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Dick couldn't seem to make his legs work properly.
His body (It was wrong, his body was wrong-) was all…chubby. This new, terrible body was long and layered, it rolled against, well, himself. And everything twinged unpleasantly because he didn't know how to move anymore. Tiny wings, six of them, twitched and quivered and Dick could feel the air against the raw there. He hadn't tried moving them. (He didn't really want to try.)
His legs,- he didn't want to count them at this point - were all stub and his hands? Feet? Paws?? Whatever was there now didn't let him move very well at all. His balance was off everywhere all at once and the tail wasn't helping much either. Fat like the rest of his body and lined with…spikes? Spines? Just another thing he couldn't see very well when he craned his neck as far back as he could.
Something weighed down his head, in fact something weighed down his whole body. He felt so heavy but it wasn't comfortable like when you had a good, long sleep or you ate something thick and warm - no. It was heavy like the weights the Strongman carried but attached to his very skin. Or whatever had replaced it.
Dick didn't know what to do. Once the panic had settled enough, Dick had time to make these observations.
He wished he never made them in the first place.
-||-
"Alright chum, let's- er, do you need…help?"
Dick tried to say no but the only thing that came out of his throat was a garbled hiss.
The man, Bruce, looked awkward. He hovered nervously by the open car door. Dick could see the brick that made up the round, outdoor garage. He wondered if there was a fancy indoor one too. He wouldn't be surprised.
"Ah…alright then." Again awkward.
Dick tried to say he had it covered but again: another garbled hiss. Dick did his best to ignore the bad bad bad that came with noticing or acknowledging anything in his new body. It was hard and he wasn't sure if he was managing or not. He didn't know what managing looked like. (Or even how it felt to be okay again.)
The boy squinted his eyes down at the brick outside and then back to his…feet. He could do this. He could get out of the car by himself.
Dick, with great effort, lifted his legs and tried to shuffle forward.
Only for him to face plant into smooth, slat gray brick with an embarrassing tumble. The wings attached him fluttered uselessly and he felt all…scrunched. Like he was slinky that had all been compressed into one area. Uncomfortable but it didn't hurt like he expected to.
What did hurt was his…nose....muzzle...thing.
Dick couldn't help the whine that came out of him even if he tried. Even if he knew it was coming. It came with the same ease as saying "ow," after landing a little too hard after a stunt.
"Oh, lad. Here-" Hands reached down to touch him and Dick hissed again. This one was longer and lower then the previous ones. It shocked through his body and he could feel it through the spines and…skin? Scales? It felt almost like getting goose bumps but instead of skin or hair it was…scales and other things.
(What Dick didn't know, because he couldn't see, was that he closely resembled a puffed up bird at that moment. With tiny, gossamer scales slightly raised and crowning around his neck. The silver spines along his back rose to attention as well, like the quills of a porcupine.)
Dick, with his nose still smashed against the ground, scrambled with his legs and he felt the raw vibration of nub talons scrapping against the marbled cobblestone round way drive. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not.
His legs, (Too many, why was there so many-?) felt like heavy bags of flour and they move about as well as them too. It took too many tried to get himself upright in the wrong way and for his head, as heavy as it was, back in a way that let him see properly.
Dick shook his head and felt the weight over his whole body go up and down. Like water. He blinked. The wings flopped around. (Dick didn't like that he could smell the poop of a bird a couple yards away.)
The man continued to hover nervously.
"Are…you alright..? You're not bleeding, are you?"
No. Dick was not bleeding. Not that he could tell anyway.
Bruce mumbled something to himself. Dick's ear flicked.
"Well," The other clapped his hands together and smiled. It wasn't reassuring like Bruce probably hoped it was. "Alfred should have a room set up for you and…" The man paused. His eyebrows furrowed to go along with the pause. "I did, tell Alfred right? I…" He broke off into more nervous mutters and Dick was already eyeing the tree line a couple hundred yards away. He could make it. Probably.
(And after that? Well. He hadn't thought that far yet.)
Dick watched as the man became more and more nervous. Getting more and more distracted. Dick watched the other pull out a phone and start tapping and swiping. Blue eyes darting.
