Welcome back! So, couple quick notes before we get started (for those who don't follow me on Tumblr or missed my post). I've got some prompts from the 100 themes thing to post, which are going to go up Wednesdays and Sundays; other chapters will go up Monday/Friday as usual! (No interruption, I promise!) You saw the first one yesterday! Secondly, pretty soon I'm going to be starting up a . If there's anything specific you want to see in reward tiers, let me know! I have a list already, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything obvious, and I'd love to hear your ideas!

Warnings this chapter for: mentions of starvation, sensory deprivation, attempted slavery of a kid, and branding.

It's totally fucking surreal. The whole thing feels like it's just some bizarre, optimistic dream and at any moment I'm going to be shocked back to reality with a bucket of ice water.

It's strange to be wearing clothing again; the brush of it against my skin keeps making me think — for singular, intense seconds — that someone's touching me. I still feel weirdly light, like without the missing shackles around my wrists and ankles I might just float off into space. Feeling clean, and not the 'every centimeter scrubbed raw' kind of clean, is refreshing, and being able to get clean in water that wasn't either ice cold or not-quite-burning hot almost felt like it was some kind of trap.

It all feels like a trap.

I expect the dinner to be drugged; eat what I can manage before my stomach protests anyway. When Dick vanishes into a side room I expect him to come back with guards, not an armful of blankets and a pillow. Every single second I expect him to turn on me, to prove that this is all just some enormous, fucked up mind game. All of it is so unbelievable, why wouldn't that be the case? It makes more sense than this strange parallel universe where the heir to the throne of Gotham treats me, a branded, rebellious, violent slave, like a real person. The only thing that makes sense is the raw ache of the new brand on my shoulder, so that's what I center myself with.

By the time Dick murmurs something like a good night, smiling a little awkwardly, and heads off into what I assume has to be his bedroom, I feel worn thin. My skin crawls, and I hate the reason for it but I can feel that wary fear in the back of my skull anyway. The last time I wasn't touched, wasn't hurt, for this long, was when they had to let me recover after the last dislocation of my right shoulder. They went after me with all that stored venom afterwards; it probably would have been easier to just take it while I was still healing.

I grit my teeth and shove away that wariness, stubbornly arranging the blankets on the couch and slipping between them, ignoring all the ingrained instinct that says this is too nice, too good, that it has to be fake. It's just meant to hurt more later on. Like those meals that were a spread of food, designed to make me eat more than my stomach could actually handle so I'd just lose it all anyway.

Joke was always on them; growing up on the streets meant I knew how to be careful with a shrunken stomach, regardless of how instinct said to just eat it all, as fast as possible. It didn't stop them from starving me, or denying me water, but at least I already knew what that felt like.

They couldn't break me, not in any way that mattered.

I don't think I'll ever be 'normal' again, whatever the fuck that even means, but at least I'm not what they tried to make me. Their only victories are the brand on my shoulder, and the tight little knot in my gut that expects pain to come every single second I behave in ways that they ground into me were 'disobedient.' My mind and my body are my own, and fuck them for ever thinking they could change that.

I shift in the makeshift bed, sliding one arm below the pillow to try to level out the angle of my neck. It's still not comfortable, and irritably I shove the pillow down to the floor and try just lying on my arm instead. It's a little better, but none of it is comfortable.

My breath catches on a hysterical little laugh when I realize that it's too comfortable. The couch is too soft, the blankets feel strange on my skin, and the room is silent in a way that feels oppressive. Too full of theoretical traps, too unfamiliar for the silence to be welcome. I'm too open just lying here, and that feeling goes back to way before the slavers ever got ahold of me.

I slowly pull myself off the couch, sore muscles protesting the movement now that I've been still for a bit, and I pull the largest of the blankets with me. I find the one completely empty corner and go to it, pressing my back to the walls and dragging the blanket over me. From here I've got a view of any way people could get in — exit to the rest of this place, door to Dick's bedroom, and two other doors that are closed and I never got the chance to look into — and there's no possible way anyone could sneak up on me. Head on, I've got more of a chance.

Paranoia still keeps me awake, but at least there's security in the press of the wall against my back, and the carpet beneath me feels more familiar than the couch did. Even with exhaustion weighing down my bones, I can't shake the way my skin's crawling, or the way the silence presses down on my shoulders.

