TRP: Ba'ob, Goro, and Hansel (Returning Gem)

**ABBY**

[Setting: The Castle, day 253]

Ba'ob slipped through the castle, watching, listening for
signs of other people. So far, nobody. This was good. He'd asked to come along
with Jasper in her latest trip to the castle. Had to return something. The
amber gem Ombre'd given him was tucked in a pouch on his hip. Wouldn't be for
long.

The wolf padded along by his side as he safely made it into
the book-room. Nobody was there-- not even Ombre. Ba'ob felt a pang of
sadness-- but it was better this way. He tucked the gem out of sight, but where
he knew she'd find it, and then turned to leave.

**LINA**

Theo had made a demand for "a book with sharks and
maybe also poisonous snakes," and Goro promised her he'd do his level best
to find her one, though he wasn't optimistic. This might be a special order
kinda deal. Nonetheless, he was gonna try the library first.

When he got there, he saw Ba'ob. Looking for Ombre, Goro
guessed. "Hey," Goro said, with a quick wave. "Uh, she's out.
Should be back soonish, though."

**ABBY**

Ba'ob flinched. Was that one elf, again. He reached for the
wolf-- stump grazing against fur. Right. Ba'ob ducked his head, taking a few
steps back, staring at the ground. No eye contact. "Yes sir," he said
softly. Grasped what was left of his forearm in his hand.

Ba'ob could leave now-- hadn't been given permission to--
Ba'ob belonged to Azriel not him-- he might not care about that--

Too many thoughts were swirling around his brain. Ba'ob couldn't
figure them out. Felt stuck. Waiting to see what the elf'd say or do.

**LINA**

Yes sir? Holy shit. Goro's mouth fell open a little.
Gigantic fucking difference from the last time he'd seen the kid in the castle.
Made him kinda fucking sad, if he was being honest.

He gestured to Ba'ob's stump. "How's that been healing
up? You in any pain, or anything?"

**ABBY**

His arm was off. Course it hurt. Sometimes where it wasn't,
any more. Head down, face blank. Don't let him see the resentment. "It's
been healing up fine, sir. No pain," Ba'ob said.

**IZZY**

Hansel heard voices -- one of them Goro's, the other
definitely not Ombre's -- and looked up from his maps. He leaned to peer over
to the library and saw that elf kid -- the fuckin' weird one. Right, he was
pals with Ombre, or something. Must've come to visit her.

He winced a little, at the arm. Shame the little healing
spell he'd picked up couldn't do anything about that. Luci couldn't even fix
it, and neither could Goro. Someone at the Sanctuary, maybe -- Amari? Goro
probably would've asked her. It just broke Hansel's heart a bit, seeing the kid
so fucked up. He wished he could do something about it.

He wandered over anyway, crossing the stairs and coming to a
stop next to Goro to drape an arm around his shoulders. He raised the other hand
to the kid, quietly.

**LINA**

Goro clasped the hand Hansel had put around him, and kept
eyeing Ba'ob. Kid wasn't doing a great job of acting like he felt fine.
"Sometimes, when people lose a limb, a weird thing happens." Kept his
voice light and easy, not wanting to sound all grave about it. "They can
still feel it every now and then. All achy, or tingly like it fell asleep.
Phantom pain, they call it. Like the ghost of an arm." He watched to see
how Ba'ob responded to that.

**ABBY**

Ba'ob glanced up just enough to see the stupid orc joining
them. Felt his shoulders start to hunch up. Forced himself to stop, back to
staring at the floor. Had to be boring. Empty. No more personality than the
table.

"I'm fine, sir." Hand gripped tighter around what
was left of his arm. It ached. Ba'ob could almost feel himself making a fist,
working the ache out. Almost. "No pain."

**IZZY**

Hansel winced, again. Poor kid. He'd gotten real fucked up
-- more than the arm thing. "Hey, uh," he said gently. "You
don't gotta call anyone sir, y'know?" Or lie about being hurt, for that
matter, but that might be a harder sell.

**ABBY**

Ba'ob felt himself tensing up again. Wrong. Wished stupid
orc was right but... he wasn't. Ba'ob hadn't wanted to call people 'sir'. Had
viciously refused to. But he was a wild animal that needed taming. Or to accept
that he'd already been tamed.

