Chapter 27

"Tip-top shape!" the man exclaimed.

"They'll be here any minute, Jack, hurry!" the woman called from elsewhere in the building.

He heard the splattering of water and watched the large man hold his hand under the silver tube that the water came out of.

All he could think about was being dunked into more water, left alone again to suffer the horrors of foreign English-speakers. He still questioned why Sam and Tucker had abandoned him, and here of all places. Here, where the whole tank would inevitably fill up, and he would be shoved inside and feel the agony and burning of ectoplasm as it entered his body again.

The man made him wait for several minutes, taunting him, teasing him, torturing him with the sound of water. He almost wanted to cry at the mere knowledge of what was to come next. The severity of what would happen to him because Sam and Tucker stopped caring. Maybe he did something to upset them. What if they never came back? What if they never gave him the chance to make up for whatever he'd done wrong?

"Should be okay now," the man mumbled to himself, taking his hand out from under the stream of water and turning it off.

English-speakers were such an enigma. They had the power to control water, light, temperature, and even air…but used their power to inflict pain. He doubted he would ever understand why and he almost didn't want to, because if he did, he would be thinking like them.

The man motioned him to come inside the bathroom but he found himself unable to move. Even if he tried, the sensation of ectoplasm violating his every orifice was burned into his memory. Body and mind, he wasn't too thrilled about the idea of reliving that experience.

"Come on, Daniel. Bath time," the man said.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"Uh…" The man tapped his chin as if he was thinking about something. "Oh boy, what was it, uh…ba...ban…temp…a…? Temp…o…?" Suddenly the man snapped his fingers. "Banotempo!"

He assumed it was Esperanto but…he was still confused. Translating one word he didn't know to another word he didn't know was hardly helpful in breaching the communication gap.

The man parted his lips and exhaled.

"You—" He pointed his meaty finger at him. "—get—" He drew in both hands. "—bath." He pointed both fingers toward the bathroom.

"Clean," the man continued. "Wash."

It seemed to take all this fuss for the man to realize he didn't know a word that came out of that mouth, and a large hand placed itself over his shoulder. Before he knew it, he was being pushed forward. He resisted on instinct and pushed backwards against the hand. It would probably land him in so much trouble with the English-speakers but nothing they did, no punishment they could ever dole out, would rival the gruesome fate that awaited him in the bathroom.

"Jack, is he in yet?" the woman called again.

"Almost ready!" the man replied.

He tried again to push him forward but the boy resisted just as much as before, if not slightly more this time. Well. It wasn't necessarily a push so much as a strong nudge, he supposed, but still. The implication remained the same and he perceived any nudge as force.

"Come on, Daniel, don't make this hard," the man said. "Hygiene is important anyway."

One more push. Twice as much pushback. He simply wasn't having this.

The man sighed heavily and pushed even harder. Although he tried to stand his ground once again, it was useless and his weak ankles caved in, causing him to stumble forward regardless of how badly he wanted to resist this madness. Now, if this was Sam's bathroom… But…it wasn't. It was some torture chamber that didn't even give off a bathroom vibe.

The man almost had him through the door, where he was fully ready to swing his upper body to left and use whatever extremities he could to clutch the frame, when he counted about three or four footsteps rushing down the stairs. At this, the man stopped pushing and groaned. He wasn't sure why.

"Daniel!" two voices simultaneously exclaimed.

He recognized them as Sam's and Tucker's respectively but was still too shaken by the water to acknowledge their presence.

It took Tucker pulling the man away for him to settle down at all. Sam came to hug him, as if she didn't know what was about to happen before she arrived on the scene. He wanted to be disgusted by an act of kindness when she had abandoned him and left him to suffer but for some reason, he put his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. He stood there, practically motionless, for about five seconds. Feeling her warmth. Her small, nonthreatening frame. Her hair brushing against his cheek. The familiar scent of her shampoo…or soap…whichever he smelled on her. He should've hated this but it relaxed him. Tucker never did tell him why. That part was a bit frustrating but…this was nice.

"You okay?" she asked as she separated from him. "You're not hurt, are you? How is your throat feeling?"

He gave her a blank stare but kept a locked focus on the man in his peripheral vision. He didn't understand what she was saying but he knew she was concerned about him. He just couldn't figure out why—this has all been her idea, after all. Hers and Tucker's.