Dick didn't know what he was muttering about, nor did he care all that much. (Easily ignored curiosity aside.)
Dick took his opportunity when he saw it.
Bruce turned his back to answer a call and Dick took off.
Well.
As much as he could anyway.
—||—
Dick's feet weren't working well but he made them work anything. He ran towards the tree line the property and prayed to the very universe that he would be able to get away.
(He didn't know where he was going. He didn't what had happened to him. He didn't know why his body had to move in this new unfamiliar way to work at all. He didn't know what would happen once he got to the tree line. He didn't know if he would find a hollow to hide in or a tree to climb. If he could even do that anymore. His stubby limbs and heavy body told him otherwise.)
(— his balance was gone. His hard won skill and practice. His ability to soar through the air, doing well placed flips and turns to catch his mother's strong awaiting fingers. His ability to balance well and true on a wire thinner then his finger. His ability to bend and contort until he fit in a box that could barely fit anyone smaller then him comfortably.
His ability, his talent, the memory in his muscles, the song in his bones - it was gone. It was all gone—)
(Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone and he would never be able to again-)
Dick huffed and puffed as he waddled along in the grass. His belly was close to scrapping the dirt and he did not like thinking about it. The anxiety that came up was something he wanted to avoid.
Dick's legs were stumpy, fat and heavy but once he tripped five or six times he started to find his rhythm. And once he figured that out he could much faster. Much faster.
(Turns out having so many legs helped cover more ground. He never thought this would happen, ever, but here he was.)
His legs thumped up and down and up and down and up and down through the ground. The dull claws digging at the terf. The stubby legs wound around and around. Dick, if he could see himself better, would dare to say he was skittering. His long, thick set body hurried through the grass, more centipede then snake but still taking inspiration from both. (Though still not quite either.)
Dick found himself waning but that was already after he crossed the treeline. His breath came a little heavy and his chest felt tighter. The wings on his back twitched as he ran. Though Dick's new appendages folded themselves in a peculiar way that felt more like breathing then thought. (He didn't think about it. He didn't want to.)
(Dick was hating to discover that he didn't want to think about much of anything lately.)
The grass brushed his nose and his feet - padded, wide, and soft quiet even over crushed leaves - turned over small twigs and smaller rocks. The trees began to blot out more and more of the sun until the left over light of the day only came through in molts and emerald bruises. Blood orange and milky blue in some places. Silver and moon scorched in others.
(The sun was setting. Dick was aware enough to know that.)
The air was dense with grass. Dick could taste the air. The dirt he clawed up and left behind. The mud and water somewhere far away. The tang of sap and diseased roots of something decaying.
Forest. Trees and mulch and moss and something always and very nearly dead. Dick had been in swathes of trees like this before. In passing. He liked to pick mushrooms and store them in the bagginess of his shirts. Then run to Auntie Pale Eyes and ask to her to identify each. (He always ended up eating the ones that Auntie said he could. And stopped trying the one's she said he couldn't after he got an unpleasant tummy ache from each and every bite.)
Though he he never spent a lot of time. The circus was always moving. Always preforming. The lights and the stage and the sweet burnt kettle corn and always the shining eyes of onlookers that paid a dollar and a quarter to watch.
Dick loved it. He loved to look out and see the wave of cheers, of gasps and bubbling after. Performance, after performance. It never got old, it never got tiring. Not for Dick. Never for Dick. He loved it. He loved every part of it.
(- maybe that why it hurt so much that it was gone. That his parents were dead and the circus had to shut down the stage lights early. That everyone went home and Dick choked on blood, as his grief tore bloody fingers through his hair and shoved chipped fingernails down his throat until he couldn't breath. Skin ablaze and every inch of him wrong.
Everyone went home and his parents were dead. Everyone went home and Dick was a monster. Everyone went home and Dick was sold to a nervous man in a black suit.
Dick was alive and his parents were dead.
Dick was alive and he had to man legs and his belly was a couple inches from scrapping the ground.
Dick was alive and he could taste the leaves under his feet and the dew in the air. Dick was alive and he could feel every tremor the air gave and it sent him near spiraling every time.
His parents were dead and Dick was alive and would never be happy again.)