It reminds me of the stretches of time where they used silence as a weapon, and what I thought was comforting suddenly became something to be feared instead. Sensory deprivation was one of the worst things I remember, though I did my damndest to never let them know quite how badly it scared me. Thankfully they only did it every once in awhile; most of the trainers preferred to be much more hands on.

If they'd realized how badly it shook me, maybe they would have been successful in breaking me after all. Maybe I would have been eating out of some rich bastard's hand by this point. It's a sick thought, but my head goes a lot of sick places these days.

I try and push the thoughts away, letting myself exist in a kind of daze that just might eventually manage to get me to drop off to sleep. It has before.

But then, who knows how much longer later, there's movement. My gaze snaps up as the door to Dick's room opens without a sound, and he steps into the doorway. He's wearing a set of what looks like black pajamas; a plain t-shirt and some sweatpants that fall right down to his bare feet. I watch him look towards the couch, stiffen just a little bit, and then scan the room with a quick turn of his head. It only takes him the one try to find me, and he hesitates for a moment before heading towards me.

I tighten my hands into fists inside the blanket and think about where I can hit to cause the most damage, so I have the best chance of getting out from underneath the blanket and through some other door before he recovers.

"Jason, hey." His voice is soft; he sounds tired and maybe a bit concerned. "Still awake? It's pretty early." I shrug, and he stops in front of me, looking down. "May I?" he asks, flicking one hand towards the wall at my side.

I glance at it, then draw the blanket a little tighter around my shoulders. "What am I going to do to stop you?"

"That's not—" Dick cuts off, and then sighs and steps forward, taking the spot against the wall anyway.

He's about two feet from me, but it feels too close now that my skin's crawling, now that everything feels like a threat. I can't help watching him, my shoulders drawing up and my feet pressing against the ground, ready to move at any moment. I'm not bound anymore; I don't have to just take whatever he might try and do to me.

"Can't sleep?" he asks, after a few seconds of silence. I shake my head, just a little, and he flashes me a small, almost sad smile. "Yeah, me either." His gaze lingers, flicking down over the blanket and I know he can't see anything but I still feel exposed and I hate it. Even under clothes and a blanket it still feels like I'm pinned down and on display.

I can feel my mouth curl into a small snarl, practically more instinct now than it is any conscious response. Dick actually startles a bit, eyes widening, and then yanks his gaze away and to the floor.

"Shit, I didn't mean— Sorry. I wasn't—" He swallows, thunks his head back against the wall hard enough I can hear the sound. "Tongue's useless today, apparently. What I mean to say is that I can see how tense you are, and I swear you don't need to be. I know you don't— I know you don't trust me, and I know there's not much I can do to fix that, but…" His head turns, gaze finding mine. "Can I show you something, Jason?"

"Depends on what it is," I answer, and he snorts.

His left hand rises to his right sleeve, hesitating when they touch it. Then he swallows again, curls his fingers beneath the sleeve, and tugs it up over his shoulder.

My breath catches hard in my throat.

There's a section of burned skin on the outside of his shoulder that stretch towards the back, intense on the outside and then lighter as it sweeps away. Like something was pushed against his shoulder and then dragged back. It's blurred and distorted but it's something that could definitely be the X of a slave brand, if you just imagine a little bit.

I stare at it for a few long moments, and then manage to unclench my throat enough to ask, "Is that a slave brand?"

Dick winces, fingers clenching tight in the sleeve he's holding up. "It was supposed to be." His voice is low, almost a whisper. "There's a uh… a tactic, that the shadier slave traders use." His jaw clenches, eyes closing for a second, before he can apparently bring himself to continue. "They listen to police radios, find kids that have just been orphaned, lure them away from any witnesses, and brand them. If any family is found later, or it turns out their parents didn't have debts, they just claim it was a mistake. Too late to fix it, you can't reverse a brand, and without parents, no one else really wants to spend the money to go after them through the court system."

He pulls in a long, slow breath and looks back at me. "Bruce was at the show the night my parents were killed, he came looking for me after and found me just when they— He pulled me away from them, protected me. I got lucky and that's the only reason they didn't get me. If this—" his fingers slide over the scar "—was a little cleaner, or Bruce had gotten there two seconds later…"

"You'd be where I am," I finish, my hold on the blanket loosening.

