Gifts From the Sea, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo
Chapter 33 - These Clothes Didn't Come From a Department Store (rough draft 2)
It occurred to Jason that he'd been spending quite a lot of time asleep. He was waking up later than usual in the mornings, sometimes got fatigued before the sun even set, and had started taking at least two, sometimes even four naps a day.
He was losing his appetite, too... At first he ate whether he felt like it or not, conditioned by a lifetime of food insecurity to consume whatever nutrients he was offered. But eventually...eventually he found himself swallowing a slowly-chewed bite of food and then just...staring at the rest. Feeling like taking even one more bite would be a monumental task. 'I'll save the rest for later,' he finally thought, nudging the bowl aside. Then he took a nap.
He never did get around to finishing the meal.
o.o.o
He'd stopped freaking out whenever his guards took him out of his room, too, to the point where he no longer even cared where they went. He let them march him around the stone path on his Required Daily Walk. He let them escort him to the room with the pool where he had to force himself to wash just so they wouldn't try to do it for him again. He kept his head down and didn't fight.
He was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling with an open book resting neglected on his chest, when the door opened. He set the book aside but otherwise lay still, waiting for them to grasp him and pull him to his feet. He trudged along with them and didn't notice that they were going somewhere unusual until the door they'd stopped in front of opened and that kid, Damian al Ghul, scowled out at them. "You are dismissed," the child ordered, then grabbed Jason's arm and dragged him inside.
The door shut firmly in the guards' faces, and Jason blinked. A slight tremor went through his body when he looked around and realized that he was neither locked in his cell nor under close guard. He should...probably use this chance to try to escape. He should. If he could just...get his brain to work properly.
It was hard to think because Damian was pulling him again, talking as he went. "...but if you really are as intelligent as you claim, then you'll behave yourself so as not to lose the privilege..."
Jason blinked and squinted around at the suite. It was large and airy, filled with natural light. There was an open door to the left that showed a glimpse of tile beyond, a few closed doors, and another open door that seemed to lead to a bedroom. The walls were covered with tapestries, paintings, and other artwork, weapons were displayed all over the place, three shelves were filled with books, and there was a nook containing a violin, music stand, and neatly-stored sheet music.
The most attention-grabbing part of the suite was the glass wall and the courtyard beyond, which was ringed with vegetation and had a small pool on one side, fed by a stream.
"Here." Jason was startled at the flash of color and motion in his peripheral vision, and barely managed to catch the bundle of clothes Damian dumped in his arms. "Do you like any of these?"
Jason blinked at the younger boy. "What?"
"Go through them," Damian said impatiently. "Here." He grabbed Jason's elbow and towed him over to a divan. "Tell me which you like best, and I might permit you to borrow it."
"Huh?!" Jason dropped the clothes on the divan and stared at them. Then his gaze caught on fur, and his eyes widened. He lifted the seal pelt out of the pile with slightly shaking hands. "Is...is this...?" It definitely wasn't his, but the sight of it made him swallow in dread. "This isn't- someone's pelt, is it...?!"
Damian looked nonplussed for a second. Then he crossed his little arms and stuck his button nose up in the air. "Is that a problem?" he demanded.
"Uh, yeah it's a problem if you rip off people's skins and parade around in them like they're coats you bought in a fucking department store!"
"Hmph. Al Ghuls do not buy anything from department stores," Damian said. "That pelt you hold was created here, as a result of our studies. Try it on."
Jason looked at the...pelt in his hands. It didn't feel like a pelt even though it looked like one in its natural state. Gingerly, he brought it around his own shoulders - and was shocked when he suddenly morphed downward.
He stared at himself, shaking. He was- he was a seal. But it was all fucking wrong, he didn't look anything like himself, the fur was the wrong color- He was breathing hard as he clawed the thing off again and hurled it away.
He sat there for a minute, trying to get his breath back. Then he looked over to speak to Damian, only to find the boy rather hastily hanging a white robe and a purple coat back in the wardrobe. Jason's senses tingled. "What are you doing?" he asked sharply.
"Hmph. These are not suitable for the likes of you," Damian said. He was still using that snooty tone of voice, but he wasn't meeting Jason's eyes.
Jason scrambled to his feet and strode across the room.
"Get away from me!" Damian exclaimed shrilly, then took a firmer stance. "No," he boomed, as if scolding a dog. He gestured sharply. "NO. Do not come."
Jason ignored him. He reached out, and at the first touch of fabric between his fingers, he felt sick. These were real selkie pelts, he could feel it. "Wh- Whose pelts are these?!"
Damian's cheeks were flushed and his arms were crossed so hard he looked like he was hugging himself, though he kept his head held high. "What makes you think these are...?"
He seemed to struggle to find a good way to end the sentence, and Jason cut in before he could. "You have to give them back," he said, with more ice in his voice than he'd thought he was capable of. "Whoever these belong to, give them back."
"They have been in our possession for over ten years, I'm certain the seals they once belonged to are dead."