Maybe he still felt safer with them because they were the only two familiar figures he had in the Outside. The last shred of hope for him to find his own way instead of following orders only a certain circle of people knew. The only ones who had shown any amount of care for his happiness and the only two that had ever given him opportunities to be like them, as if they wanted to help him instead of use him. Perhaps that was what incentivized him to lay down his life for them if need be, and even more impressively, trust them to the extent that he did.

"Oh, right…that whole Esperanto thing… Sorry. I'm still pretty new to it," she said.

Neither of them had a chance to do much else before Tucker came by and grabbed his forearm.

"Let me take a look," Tucker sighed.

He was dragged—well, actually, he followed obediently—into the torture bathroom and Tucker came to a sudden stop upon seeing the water. He slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead.

"Well, here's the problem," he said. "Maybe it's my fault, I probably should've told you sooner, but Daniel hates baths."

Tucker released him and walked over, but he already knew the routine and trailed closely behind despite knowing he didn't have to.

Tucker bent down and did something to the bottom of that horrible container that caused the water to gradually start draining away.

"So here's the thing," Tucker said as he stood back up and turned to the man. "Daniel's terrified of—"

"Water?" the man interrupted.

"Baths," Tucker said. "I'm not sure why, exactly, but he loses his mind when he's actually in the water…like, submerged in it. Take it from someone who's been on the receiving end, baths are a no-go."

"Then how do I clean him up? Sponge bath?" the man asked.

"No. Well…sorta. He takes showers."

"How does he stand up for that long without slipping…and how can he bathe himself?"

Tucker tapped his chin for a moment and shrugged.

"It's probably easier if I just show you how it's done."

Tucker cast a quick glance at Sam, who seemed to understand whatever message he was sending her, and the man closed the door. Sam may have been excluded, but at least Tucker was allowed to stay. Plus, he already knew what was going to happen. Sam's absence didn't make him nervous—she was absolutely not going to stay with him for whatever reason when he got showers and she never had. This was a constant in his life now. At least something in this new place remained the same…

Tucker began to undress him as the water level sunk lower and lower. It didn't take much time for the water to completely disappear and with it gone, a wave of relief came over him.

The man watched curiously as Tucker helped steady him. The walls were slightly higher than the one in Sam's bathroom and his balance was tested as he stood on one foot to left the other leg over it.

"Won't the water be cold for a minute?"

"Uh…maybe, but Daniel doesn't seem to mind it."

"Interesting. Has he ever had an issue being cold?"

"That's more of a Sam question. I've never seen it but she's with him more than I am. Or…was."

Tucker drew a breath, looked at him, and said, "Alright, Daniel, you know the drill.".

He couldn't translate the English into even a vague sentence in Esperanto, but he knew the cue to sit down and wait while he was scrubbed with foamy soap stuff.

Tucker turned on the water again, this time coming from the top and not filling up the bottom. At least Tucker had no wish to poison him with ectoplasm…

"I usually shampoo him first," Tucker said, squirting blue pasty shampoo onto his hand.

His scalp was rubbed gently and while he tried to keep his head completely still, just the way Tucker had taught him to, he couldn't help but move his eyes to try to watch the man. He was too close for comfort but at least Tucker was between them. He doubted one English-speaker would dare harm another, even if that English-speaker also spoke some Esperanto like his trainers in the past.

He was motionless for the most part. A few times he tried to copy Tucker and threw a wrist over his arm to help scrub the soap bubbles on himself, but it wasn't as effective with the rings. Aside from that, though, he let Tucker do the majority of the work and tried to pick apart the sentences he was using to explain something to the man. With any bit of luck, Tucker was telling him Sam would be taking him back to her place and he could be scrubbed and rubbed in her bathroom instead. And he missed sleeping in her room at night. He missed his sleep spot in the corner. He missed the soft ground as opposed to the hard ground in the room these English-speakers were forcing him to sleep in.

The shower was done once Tucker sprayed him down and rinsed off the remaining soap.

"Try pulling him out," he said to the man. "Maybe it'll help for next time?"

The man nodded and Tucker moved out of the way to allow a huge hand to reach out to him, beckoning him to take it. He merely looked at Tucker instead, expecting a trustworthy English-speaker to help him stand back up.

Tucker threw both hands up defensively and said, "Nope. Take Mr. Fenton's hand this time."

He felt the confusion come again. At first there was a possibility of deception on the new English-speakers' part, but now Tucker was actively trying to push him into the literal arms of this man?

Absolutely not.

He looked the other way and furrowed his eyebrows in defiance. This would probably lead to a lot of trouble later but what worse could they do than ectoplasm anyway? Kill him? Still better. At least then his suffering would be over forever.