But, "No," is his immediate answer. He meets my gaze again. "I know some of what they do to slaves to break them. Even what I know, I don't think I could have taken. I would have broken, Jason, and I'd be entertaining some rich crowd with acrobatics and then showing off how flexible I am in some bastard's bed whenever they wanted. Even now, if anyone saw this… There are a lot of people who would like Bruce out of power and me back in the gutter I came from." His head tilts back against the wall, a sharp laugh bursting out of his throat. "Can you imagine the kind of money people would pay to have me as their slave? Even if Bruce didn't have a full blown coup on his hands, they'd parade me in front of his face at every event, every meeting…"

His eyes squeeze shut, fingers tightening down over the smeared brand. "I have nightmares about a lot of things, but that's definitely one of them." He hesitates, looks over at me, and then says, "Bruce doesn't know. Don't tell him?"

"Why are you telling me?" is all I can manage in the face of that faintly pleading tone.

Dick gives a faint smile that doesn't even come close to reaching his eyes. "Because I've been sitting in there, thinking about what I'm going to have to do to convince everyone that I'm possessive enough of you that I won't let anyone else even touch you, and that's—" He jerks his head in a small shake, even that hint of a smile fading away. "I needed you to know that even though I can't possibly understand whatever they did to you, I'll never support any kind of slavery and all of this… I hate it. I needed you to know that everything I said wasn't just words, not to me anyway. I thought that maybe trusting you…" His words trail off, but then he pulls in a deeper breath and finishes, "It might help you trust me. Eventually. I'm not expecting anything from you; you don't have to give me anything you don't want to."

I stare at the side of his head, and then carefully extract one hand from the blanket. Then I hesitate, and ask, "Can I?"

He looks over, following the line of my freed hand and its vague point down towards his scar. He meets my gaze for a moment, and then lets go of it with his own hand and nods. "Go ahead."

It feels a little strange under my fingertips, but it's not the raised, bumpy lines of my brand. It doesn't feel all that different. If you weren't paying attention, or you couldn't see it, you might not even feel the difference. It's clearly an old scar; a lot older than mine, but the bastards didn't get ahold of me until I was fifteen and I don't… I don't know how long I was in there. I just know that how my scar healed, and how the edges have smoothed out, isn't nearly as much as his has.

Then again, mine was messed with to make sure that it stayed, and I'd bet that Dick got pretty much the best of care that he could. Minus taking him to see anyone that might have recognized it as a brand and reported it.

I let my hand linger. "Sorry," is what comes out of my mouth, and I honestly couldn't say exactly what it is that I'm apologizing for. Being a bastard to him? Being defensive? Or just being sorry that anyone ever tried to turn him into a slave too?

"I was lucky," he repeats, his voice soft. "You've got every right to hate me and every other person in this world who makes slavery possible, Jason. I don't blame you, and I won't try and justify any of it. But just… just know that we're trying. Bruce and I, we're trying to stop all of this. Especially Bruce. He—" Dick gives another of those sharp bursts of laughter, shaking his head. "He drives me up the wall sometimes, but he really is doing everything he can without getting us both killed. Most of it is backroom dealings, alliances, politics that are so insanely difficult to negotiate and take so long to get anywhere… Just, don't judge him for what happened earlier, alright? He's not great with any of this actually important social stuff, and out there most of it is a lie."

That faint smile comes back, and it actually reaches his eyes — still an impossible blue, even with the dim lighting — when he shrugs and adds on, "It's really up to you whether you prefer the lie of a personality he wears out there, or you can deal with him occasionally coming across as a totally inept moron who doesn't know how to feel anything or relate to people."

"Don't sound like great options."

Dick gives a softer laugh, and then, very slowly, his hand comes up and very lightly clasps over where mine is still resting on his shoulder. The smile he gives me is small, real, and he carefully squeezes my fingers as he murmurs, "He'll get less awkward as he gets to know you. I promise. He'll never stop being kind of an ass though, fair warning."

I manage a snort, and then my next breath comes easier and my skin stops feeling like there are ants crawling up my spine. Some of the tension eases out of my back, I squeeze his fingers as gently as he squeezed mine, and his smile gets a little bigger.

"Thanks," I whisper, and he won't know how much I mean it but that's alright.

The smile is the only real answer I get, before he goes on. "So, there's my reason for not being able to sleep. What about you?"

The hesitation is still there, but then I duck my head and admit, "It's too quiet, and the couch is too soft. It's— It's fucking stupid but I just can't…"

"Hey, nothing that affects you is stupid. What was done to you is probably going to leave a lot of weird things behind and none of it is stupid, Jason. Whatever you want to change, we can work on that, but right now, why make this any harder than it already is?" I meet his gaze, and the lack of pity, or confusion, makes it easier to push away the shame in my gut. "Alright, too quiet and too soft? You can sleep in my room, if you want?"

