Gifts From the Sea, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo
Chapter 28 - We Want You To Be Comfortable Here (rough draft 2)
Over the next few days, Jason's biggest problem was that he was bored out of his skull. The only thing to do in his cell was read, but there were only a few books in English and none of them were the kind that could suck him in for hours. He didn't have any contact with other human beings except when he was given simple meals and let out once a day to bathe.
Thankfully, they never took him back to the fancy communal showers and tubs; instead, the manservant would lead him to an isolated pool, throw clean clothes and a basket of toiletries on the ground, sneer at Jason in not-English, then self-righteously stomp away. Jason got the distinct sense that he was being punished, but other than the water being lukewarm and the guards never leaving, he much preferred washing himself like this. He hid his body underwater from the guards, and although they watched him, it was with impassive expressions, and they never approached.
It felt...really, really strange to be so bare when submerged in water. The sensation made the loss of Jason's pelt hurt more keenly, and he often cried as he bathed.
Only one of Jason's captors spoke English (that he knew of), a middle-aged woman with a shiny headband who'd poke her head in every so often, glance around the room, and leave again.
"I want to go HOME!" Jason always screamed at her.
"Be quiet," she snapped the first time. "Demon Head is good. You be good."
"FUCKING NO! FUCK YOU!"
She frowned and shut the door.
The second time, when she saw him racing at her, she pulled out some ninja move and the next second, he was blinking at the ceiling in confusion. She'd shut the door again before he got his wits back together.
The third time, he was waiting for her. He'd torn up several of the non-English books and was sitting on the bed, trying to look smug, when she opened the door and saw the mess.
Her face twisted, and then there was a minute when she was chasing him around the room. He tried to dodge out the open door, but she caught him just outside the threshold and dragged him back in, giving him a few hard spanks. He winced and hissed between his teeth when one of her strikes hit a half-healed welt from the earlier beating, but she had nothing to use other than her hand and his clothes were still on, so the sting wouldn't last long.
She swung him back around and shook him a little, hissing a short tirade in her own language before demanding in English, "What is wrong with you?! You little devil, you spit in his face when Demon Head is kind to you!"
"I - want - my - DAD," Jason snarled. "I was KIDNAPPED. I want to go home to my fucking dad. My father," he added, in case she didn't know the word 'dad.'
She stared at him. Then she let go. "...What is your age? How many years?"
"Fourteen," he said cautiously. He wasn't actually sure - they didn't exactly provide calendars here and he hadn't thought to keep track of passing days until it was too late, but whatever. If he wasn't fourteen yet, he would be soon.
The woman narrowed her eyes and studied him some more. "Seal father? He is in ocean?"
"No! My human dad who's probably filed a police report about his kidnapped son! He's looking for me!" Jason...really hoped that Bruce was looking for him, at least.
The woman made a gesture like she had a headache and muttered something in her language, then said, "Demon Head bought you. You belong to him. You are seal. Animal. Yes?"
"I'm not a fucking animal! Just because I can turn into one doesn't mean I am one! And WHERE IS MY FUCKING PELT?! WHERE'S MY PELT?!" Jason seized the garment he was wearing and flapped it for emphasis.
The woman stared at him a moment more. Then she turned around to leave.
"Oh, no you don't!"
She did her ninja thing again. He was still on the floor, trying to figure out what had just happened, when the door shut and locked.
A little later, a girl came in to clean up the torn book pages. Jason tried to make another break for it, but the guards caught him almost immediately and dragged him back into his cell, dumping him on the bed and looming over him. The girl stared at him like he was crazy and kind of scary, and seemed on edge while she finished her task.
"I'm not crazy for trying to escape my fucking kidnappers!"
The girl flinched at his raised tone and worked faster, not looking at him.
o.o.o
That night, while he was trying to sleep, Jason was startled and frightened when the guards barged in. He thought for a minute that he was about to be assaulted and steeled himself to fight with everything he had, but instead of pinning him down, they swept him up and out of the cell instead.
