watched dully as Bruce spread it over the scratches. "Don't hurt yourself like this."

After a long moment, the mer, not looking directly at him, touched a fingertip to Bruce's forehead and pressed hard. Bruce winced at the sharp pressure, but didn't pull away. He deserved a lot worse. "I'm not angry anymore. I was wrong."

After a moment, the mer's eyes slid to him. Then he formed a hook shape with his forefinger and stuck it in his own mouth, tipping back his head. He narrowed his eyes at Bruce.

"Oh God, I- No one's going to- fish you- Is that what you're asking?" Neither of Bruce's children had ever seemed bothered by the practice of fishing. He'd never given any thought to what it must be like from the fish's perspective. He didn't see any scarring on the octo-mer's face, but just watching someone else get caught on a hook would have been traumatizing in and of itself. "No one's going to hurt you. I acted like I was to try to drive you away, but obviously that didn't work, and I'll die before I let anyone hurt you." Bruce ran a hand through his hair. "You have no idea what I'm saying, do you."

He sighed and thought a moment. He considered acting it out, but if he was going to be gesturing, anyway, he might as well teach the child how to sign properly and eventually be able to tell him directly. "I am sorry. I'm an idiot. You are a good person."

The mer simply stared at him, making no response. Bruce got up, went into the house, grabbed the measuring spoons, and brought them back.

The mer stared at the offered spoons, then narrowed his eyes and took them. He glared up at Bruce as his grasping tentacle spun the spoons around and around their ring.

"I know you're angry and I know this doesn't- I'm not trying to bribe you. I..." Bruce sighed and sat down again, pulling out his phone to place an order for a bunch of stim toys and fidgets. The mer crawled into the house, pointedly circling around him, and set about methodically wrecking the living room again. Feeling fond and guilty, Bruce crouched down a safe distance away and started saying and signing the words for each item the mer reached for. "Magazine. That's a magazine."

The mer eyed him, then grasped a page and slowly ripped it.

"You are tearing a page of the magazine," Bruce explained.

The mer stared at him. Then he handed off the torn page to a tentacle, moved a little farther a long, and reached for the electrical cords he had earlier, watching Bruce.

"Those are electrical cords."

After a long moment, the mer pointed at him. "P'sss."

"I am Bruce," Bruce said, signing the letter 'B.' "B. Bruce. That's me."

The mer made an exaggerated angry face before subsiding into his usual flat expression.

"Angry. I was angry, but now I'm not. I'm sad. I think you are angry. That's okay."

"Angry."

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"B. Angry. Sad. Me." The mer glanced at him. "Me?" Then he said in his voiceless whisper, "Tti'ckie. Sshay."

Bruce was...floored. "T- Dickie? Jay?"

"Tti'ckie." He briefly brought all his tentacles together in a bundle and undulated like Dick in the water. "Sshay." He mimed pulling something over his head.

"You...you really have been...watching us." Bruce felt numb. He didn't know how to react to this.

"Me?"

Bruce ran a shaky hand over his mouth. "You want a name?"

The mer made a sign in his own language and then looked at Bruce expectantly.

"Um..." Bruce's head was suddenly entirely devoid of names. He grasped for some desperately, but the only ones that came to mind were 'Alfred,' 'Thomas,' and 'Martha.' He wrenched his thoughts aside, away from family to anything else, movies, maybe, and the first thing he thought of was Timothy Spalding, the guest star of a recent Gray Ghost episode he'd watched. "Timothy?" Too complicated; shorten it. "Tim? Do you like that?"

The mer cocked his head.

"Tim," Bruce said, pointing at him. "I am B. Bruce. You are Tim?"

"Me. Tt'mm." The mer eyed him.

"Yes. If you want it."

The mer turned away to look at his measuring spoons again.

"I think I have another set somewhere, let me get them..."

TBC