"Still belong to, and don't just assume! Give them back!"
"I can't just get rid of them, Grandfather will-!"
"Fuck your grandfather! Are you his sock puppet or something?!"
"Do not speak of the Demon's Head like that! Do you want to be flogged?! That's what will happen if anyone overhears your insolence!"
The boys faced each other down, breathing hard, Jason with his hands clenched because he was afraid of getting beaten but didn't want to admit it.
Damian finally tossed his head and cleared his throat. "I will look into the matter," he said stiffly. "In the meantime... The rest are all synthetic. Do you have objections to those, too?"
"Yeah, they're not mine," Jason grumbled.
Damian frowned. "I presumed you would welcome the chance to swim in your natural flesh again."
Jason gave him an annoyed look, but didn't say what he was about to because it occurred to him that...he would like to swim again. Even if it was...while wrapped in synthetic crap, at least he...would get to feel the ocean again... "Swim in what, that little puddle out there?" he said roughly, nodding toward the courtyard.
Damian sighed and grabbed an armful of pelts. "Follow me. Bring the rest."
They made their way to a much larger outdoor pool that was filled with seawater and surrounded by elegant stone and lush vegetation. Damian laid down his pile of pelts and sorted through them. "Do you want to be a seal, or do you want to try something different?" he asked.
Jason stared at him. "What?"
"This one, for example." Damian draped himself in a green robe and a minute later - he had a freaking mer tail. Complete with pointed ears and slimy skin just like Dick.
"What?!" Jason shrieked, scrambling backward in shock. "What...?!"
Damian smirked at him and then dropped into the pool. Jason crept to the edge and stared as the kid swam around, looking for all the world like an honest-to-God mer, then returned to the edge and peered out of the water at Jason. "What are you waiting for?"
"What...?!"
After Jason had finally gotten over his shock, he dubiously considered the pile of garments. It creeped him out too much to take a selkie pelt that wasn't his, so he tried one that Damian said was another mer tail.
It felt...really weird to have both a tail and proper arms at the same time. He sat there flopping his tail around for ages, amazed and weirded out by how flexible it was. It was one thing to watch Dick moving the entire lower half of his body with a full string of joints; it was another to feel it himself, how he could curl his tail up and around far enough to touch his own face with it. (He was pretty uncoordinated and needed to steady himself with his hands, but the capability was there.)
Damian was clearly bored and made a lot of complaining noises, but Jason ignored him until the discomfort of drying out started to get to him. The sun felt even more searing than it did on human flesh, and the sensation of slowly losing more and more moisture was painful and kept sending danger signals to his brain. He rolled over and let himself fall into the pool.
It was glorious, at least for the first second where all he felt was the full embrace of seawater. Then he tried to take off and zip around in a few circles like he would have as a seal, and nearly crashed into the wall.
It took him a while to adjust, and Damian's know-it-all instructions and advice weren't very helpful. Jason's mer tail and front limbs were all far longer than he was used to when he was swimming, and the little adjustments he had to make with his arms and hands were different than the ones he would have made with flippers. While his tail was super-flexible, his upper body was far less so, especially compared to what he was used to in seal form. Not having a snout threw him off, too, and he had to use a lot of concentration for swimming mostly with just his tail. As a mer, his upper body wasn't good for much during swimming other than steering.
His eyes were better, though - all the color, depth, and light he could perceive as a human looked the same underwater, except prettier. His seal eyes were mostly designed for finding food and spotting danger, but mer eyes were apparently interested in non-essentials as well.
He was still trying to get the hang of swimming as a mer when he sensed something weird. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but something about the large passing shadow and brief vibration of water put him on high alert, especially when Damian rushed for the surface.
Jason followed more cautiously, and went stiff with fear when he saw the giant monster approaching. It had blood-red fur and huge bat wings, burning yellow eyes and massive fangs. Jason was trying to scream, the air feeling frozen in his lungs, when Damian discarded his tail and went racing toward the monster. "Goliath!"
The beast loomed over Damian, lowered its head, and...snuffled into the boy's hair.
"I assume you've been out fishing, so I expect no begging for scraps tonight," the little prince said, looking extremely pleased despite his scolding tone. He was patting the monster's fur like it was a freaking dog.
"That's a...that's...!" Jason wheezed, clinging to the edge of the pool.
Damian turned toward him, looking smug. "This is Goliath, my hound."
"THAT IS NOT A FUCKING DOG!"
"It's figurative," Damian said, now looking annoyed. "He is a dragon-bat, but he belongs to me and does my bidding, therefore he serves as my hound."
The giant red thing turned toward Jason and regarded him, then padded closer.
Jason tried to back away in alarm, flailing in the water. "G-Get away from me!"
The thing ignored him, leaning close. Jason sank deeper into the pool, then was horrified when a giant clawed paw dipped into the water and started groping around, apparently looking for him.
It took a while, but Damian finally took pity on Jason and called off his freaking monster. The beast stretched out on the warm stone and huffed as Damian sat on its head and petted it.