I blink. His eyes widen.

"Shit. No— I didn't— I just meant that you might be more comfortable in my room, with me there and— Oh god this is all coming out exactly wrong." His head thunks back against the wall again, and my mouth curls into a slight grin that feels strangely real.

"Want a shovel to help dig that hole?"

Dick smiles back, and he definitely look a little embarrassed. "I swear I'm usually smoother than this. The floor in my room is wooden instead of this carpet, is what I should have said. If you want to just bring the blankets and pillow in, you can sleep with as much or as little as you want and it might help. In the morning I can let Bruce know to get the hardest cot he can find, to start with, and maybe we can work up from there. And uh, I'll be in the room, so there will at least be some noise. Breathing, and I move around some. If you want to try?"

"That… That actually sounds good." Dick looks relieved, and I amend, "Better than sitting in a corner and not sleeping, anyway."

"Fair enough," he says with yet another small smile. "I'll grab what's on the couch. Meet you in there?"

"You're walking literally ten feet away," I grumble, as I almost reluctantly pull my hand from the loose grasp of his. "I don't think it's a case of 'meeting' you anywhere."

Dick's smile slides to a small grin as he pushes himself back up to standing and then offers me a hand. "Psh, criticizing my choice of words. Nitpicker."

I take it, and it still surprises me a little when the muscles in his arm tighten and he just pulls me right to my feet without a problem. I am not a small person, and I'm mostly muscle myself even though I know I'm underweight thanks to all the missed food. If he can just lift me to my feet like that, than Dick is a lot more muscle than he looks like at a first glance, which makes me wonder just how well it is that he can fight. They said Dick would be teaching me.

"Dick," I counter, after a moment of rolling the insult around my head to make sure it's a gamble I want to take.

He rolls his eyes, snorts, and heads for the couch. "Oh yeah, never heard that one before."

The lack of any retribution, or even obvious irritation, relaxes me a little, and I gather the blanket thrown around me into my arms and push out a slow breath as I watch Dick collect the rest.

Maybe he really is telling the truth. Maybe I'm as safe as I can be.

"So when do we get around to that whole 'teach me to fight' thing?" I ask bluntly, over the remains of the breakfast on the coffee table in Dick's sitting room area. "Not that I'm not enjoying the great family-meal feel of this."

Bruce came back with food, about an hour after Dick and I woke up. He's been mostly silent, and Dick's been filling the silence but the longer it goes, the more strained his voice has been sounding. The whole thing is setting me on edge, which isn't really all that different but I kind of hate not knowing what's going to happen.

At least in the slavers' place, I could always count on there being more pain.

Bruce looks up at my question, meeting my gaze. He's in a finely pressed suit that looks like it costs more money than I've ever even seen, which contrasts pretty ridiculously with my borrowed sleep clothes and Dick's sweatpants and t-shirt. I cross my arms under his look, leaning back into the couch and doing honestly a really shitty job of trying to pretend that he's not unnerving me.

"Bruce…" Dick interjects, with just a hint of pleading to his voice. It probably doesn't help anything that Dick and I are at opposite ends of the couch, and Bruce is sitting in the chair across from us. It kind of makes it feel like us versus him.

Bruce glances over at him, and then very deliberately puts down the cup of coffee he had in both hands. "It's not." I stiffen, shock almost immediately bleeding into anger, but before I can shout any of that he continues, "Not yet."

I bite my tongue for half a second, take in a short, sharp breath to calm down just a little. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

I can see Dick wince out of the corner of my eye. Bruce doesn't seem phased.

"Your body needs time to recover and even out. Until it does that, you won't be doing any strenuous physical activity, which would include teaching you combat." He's still, focused. It half looks like he's expecting me to leap across the table and strangle him. "I'm calling in an old friend of mine to give you a physical exam, and see if there's anything more serious than basic malnutrition and sleep deprivation that needs to be addressed. She'll be respectful, I promise."

"Her name's Leslie," Dick comments, and I glance over at him. "She shares our views."

"For now," Bruce says, like Dick never even spoke, "the two of you need to work out your public relationship. It's unlikely that no one saw me bring you in, and Jason can only stay out of sight for so long before it becomes strange. Today, both of you need to figure out exactly how to pull this off in public. Tomorrow you'll need to be seen, at least briefly."