The man slowly withdrew his hand and sighed.

"How did you get him to trust you again?" the man asked.

"That's weird…" Tucker mumbled. "He usually does whatever I say…"

"Maybe he didn't understand?"

"Trust me, he understood. Maybe…maybe you should try wrist bumping him."

"Wrist bumping?" the man quoted.

"Yeah, it's something Sam thought up. He can't high-five or fist bump anyone so she held out her wrist one day, grabbed his, and she bumped his wrist against hers. It's sort of their thing now. His rings are really sensitive so if he sees you as a friend maybe he won't be so stubborn."

The man clutched his hand into a fist and held it out to him.

"Daniel can't do that, it has to be a wrist bump," Tucker said. "You have to use your wrist."

The man let his hand droop down but kept his arm out, seemingly in response to Tucker's wrist bump speech. He knew exactly what the man wanted him to do but he had only ever wrist bumped Sam and Tucker. They were the only ones who never forced their way near his rings. Perhaps these new English-speakers hadn't forced their way yet, but they did knock him unconscious and do some horrible, painful thing to his throat that made it agonizingly sore. He wouldn't have been the slightest bit surprised if they'd been yanking on his rings the entire time just to make it that much harder on him. They didn't, of course—if they had, he would've felt it immediately upon waking up. Still. They could've if they'd wanted to, and he didn't know what their end goal was.

One thing that did confuse him with that last thought, though, was that he had rebelled against going in the water when the man had made it quite clear what he was supposed to do. Why didn't the man just grab his rings and pull him forward? Wouldn't that have made things easier?

Maybe the man was similar to Tucker in that regard. Tucker hated being anywhere near his rings, maybe the man did too.

"Sorry, Mr. Fenton. I think he just needs more time," Tucker said.

Tucker reached out and he hooked his arm around Tucker's. Tucker pulled him up and he didn't waste a second in shooting the man a glare that, he hoped, would signal total disinterest in obedience. He knew this would change the moment Sam and Tucker left but for now, it was all he could do. Perhaps on some small scale it was enjoyable to deprive bad English-speakers of something they wanted, just as they'd done to him.

At first his focus was on balancing himself as he lifted one leg to step out of the bath, but instinctively recoiled into Tucker when he felt the man try to grab him. It caused both Tucker and him to fall down.

"Sorry, I just wanted to be sure he wouldn't trip…" the man mumbled apologetically.

Tucker rolled his eyes and spent a solid minute trying to reorient them both. It didn't help that he'd fallen on top of Tucker and he wasn't exactly clueless about how difficult it was to help him out of a situation he'd literally fallen into. Tucker couldn't steady two people at the same time.

"Look, I know you mean well, but you need to trust me," Tucker said. "And trust Daniel, he knows what to do."

The man looked flustered and wordlessly nodded.

"Let's get you dried off, buddy," Tucker told him.

Now came the towel portion of a shower. He expected the same towels Sam used but the texture of this towel was rougher than what he was used to. He hated it. First the squishy bed, then the blanket of fire, then the hard ground, then the loud stairs, and finally a towel with the same consistency as…as…as a really rough towel. This whole Giant Word Building was the stuff of nightmares, how did these English-speakers live here?

"Man," Tucker said. "You are really irritable right now…"

He leaned away from the cloth as it rubbed his face and scrunched up his nose in pure disdain for this thing and this place.

"He's probably just confused. I doubt he's used to change," the man replied.

"Daniel's not big on new things, he sorta sticks to what he knows."

The man didn't try to touch him again when Tucker helped him get dressed. He was sure it was more for Sam's sake than anyone else's. She was very peculiar about shirts and pants being on at all times. He didn't see much of an issue but because Sam was so adamant about it, he had to wear whatever she told him to. It was usually just a white shirt with a red oval on the chest and a pair of blue pants. She had so much black that it was far beyond his comprehension as to why he couldn't wear the color she seemed to like best. But the clothes were soft and comfortable and he never overheated in them, so he really didn't have anything to complain about there.

"Let me show you the pantry," the man said. "We took Sam's advice, made a list—"

"And you got him rabbit food," Tucker drawled. "Poor Daniel."

Tucker let the man lead them to another room they called a "kitchen." Sam was already there and she was the first to greet him. There was a pleasantly familiar scent in the room as well. For the first time today, he realized he was hungry. With all the chaos with these English-speakers, he hasn't paid any attention to his appetite. Maybe it was because Sam was here, and he had a much easier time relaxing next to her.