Dick scuttled, palmed his way through the grass, even as it grew thinner. He moved quickly and his lungs were starting to burn.
He would guess the man - Bruce - must have noticed by now. Honestly Dick was surprised that the older man didn't notice his escape earlier. He wasn't quiet. At least Dick didn't think he was very quiet.
(His feet were padded and tiny, minuscule bristles curled around every loose particle of dirt and splinters of wood and made it quiet. Repelled, protected and quiet. Dick didn't noticed. Because at this point it was just white noise against everything else.)
Eventually—seconds, minutes, hours, it was hard to tell—Dick slowed. And tripped. He found the rhythm to run but it seemed everything else was watery and glazed new to him. Raw and unfortunately nose bleed worthy.
Dick tried to stop but his feet didn't twist the right way and a rock was his down fall.
Dick's eyes widened as he tripped and rolled. The momentum took him forward and his new, pudgy body just sort of squished and coiled to go along with it.
Dick hit the base of a tree, with his fat tail lulled in the air, his neck craned in what should have been a painful position and his legs swimming uselessly, forgetting that he wasn't running anymore.
Dick blinked. He meant to say some choice words but all that came out was a reedy whine and some kind of chitter that felt like something a cricket would say.
Okay. This was fine. He could figure this out.
He grunted and wiggled. His legs kicked and his tail waggled about. Eventually - he wasn't sure how - he twisted until he rolled, then fell, onto his side. He deliberately pushed himself back to his feet (belly close to the floor and still smelling the water, mud and dirt far away and close) and huffed, blinking again.
He looked around. He wasn't sure but he might have been pretty deep in the forest at this point. It was hard to tell.
Dick shook his body out. There wasn't much thought in the action. Again: some more like breath then thought and the weight covering his whole body rose and fell like before. A wave that let him feel the air just a little more before going back down
He felt better after shaking himself off. (There was less of an itch and more of a growing familiarity then anything.) He didn't know why but he did. He wondered if that would become something normal.
Dirt, birds, emerald sun bruising and growing burns of silver through the grass. Grasshoppers.
Him. His legs. The wings that fluttered and twitched. His nose that felt just a little wet and picked up too much of everything. His fingers that felt like fingers but didn't move much like them at all. Did he still have thumbs? It still felt like he did.
Dick looked around.
More trees and trees and trees and more trees. He looked at the ground. Dirt and dirt and grass and leaves and little, itty bitty rocks. He…
Dick looked around. It smelled like everything. (It felt like nothing.)
Dick's parents were dead. Everything hurt and his insides felt terrible. Grief, hurt, hunger: it was hard to tell. (Everything, nothing. His parents were dead. They fell and he couldn't catch them. His bones snapped and suddenly he was aware of every ache and pain the world had to offer. For a moment the sky bleed and Dick's own tears watered the planets that grew beneath his feet. Everything and nothing. Pain and hurt and sadness and tears that run salty over your lips.
Dick's parents fell.
And he had to watch them get taken away in an ambulance.)
—||—
Dick was shoved in a bag and sold.
And Dick's body didn't even have the decency to respond correctly.
—||—
Dick found a tree to curl up in. It was struggle getting up in the tree. Though his feet seemed to have a lot of traction, gripping the bark and holding him up when all he could do was desperately hug the tree.
He found a nook between the branches and curled up as much as he could. His body moved in something rounder and much more coiled then what he could do before. He tucked his face into the dark of his own body and focused on counting imaginary sheep. (Even though it never worked before he still tried. Time and time again it didn't work and time and time again he tried again.)
The wings folded themselves when he didn't think about it too hard and his tail wrapped around everything else. His legs were tucked under him but he didn't find the position uncomfortable. In fact, he was hard pressed to find a position his new, weird body was uncomfortable to the point of pain in. He just…squished now. Flattened and spread out and compressed down into a smaller shape to compensate. (Sometimes Dick wondered if he still had bones.)
The night crept closer and there wasn't much of anything in the way of daylight. In the earned quiet Dick could hear cars. In the distance. A faint buzz he never really noticed until now.
Dick counted sheep.
And fell asleep when he finally gave up.