It took Jason a minute to register that they were marching down the corridor. Then he sucked in a breath and squirmed, trying to escape their grasp, but they only tightened their hold and kept dragging him as if he weighed nothing. "Where are you taking me?!"
No answer. He swore and resisted until they finally stopped and...did something to him. He had no idea what, but he suddenly went boneless and would have fallen if they weren't still holding him. One of them tossed Jason over his shoulder and resumed walking, and Jason lay there dangling, terrified, unable to move, his body tingling.
He'd regained a small range of movement by the time they finally arrived, but was still pretty helpless. They flopped him back down, did something else to him, and then he could move again, the tingles growing painful. Jason groaned and sluggishly tried to pull away, but he was still figuring out how to command his body again when they dragged him into some sort of fancy sitting room, dumped him on a couch, and took up posts on either side of him.
Only one other person was in the room, the one who spoke English. She'd been pacing anxiously, muttering to herself, and now she stopped in front of Jason and pointed a stern finger at him. "Daughter of Demon Head. Great honor. You have respect of her - if you do not, you are punished, understand?"
He swallowed. "Yes."
"She is very busy, very important. She is very kind for this time to speak to you devil animal. Respect. Understand?" she growled, seizing his chin and glaring fiercely at him.
"I said I understand, bitch!" Jason growled back, yanking his face free. She gave him a hard slap, then went back to pacing.
Jason was kept waiting for a while, it felt like an hour but probably wasn't that long. Definitely at least twenty minutes, though. Then a very well-dressed woman opened one of the many doors, murmured something, and demurely stood aside.
The first lady jabbed her finger at the doorway and glared at Jason. Jason shot her the middle finger and got up, uncertainly approaching the doorway. The guards didn't follow.
The inner room appeared to be an office, filled with very tidily-organized books and papers, beautiful furniture, and tasteful decorations. At the large desk by a set of windows sat a woman, very beautiful but a little tired-looking, who was working on a computer as she sipped from a teacup.
Jason stopped in front of the desk and swallowed. This was the queen-like woman who'd bought him. He hated her by default, but she had saved him from an even worse fate, and it had been made clear that she was a very important person. He'd probably be more successful playing nice than cussing her out like he wanted. "H-Hi. Th-those people in the warehouse kidnapped me, which is illegal, a-and the right thing to do would be to give back my pelt and let me go home to my dad."
The woman turned away from her computer and stared at him. She took a long sip of tea. Then she said in perfect English, with only a faint accent that was more British than whatever this place was, "Both my steward and my housekeeper keep complaining about you. They say you're too feral to even be trusted for exercise and socialization. Why do you keep causing so much trouble?"
He swallowed again. "I n-need my pelt. I'm a-" After a lifetime of desperately hiding what he was, he couldn't bring himself to just come out and say it. "I'm n-not human. I need my pelt. S-Someone took it, and I, I r-really need it back and I really, really need to go back home to my dad. Please. I'll tell him not to send the police if you just let me go home, just p-please l-let me go home." The words were spilling out of him by the end, and he tried hard to keep the tears back but a couple slipped down his face anyway.
The woman was still staring at him. "You are our property," she finally said. "We have need of your pelt for our research, though it might eventually be returned to you. Your father...lives among humans?"
"My dad is human," he said fiercely. "And keeping people as property is slavery, and that's illegal, too. You're going to be in a lot of trouble when the police find you, but y-you won't if you just let me go. You d-don't even have to take me home, j-just, I need enough money for...a p-plane ticket or- just, I can get home myself if you help me, but I want...my dad...!" He couldn't hold the tears back anymore and broke down into sobs. He stood there completely humiliated as he tried to scrub away tears that kept coming, and fought in vain to regain his ability to speak.
He heard her approach, and he startled when she grasped his jaw, tilting his face up to stare at it. He grabbed her wrist with both hands, terrified and uncomfortable, but didn't quite dare pull. She studied his face, frowning, until the snot dribbling out of his nose slid farther down and she hurriedly released him before it could touch her hand.
"Who is your father?" she asked.