After watching for a while, Jason's panic started to die down. The thing...really was rather docile, despite its size and looks, and it hadn't hurt him. He still nervously kept his distance and resumed his efforts to get the hang of swimming as a mer.
At one point, he looked over at the extremely unexpected sound of Damian...laughing. Apparently the thing, Goliath, had just licked him. As Damian smiled and scrunched his hands through thick red fur, Jason frowned and peered closer. With that soft, affectionate look on his face, Damian looked...kind of familiar. ...He looked weirdly like Bruce, even though Jason would have never expected this tiny kid to remind him of his giant rich white guy dad.
Thinking about Bruce made Jason's heart start to clench, so he stopped.
o.o.o
After a while, he had his fill of feeling like a clumsy oaf in what should have been his natural element, so he hauled himself out of the pool, figured out how to peel off the tail, then sat there for a while, feeling morose.
"You look displeased," Damian observed.
"It really sucks that I suck at swimming now," Jason mumbled.
"You'll be more comfortable in a selkie pelt."
"No, I really won't. Unless it's mine," Jason added pointedly. "Go get my pelt, brat."
"Your pelt is in use. I can't simply take it out of my grandfather's hands."
Jason shuddered at the idea of people using his pelt. Wearing it. The thought made him want to vomit.
Damian sighed. "There are plenty of others to try. That pink one will turn you into an octopus mer. It's more challenging to master but very useful once you have."
"And before I master it? The point is not to feel like a baby who doesn't know how limbs work!"
"Then swim with your human legs if you're going to be difficult!"
Jason snorted. "Like that's any better."
There was a long pause. "Why?" Damian finally asked, sounding confused.
"Why what?"
"Your human legs are your natural ones, so your complaint does not apply."
"Huh?"
Now both of them were staring at each other in confusion. Damian finally said, "The whole point is to swim in your natural state. So, swim. Nothing's stopping you from swimming as a human."
Jason's heart thudded as he finally got what Damian was saying. He didn't answer, instead hugging his legs and resting his chin on his knees.
Damian tilted his head. "You do know how to swim as a human, right?"
Jason felt his face flushing. "What's the point of swimming like a chimp when you've already got perfectly good flippers?"
"You don't have flippers anymore," Damian pointed out, as if Jason was an idiot.
"I KNOW. Who's fault is that?"
"Not mine," Damian said sourly. "Why did no one ever teach you how to swim?"
Probably because he'd never admitted to a human that he couldn't swim when not in seal form. "None of your business, brat."
"You should learn. It's a basic skill."
"What, you gonna teach me?" Jason scoffed, his face still feeling hot.
"Hmm. Yes, I suppose I could."
Jason stared.
Damian straightened up and pointed. "Get into the water."
"No!"
Damian was a brat, and Jason did end up in the water, where, as far as he was concerned, he nearly drowned. Damian was a lousy teacher, using a lot of yelling and smug superiority and an attempt at hitting that nearly sent Jason storming off back to his cell. But then, when they were taking a break so they wouldn't kill each other, Jason hesitated where he was clinging to the side of the pool. He watched Damian swimming laps and finally dipped his head into the water to watch. He couldn't see well enough with his human eyes, so he reached for a mer tail, dragged it closer, and struggled to put it on one-handed.
Now that he could see better, he took note of the way Damian was moving his body. Once he'd memorized the motions as best he could, he moved down to shallower water, took off the tail again, and started trying the swimming motions for himself.
Once Damian noticed he'd gotten back to work, the child came over and started criticizing him again until Jason shouted a tirade at him. Damian retreated and watched sullenly for a while as Jason practiced on his own. It was embarrassing, trying to do something in front of someone who was proficient when he felt like such a clumsy failure, but whatever; everyone in this place seemed to delight in stripping him of his pride.
It was encouraging when he finally figured out how to move in a way that kept his head above water. It felt totally wrong, he knew he wasn't moving anything like how Damian had, but his clumsy flailing was still somehow keeping him afloat. He struggled from the side of the pool over to the stair railing without sinking, and felt tentatively accomplished as he sat on the steps and panted.
Damian moved a little closer and looked uncertain as he said quietly, "Put the tail back on and watch me."
Jason was wary, but the command hadn't been overly rude, so he followed it. Damian, silent now, demonstrated for him, and Jason was surprised to find how many different ways there apparently were to swim as a human. "Can you...do that first one again?" he finally asked.
Damian complied. Jason watched closely, and then started trying to imitate it himself. Damian watched, and Jason snapped "Shut up" every time the kid opened his mouth to criticize. In frustration, Damian at one point moved his arm, arching it high, and after a pause, Jason lengthened his own reach as he swam.
The silent demonstrations worked a lot better than the yelling and insults, and the rest of the afternoon passed quickly as Damian taught Jason how to swim. When Jason was finally escorted back to his cell, he devoured his entire meal and then fell asleep soon after, out of genuine exhaustion, for once, rather than despair.
TBC