She came up, took his wrist, and pulled him away from Tucker, farther into the kitchen where the scent grew stronger. He recognized it as a delicious food from her room.

"Have you said anything yet?" she asked, easing him into a wooden chair.

"He hasn't," the woman answered. "I figure it might be best if he discovered it by himself. Plus it'll give his throat some extra time to heal without putting any strain on it."

"Does he know he can speak now?" Sam asked.

She sounded somewhat annoyed, or maybe disappointed? Was it possible to be both?

"I haven't explained it to him," the woman confessed. "And even if I did, there's no guarantee he can. All of this is under the assumption that his throat heals exactly as it's supposed to."

"I'm sure he can," Sam said.

"I hope so. He must have so many questions…"

Tucker joined them and sat down beside Sam.

"Mrs. Fenton, didn't you say Daniel was trying to talk and he gave himself laryngitis?" he asked. "Won't he be able to talk if he just tries again?"

"The metal certainly assisted in irritating his throat but now that it's gone, again assuming everything heals up nicely, then yes."

Sam turned back to him and asked, "Daniel, are you hungry?"

He nodded. His throat was still sore but he was more than willing to suffer through it for a proper meal, something he had refused from these new English-speakers since he first got here. But it couldn't be bad if Sam made it and he was really hungry.

"So he does know some English," the woman observed.

"Not much but he knows enough to tell me what he wants," Sam replied. "Oh! You said you fixed up the guest bedroom? What's it like now?"

"Cleaner, for sure. Jack finally moved all that junk into a storage shed and I finished dusting and vacuuming. Made sure to get the window crystal clear so Daniel can see the fireflies. Everything should be exactly to your specifications."

"I'll check it out after we eat just to be sure."

The two ladies kept going back and forth with their conversation with Tucker and the man occasionally joining in, and while he was perfectly fine with Sam and Tucker saying his name, he didn't want anyone else say it. At some point even the red-haired girl came, but she didn't speak too much. She mostly just stared at him, but when he looked back at her, she would turn away and pretend she hadn't been staring. It made him want to be here even less and until the red-haired girl came, he hadn't thought that was possible.

"Mom, Dad?" the girl interrupted—well, sort of interrupted. She used a short window of silence to speak up. "I found this old thing."

She pulled a very tattered book from what he assumed was her lap and slid it onto the table. At first he tried mentally sounding out each letter in case it was something he knew, but he didn't get any further than three before the woman snatched it.

"Where did you…?"

"It was stuffed in the back of a drawer in the guest room," the girl said. "I figured I'd go one last round before Sam and Tucker came over. You guys forgot a few other things too but the book might help refresh your Esperanto."

"I remember this," the man said as he walked beside the woman. "This was what we used to translate some of the files twenty years ago."

"Books aren't traceable," the woman added. "Good thinking, Jazz."

"You mean, you guys can understand Daniel when he starts talking?" Tucker asked.

"We'll have to do a bit of studying first but yes, we will," she answered. "We can translate anything you have to say too."

"That would be really helpful, Mrs. Fenton," Sam said. "I've been wanting to ask him how he got burned."

"And I've been wanting to ask him about the weird flaky stuff he had on his skin," Tucker said.

"We also have some other news…don't we, Maddie?" the man added, looking suggestively at the woman.

She put the book down and clasped her hands together.

"Oh, that's right!" she giggled. "Sam, Tucker, we've been talking about this since last night, but once Daniel's throat is completely healed, the rings are coming out."

Sam and Tucker both gasped but not in horror, as he would've. It was a pleasant kind of gasp, one that he would've made at a new book Sam or Tucker brought him—at Sam's room, of course.

"He'll need braces and physical therapy, and possibly extra surgeries if his bones have been affected, but we should be able to help him walk and use his hands without the rings getting in the way all the time."

Sam violently shook him, obviously excited about something, but his stomach was spoke louder to him than her at this point. He always enjoyed her touch but right now he was prioritizing food. He didn't know exactly where this appetizing aroma was coming from, but he wanted it soon.

"Daniel, did you hear that?!" she exclaimed. "No more disability!"

He had the feeling that he should've been excited and happy, like she was, but…he really wanted that food…

A/N

Everything's still pretty crazy on my end but I finally managed to get another chapter out. Next one is also on its way and I'm suuuuuper excited about it! Hopefully you guys haven't lost too much faith in me. Let me know what you think (I'm honestly wondering if this chapter is too stale or if it helps pace the story).