"B-Bruce Wayne. He's r-rich, so he could pay a ransom?" He hated how his voice wavered, how his insides squirmed with anxious uncertainty, but it couldn't hurt to try. If Bruce refused to pay a ransom, Jason would be no worse off than before.
A strange expression crossed the woman's face. "Bruce Wayne? Of Gotham?"
"Y-Yeah."
That strange expression remained for a while as she considered this. Then her face cleared and she grew brisk and businesslike. "My steward says you're a pig who refuses to bathe and spits on the privileges offered to those in your position, and my housekeeper says you make a mess of your room and frighten the servants and show great disrespect to your betters. Do you have a defense?"
"I'm a PRISONER! And I'm fucking bored; what do you people fucking EXPECT?!"
She stared at him as if he'd surprised her. "You think the treatment you've received is how the Al Ghul family deals with its prisoners?"
"Um, let's see," Jason spat, ticking off points on his fingers. "Locked cell, guards, beatings, humiliation, nothing to fucking do but stare at the walls and daydream about freedom, plus the fact that you stole my skin; YEAH I'd say I'm in fucking prison."
She was gazing at him, frowning, as if she'd never seen a creature like him before. "You speak as if you think of yourself as human."
"I AM HUMAN!" he screamed at her. "Maybe I can turn into a fucking seal when I've got my damn pelt on, but I'm still a FUCKING PERSON just like you!"
She seized him by the shoulder and forced him into a chair, then turned away. He immediately stood up again and watched her stalk over to the window and stare out of it for a minute. Then she turned and stalked back. He gulped and backed away, wondering if he was about to get spanked again. They seemed to be really into corporal punishment here.
"What's your name?" she demanded.
"J-Jason Peter Todd," he said, trying to hold his head high. "Wayne if you'd let me fucking finish getting adopted."
She muttered something to herself in her native language, then snapped, "Get out."
He stared at her as she raised her voice to call toward the sitting room, and the door opened. "So you're - gonna give me my pelt and send me home?" he tried, having to force his voice out past the sudden tightening in his chest.
"You're not going fucking home," she said, the profanity very pointed. "Human or not, you vulgar child, you are Al Ghul property, and you will stop causing trouble if you wish to avoid being flogged. I shall see about altering your accommodations so they are more to your liking."
Jason stared at her, then got distracted when the guards took hold of him. He tried to twist out of their hands, but they only tightened their grip. "Wait," he gasped when they started to drag him away, "Wait, what about my pelt?! What about my pelt, give it back! Please give it back!"
The guards paused when the Al Ghul woman snapped back, "Do you understand what it means to be property? You are - a dog. In your America, dogs are kept on leashes, purchased and sold at the will of their masters, dependent on their owners for everything from the food they eat to the beds they sleep on and the medical care they receive.
"You are a dog. Your masters have need of your pelt, therefore you are stripped of your pelt. Your masters have deigned to provide for your needs, therefore you will be grateful. I have taken time to speak to you, to listen to your complaints and your vulgarity and disrespect, and still you shout at me and make demands. Understand, little seal, that I am second only to my father in this place, and you are a dog who continues breathing only because I will it. Learn your place, if only for your own sake."
Jason, shaking, didn't have the strength to speak, and the guards resumed dragging him away.
They dumped him back in his room. He cried on the bed for a long time, then threw some books at the walls as hard as he could, then lay down again and tried to sleep. He failed.
o.o.o
The next morning after breakfast, Jason was pressed up against the barred little window, staring longingly out at the horizon, when he heard the door being unlocked. He scrambled around and found a man entering, one he didn't recognize.
The man, who was dressed as well as the demure lady from the night before, peered around the room, then looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and held a pen ready to write in the notebook he was carrying. "Jason Peter Todd-Wayne?"
"What do you want?" Jason growled, feeling a little flutter at hearing Bruce's name attached to his as if it belonged to him.
"Is the bed comfortable?"
"It's not mine, so it sucks."
"Is the bed comfortable?" the man repeated blandly.
"No," Jason challenged, just to be difficult. He didn't feel any particular way about the bed. It was just a bed.
"Is it too firm or too soft?"
