#life three

"It's so tragic to lose one's family so young," Martha Wayne cooed over her roast lamb, stealing her first glance of the evening at the small boy on her right.  "I mean, I suppose it's no wonder he's so...sullen."  She whispered her last word, as if it was some great secret, as if he wasn't barely five feet from her.

"No need to lower your voice, dear," Thomas said, wiping the crimson droplets of wine from his moustache.  "It's not as though he'll understand you."

"I got him to say something today," Bruce chimed in airily, cracking off a slice of bread with an audible snap.  "I found him watching television in the parlour on some awful news station and I asked him if he knew what he was watching, and I swear he said 'news'.  Or something that sounded like 'news' at any rate."

Martha simpered at the boy and passed him the small bowl of redcurrant jelly as a reward.  "Aw, the sweet boy is learning!"

Dick sat silently watching each of them in turn; it was better than trying to force down more of their food, too rich, too decadent.  He never had much appetite anymore anyway.

He kept watching as the subject changed to various friends, more vain and flighty people like themselves, people they understood.  They didn't try to include him in conversation anymore, just talked to him like he was deaf when they wanted him to do something.  Poor little orphan boy who only spoke "Gypsy."

It was surprisingly easy to convince people you couldn't speak their language.  Whenever slipped and reacted to something, it was simple to play it off as a cough, or a bit of moodiness, or a misunderstanding.  A simple insult in Romanes phrased like a question and the Waynes thought nothing of it, except how sweet it was he was trying to join them.

He hated the mother, Dick had decided one night after a party where she had shown him off like some prized pet.  She kept telling him to call her "Auntie Martha," as though she was family like the kind who'd told him stories and sang to him and taught him to dance.

He hated the father, but he had for a while, ever since the man had first sat him down and told him Dick would have to make some kind of effort to communicate with them, to learn English.  Of course, they couldn't be bothered learning to speak to Dick in his native tongue, no.  That would take work.  But that was fine, he realized later.  He didn't want them sullying the one connection he still had to his family.

He hated the son, the stupid, brainless, spoiled brat.  Never did a day's work in his life, never suffered through worse than a hangover after one of his nearly constant parties, but he'd tell Dick to "lighten up," to "relax," to "stop looking so gloomy all the time, kiddo!"  "I guess we're brothers now," he'd said one day after finding Dick out in the gardens, hiding from the cackling of too many empty words.  "That means you can't keep running away from me."

Bastard.  They weren't "brothers."  They weren't "family."  Dick wasn't anything more than a charity write-off, something to present to the world as kind and show off to friends as a trinket--"Oh, you know, Martha, we really must take in a child like yours.  What a gentle life you give him now!"--but not something to think about as living, as human, as one of them.

It wasn't until the third or fourth time Bruce had called his name that Dick focused again, his large eyes snapping up to the man across the table with a jolt.

"Dick...the table...."

Dick followed the man's gaze to his left hand, still clutching his fork, the tines embedded in the varnished wood.  He opened his hand and the fork wobbled just slightly, taking just a hair too long to fall, bringing up small splinters with it.  Dick looked back as his plate, then stood, not making eye contact with any of them, and headed up to his room.

Once alone, he smiled, a cold viciousness building inside him.  He'd never be part of their family, but he could damage it little by little.  In his own small way, he could hurt them the way they were hurting him, chipping away at their beautiful façade until their ugly true selves were revealed to the world and then he'd be taken away, taken to a good family with love and happiness and no more false smiles.