My throat is tight, any kind of protest sticking in my throat because I knew. I knew that this would have to happen. I knew that I would have to pretend to be a real slave in public.

"Dick, you know what's expected. Jason, this only works if you cooperate." He pauses, and eventually I catch on that he's waiting for some kind of confirmation from me.

I give a jerky nod, and manage a rough, "Yeah, I know."

Bruce echoes the nod — more smoothly — and then picks up the cup of coffee and gets to his feet. "I'll get clothes for tomorrow, and spread the rumor that you've picked up a slave and you're… exploring. Make it believable. You both understand that, don't you?"

Dick looks supremely uncomfortable, and a mixture of anger and helpless frustration makes me spit, "You mean make it believable that we've been fucking for a day and a half?" Dick flinches, and that actually makes me feel just a little bit guilty. It's kind of nice to know that my new 'owner' is as uncomfortable and angry about this as I am. It almost makes me want to watch my mouth.

I get a vicious kind of satisfaction out of saying those things to Bruce, but… I'm not sure that Dick deserves any of it. He's just trying to make the best of a bad situation, like me, and he's been nothing but kind. I haven't been treated kindly in a really, really long time.

Bruce's jaw tightens a little bit, but instead of responding to my provocation he just looks at Dick and says, "Be out of sight when the servants clear this up. I'll be back later."

I watch him go, watch the door shut, and then spit out, "Sorry."

Dick startles a little bit before looking over at me. "Sorry? For what?"

I dig my fingers into my own arms, shrugging and looking away. "I shouldn't have said that."

There's a brief moment of silence, and then Dick murmurs, "It's fine, Jason. You were just saying what none of us had the courage to say out loud."

"It wasn't courage," I argue, meeting his eyes. "I said it because I knew it would hurt him. It was a really asshole move and I shouldn't have done it. Sorry."

Dick gives a soft smile, and then shifts a little closer to me on the couch. He reaches out, pauses an inch before my skin and I don't stop him so he gently touches my crossed arms and lets his fingers linger. "Don't worry about it. I think if anyone's entitled to a few snapped comments, it's you. This is… This is not going to be fun, and I don't blame you for being angry."

I can't find any kind of deceit in his gaze, and I can feel some of the tension draining out of me. "Thanks," I whisper, and it feels just like last night. I still don't think Dick realizes how much I mean it.

He lightly squeezes my arm, and then pulls back. "Alright, so how about we go back into the bedroom, and we can talk this out? Do you want a shower first?"

"No. But… After, yeah. Definitely."

Dick winces, and then gets to his feet. "Yeah, that's fair. I uh…" He rakes a hand back through his hair, meets my gaze for just a second, and then winces a second time. "I need a shower. I'm going to—" He flushes, deliberately doesn't meet my eyes as he makes a vague gesture at his lower half. "So there's a smaller chance of any uh… inappropriate reactions."

I snort, trying really hard not to think of my own 'reactions.' "Sure, go for it. Make some noise too; you want a rumor going that's the best way to start it."

It's kind of satisfying when he chokes, looking at me with wide eyes. Then gives an almost hysterical burst of laughter and mutters, "Okay, on the list of things I never wanted to talk about with anyone I wasn't dating…"

I follow him up, and he takes half a step back to give me room which I actually appreciate, even as I tell him, "Get used to it. I've got this sneaking suspicion we're going to know each other way better than either of us wants to. Go jack off; I'll entertain myself."

He shakes his head, gives me a look that's halfway between a smile and a wince. "Yeah, probably. So I'll just— Okay. I am going to try really hard not to remember you're in the next room."

He heads for the bedroom, and I follow. I close and lock the door behind us, commenting, "I'm not some blushing virgin or anything, you know. I'm not going to faint from shock just because you're moaning." I take a seat on the end of his bed, leaning my back against one of the wooden supports of the four-poster.

Dick is watching me, and it's almost too quiet for me to hear when he says, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

And god, the look in his eyes is so fucking sincere.

I snort, setting my head back against the wooden support and drawing my legs up onto the bed. "I'm going to be really fucking uncomfortable this whole day no matter what. Don't worry about it, Dick. Go make noise. Have a good time."

Dick's mouth opens like he's going to say something, and then closes again. He nods, looking just a little miserable, and heads for the bathroom.

I close my eyes, lean against the solidity of the wood, and try to push away the memories lingering at the back of my skull.