horrendousness

[onapalehorse]

From this.

"You will find strength, and peace."

He promises, with belief.

Comments

[lasiurus]

He doesn't really believe there can be any peace for him now. But the pursuit of it would mean leaving here. It would mean being able to search for people he knew; it would mean getting stronger.

"How are you going to get me out of here?"

[onapalehorse]

"Bruce, where do you think we are?"

Cocking his head.

[lasiurus]

"I don't..."

He shakes his head, looks toward the wall. There are windows here; but there are lights angled in to make it impossible for the servants to see out.

"I was unconscious when they took me in."

[onapalehorse]

"I don't need to get you away from him. I simply need to install you in a room you will be a little more comfortable in in the long term."

Foregone decision, he'd told him.

[lasiurus]

He can live with that. Maybe.

"If he touches me, or the scullery servants, we'll be right back here with him hiring you to fix me."

And Bruce will take the punishment from Bane, if it means crippling the man so badly he can't touch his slaves.

[onapalehorse]

"No, Bruce, I mean that while you were unconscious, they took you further than you suspect."

Correcting him, softly.

"You will not see him again."

[lasiurus]

He gets to his feet in an instant and he moves to the door. He has to see.

[onapalehorse]

There are times to push, and there are times to ease back.

Bane moves up after him, pulling the keys from his pocket, letting them out into a stretch of very unfamiliar hallway.

[lasiurus]

He breaks into a sprint, desperate for a real window, for his first glimpse in three years of the outside world.

"Where are we?"

[onapalehorse]

"In my home."

He answers, voice raising as Bruce bolts. He stops at a doorway, clears his throat, expects him to heel.

"This way. He kept you in strict isolation, did he not?"

[lasiurus]

He has the most profound urge to look around, touch everything, go out and sleep under a tree. It isn't until he can almost touch the door that he realizes he had never expected to see or feel or taste any of it again.

"Yes. He did. He had to."

Bruce had proven much too dangerous to leave in the open.

It takes nearly five or six minutes before he tears himself away and moves to see what Bane wanted.

[onapalehorse]

"Your chambers have a better view."

This leads to a staircase. They'll be going up for this.

[lasiurus]

He follows, looking at every detail. Some of this is habit; 'know your surroundings' and all. But most of it is elation at being out.

"You had this ready for me?"

[onapalehorse]

"I began preparations after we had been working with one another for a week."

He admits, opening his bedroom door for him.

It's a small, quiet space. Whitewashed stone walls, bed lush without being threateningly lux, treading a strange line between spartan and... cozy.

"The bathroom is through there."

The window looks out over miles of treetops, hills, a lake.

[lasiurus]

Bruce finds he has to avoid looking at the window. There's a line between longing and need, and he doesn't want Bane to see either from him.

Besides, the room and the realization that Bane had planned this is a heavy distraction. He leans against the bathroom doorway beside Bane and looks up at him.

"I still don't know what it is you want me to do for you. For this."

[onapalehorse]

"This is no more a transaction than the pain was."

He shakes his head.

"There is nothing I want from you that I cannot take. Accept the good along with the bad, Bruce."

And don't try to un-bolt the window, it's a long way to fall.

[lasiurus]

He studies him, and all it really takes is one more glance around the room.

"Thank you."

He doesn't trust Bane's motives, but faced with the view and an actual bed, a bath all to himself...that's worthy of gratitude.

[onapalehorse]

"You're welcome. Sleep well."

Stepping out, he locks the door heavily behind him.

[lasiurus]

Bruce has slept on a thin blanket on the floor most of the past four years. The bed is especially welcome for how sore he is, but he wakes up seven times through the night. Each time he simply stands in front of the window. He watches the sunrise, and only then is he exhausted enough to curl up in bed.

[onapalehorse]

He lets him sleep well past noon. Weighs the situation carefully, and then enters without knocking, curious to see if exhaustion will win, or if instinct will have Bruce up like a shot.

[lasiurus]

It's instinct that wins. Typical of Bruce when he's tired, though, he doesn't pay attention to the fact this room is different and he ends up knocking over the nightstand as he bolts to his feet.

Three seconds of adrenaline pumping, and he remembers where he is.

[onapalehorse]

Bane tosses a tube of polysporin at him for his back, and nods at the bathroom.

"We work again this afternoon. Prepare yourself."

[lasiurus]

He catches it, looks at it, then at Bane. Bruce has very few expressions, but this one is undeniably his subdued version of dread.

"What work?"

He moves past Bane to the bathroom, and examines his back in the mirror.

[onapalehorse]

"Discipline and submission."

He informs him, bluntly. No sense lying about that.

[lasiurus]

He pauses with his hand applying polysporin to the lowest mark. His expression sets back into the hard, blank expression he is so accustomed to, and he sets the tube aside and turns back to Bane.

"Let's get started, then."