Title: Broken Bird (1/1)
Author: BradyGirl
Pairings/Characters: Bruce/Dick
Genres: Angst, Challenge, Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Challenge Categories: Section C (Captives) and Section E (Slaves)
Rating: R
Warnings: Implied non-con (NOT between Bruce and Dick!)
Spoilers: None
Summary: Dick will do anything to save Bruce.
Date Of Completion: December 26, 2008
Date Of Posting: December 29, 2008
Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, DC does, more’s the pity.
Word Count: 698
Feedback welcome and appreciated.
Author’s Notes: Written for the
2008 DCU Fic/Art Bondage Challenge.
Bruce groaned. Cold, seeping into his bones, mixing with fire, the fever…
He tried to think, struggled to turn the mush into clear-headed thinking. Cold wall behind him, cold manacles around his wrists and neck, shivering and naked beneath a blanket…
Blanket!
Yes, some warmth. Hunger didn’t gnaw at him so much, as it did before. Not so thirsty…if only his head would stop hurting…!
Images flashed through his mind: the Justice League on a strange planet, and the Teen Titans fighting by their side. A planet under attack, aliens strong and clever, and tearing up the cities and forests.
Pride in Dick fighting along beside him. Leading the Teen Titans. Tactician, warrior, his equal…
Dick!
Jumbled memories filled his mind, tumbling, jumbling, rumbling…tumbling like Dick on the mats…flying…the quadruple…
Flashes of yellow…in the sky…roar of war…flashes of yellow…beside him…red, seeping into the ground…greenery torn up and ruined…sharp pain…
“Bruce!”
The scream piercing him, struggling to hold on, stay conscious, stay sane…
Blank.
A long time.
Waking, in this dank place. Dark place. Weak light filtering in through a barred window.
Where was Dick?
Screams, pleas to stay, desperation as Dick was dragged away…
Bruce’s body convulsed.
& & & & & &
Swimming up from murky waters.
Leaden depths.
Fragments…
Memories…
Dick, back with him…
Near-naked, smelling of them…
Soft voice, trembling hands washing him, feeding him, giving him water…
Bleeding down his legs…
“It’s okay; it’s okay. They fix me up when they take me away again.”
Always taken away.
Mocking laughter, eyes like coals, grasping hands, dragging Dick away, mocking laughter ringing off stone…
“Dance for us, whore!”
“What will you whore yourself for tonight? Food, a blanket, a pillow for his dainty head?”
“The Emperor has invited a dozen or more tonight.”
Mouth, torn and bleeding.
The eyes.
Dick’s eyes.
Rimmed in kohl, smeared with tears…
Haunted.
“I can’t sleep in their beds. Only here with you.”
Strong arms encircling him. Soft hair on his shoulder as Dick wraps himself around him.
“Please don’t hate me,” he whispers.
“I could never hate you.”
Dick’s body shudders.
When Dick is away, sometimes he hears the music. Wild, passionate, alien…
Laughter and crude suggestions.
“Dance for us!”
Sometimes, screams.
What time is it?
How long has he been here?
Why does he hurt so much?
The sound of laughter, mocking, always mocking…
The door opens, light spills in…
“Go to your Special One, whore!”
Dick crawls in, slowly, as if every muscle aches…
Blood runs down his legs.
The slave costume is barely a costume. Gold circlets around his arms, his thighs, his ankles…thicker manacles around his wrists and neck…hair disheveled…body glistening…
“I brought another blanket,” he says softly. Sets it aside. Takes a washcloth, dips it in a bowl of water, washes a fevered body, brings another bowl, cool water, blessedly cool water…then hot food…
Bruce tries to focus. Sees the shaggy hair falling into kohl-rimmed eyes, bite marks on the neck above the collar, on his shoulder; deep, ugly scratches on his chest…
“I’ll try and get medicine for you, Bruce.” Hands shaking. “You’ve been burning up too long, I’ll do anything…can’t lose you, I just can’t…”
.
“Dick.”
Dick looks up and Bruce’s stomach clenches.
He sees.
Unimaginable horror, deep in the depths of sapphire eyes.
He knows.
“Please don’t hate me,” comes the anguished whisper, shame in every syllable.
“I could never hate you.”
Bruce kisses Dick, tasting them on his lips but doesn’t pull away. Dick is shaking and he pulls his beautiful young man into his arms, the fever burning in him, Dick crying as Bruce caresses his back, his hair, holding him tight.
“It’s okay; it’s okay.” He kisses soft hair, ignoring the smell of smoke and incense.
“Will they…will our friends find us?”
Bruce’s heart contracts at the near-despair in those words. His beautiful boy, such a fighter, slowly dying inside…
“Yes, they will.”
Bruce hugs Dick tighter.
Lucid, for the moment.
And with this thought burning in his brain, the Bat’s wings fluttering:
Whether or not the JLA and the Titans find them, they will escape.
And the ones who have hurt his broken bird…
...will pay.