"It's not my bed. It's your creepy kidnapper bed."
"I shall note down that the bed is adequate. Now, do you know any language other than English?"
"Yeah, bastard," Jason said in Spanish. He wasn't fluent, but he'd picked up bits and pieces in the old apartments he'd used to live in with his parents.
"Would you like to have more books in Spanish?"
Jason blinked. It sounded like the guy was...offering books. "I- What? I want- books in English," he said, more uncertainly than he'd meant to.
"Specific titles, or genres?"
"Uhhh...both? I want- uh, Anne of Green Gables, the whole series; and, uh, anything by E.B. White; The Borrowers? Uh, anything by E. Nesbit, too; uhhh, Narnia and Tolkien, Count of Monte Cristo, Robin Hood- OH, Jane Austen; like, complete works... Shakespeare?" He hesitated, but the guy simply wrote busily, then looked up as if expecting more. Jason took a deep breath, then determinedly started listing every book he liked that he could think of, plus general genres in the hope he'd get something new. He kept waiting to get cut off, but the only time the guy interrupted was to ask for time to catch up with his writing. He just kept writing and writing and writing until Jason couldn't think of anymore books to ask for.
"Anything else?"
"...That's it for now..."
"Do you find this room too big, too small, or an adequate size?"
Jason swallowed. "I want to go home to my own bedroom at Bruce's house. Or his parents' house. I want to go back to Bruce, my dad."
"Do you find this room too big, too small, or an adequate size?"
"Fuck you!" Jason stormed around for a minute, digging his hands through his hair, then slowed. The man simply stood there, waiting patiently. "I'm fucking bored in here!" Jason burst out, tears pricking at his eyes.
"Do you desire the companionship of humans, seals, or both?"
"I want my dad." Jason almost mentioned his brother, but then decided that the less the Al Ghuls knew about his family, the better.
"Would you like us to bring your father here?"
For a moment, Jason's heart leaped in his chest, but then a horrible thought occurred to him. "Y-You mean like kidnapping him to lock him in here with me?!"
"Yes, it would be necessary to bring him into Al Ghul custody in order to serve as your companion."
"Fuck you, I'm trying to get OUT of his hellhole, not get Bruce caught, too!"
The man drew in a measured breath, starting to look irritated for the first time, but then his face smoothed into his bland expression. "What leisure activities besides reading would you like to have access to?"
"Running the hell away and catching a plane back HOME!"
"So you would like to continue being locked in here with only books to keep you occupied?"
Jason stood there for a while, fists clenched, breathing hard. "I want...to take - walks. And...see a library. And..." Tears welled up in his eyes and he had to pause long enough to fight them down. "I want my pelt back so I can swim, I want to go home to my dad..."
The man finished writing and then asked, "What about the food?"
Jason groaned in frustration, but then gave up and just started answering the questions about his preferences and background (what little he was willing to divulge of it, anyway) without fighting anymore.
The man left again once he'd finished, and Jason threw himself onto the bed to scream into his pillow for a while.
o.o.o
At one point, the guards came for him again. Jason's stomach twisted with dread as they went down the halls, but he was surprised when they eventually went outdoors rather than deeper into the compound.
There was a place that wasn't a garden, exactly, but it was very green with cultivated trees and bushes and a winding stone walkway. They traveled the full circuit of this path, returned indoors, then went back down some vaguely familiar corridors until Jason was escorted back into his cell and left alone.
He stared at the locked door, slowly realizing that being marched around with no explanation was their idea of taking him for a walk. Like he was a freaking dog.
"FUCK YOU!" he shouted at the door. He whirled around with the intention of throwing a tantrum, then paused in surprise.
The shelf had new books on it. Warily, he crept closer to inspect them and found some of the titles he'd requested. He stood there holding a yellowed copy of The Borrowers for a while as he cried, then curled up in bed. He tried to read the book, but couldn't concentrate, and ended up just hugging it to himself as he thought of long ago days hiding in the public library, of reading by candlelight while his mother snored nearby, of listening to Bruce's voice as he read aloud to lull him to sleep...
TBC