Couldn't tell him that though. Couldn't disagree with--
people like them. "I understand, sir." Wished wolf was on his other
side. He could sink his hand into her fur if she was, feel more grounded. But
she was sitting just an inch from his leg, watching the two with her ears
perked and happy. Had the strangest sense of who she liked.

**LINA**

Shit. Goro kept thinking, I must have a spell for this, but
he sure fucking didn't. Wasn't any kind of Restoration that could get someone's
head back on straight after it'd been screwed with bad enough. He squeezed
Hansel's hand tighter. "Hey, where you staying these days? Azriel's place?"

**ABBY**

Ba'ob nodded. Finally an easy question. And he shouldn't
but-- he looked up just a bit. "I belong to him." Didn't belong to
them. Not anybody else. Azriel.

**IZZY**

Hansel narrowed his eyes.

**LINA**

"Ah." Disturbing way of putting it, but given the
way Ba'ob said it with a hint of relief in his voice, Goro figured it was safe
to assume nothing sinister was going on. "He's taking good care of you,
yeah?"

**ABBY**

Ba'ob nodded again, and this time didn't immediately look
back down. (They hadn't hurt him last time. Maybe there'd be enough warning for
Ba'ob to back off, if he did do something.) "Keeps me safe," he said.
Hugged his missing arm to his chest. "Lets me do stuff. It's better than I
deserve."

**IZZY**

"Ah, hey," Hansel tried. "Hey. Nah. You
deserve to be safe and fuckin' ... allowed to do stuff, kid. I bet fuckin' uh,
Azriel would say that too," he guessed wildly.

**ABBY**

"He does," Ba'ob agreed softly. Azriel liked to
tell him things like that. That he deserved to be happy. Deserved to have fun.
Deserved to be his own person. Made Ba'ob want to cry sometimes. Azriel was so
wrong but it sounded so nice.

**LINA**

Goro grimaced a little, still not sure what to do about any
of this. Wasn't really anything he could do for the arm at this point, and
healing was about the only thing he could offer half the time.

Well, there was one other thing that might help. "Hey,
uh. Ombre. Pretty fox lady. You want me to call her for you?" Goro lifted
up the whistle he wore around his neck.

**ABBY**

Ombre. Here. "No!" Ba'ob cried out. Too strong.
Too demanding. He curled in on himself, digging his nails into his arm.
"Please don't," he said, softer. "There's no need."

**LINA**

"I think she'd like to see you," Goro pressed,
carefully. "She's worried about you. Misses having you around."

**ABBY**

Ba'ob shook his head. "You can tell her I'm..."
How was he, really? Alive. Safe-ish. Not happy, but that was expected.
"Okay," he settled on. "Shouldn't miss me. Shouldn't
worry."

**IZZY**

Hansel frowned. Ombre seemed real fucking sweet when it came
to just about anyone but him. He didn't much doubt she'd miss the little weirdo
and be worried about him. "What if, uh. We tell her you came by?" he
suggested. "And if she wants to come visit you, she can, yeah? She knows
where you're staying at?"

**ABBY**

Ba'ob nodded. Yeah, Ombre knew. Maybe she would turn up.
Give Ba'ob hugs, tell him she wasn't mad at him. Sounded nice. Didn't deserve
it but... still sounded nice. "She... can," he said softly. "If
she wants. " Ba'ob shouldn't-- couldn't ask her to. But Ombre was a free
lady, she could go where she wanted.

**LINA**

Well, that was encouraging, at least. "Yeah. I'm
telling you, she'll fuckin' want, kid. Hell, I bet she'll drop by
tomorrow."

**ABBY**

Ba'ob shifted restlessly. Tomorrow. "That's really
soon," he said quietly. Would he be ready? By the time Ombre showed up
would he be able to resist the urge to hide and avoid here? Maybe.

**IZZY**

"Too soon?" Hansel hazarded. Guessed the kid had
to be feeling pretty fucking guilty about what he'd done -- what he'd been made
to do. Hansel could get him not feeling like he could face Ombre yet.

**ABBY**

"Ombre can do what she wants," Ba'ob said quickly.
If he had any choice he'd tell her to stay away. It'd be better for her. But he
didn't. So whenever she showed up-- Ba'ob just have to deal with it then.

**LINA**

"Uh, well, probably what she wants is for you to be
okay, so, uh..." Goro gave the whistle another shake and dropped it.
"I'll tell her to give you a couple days, so it's not too fast for
you."

**IZZY**

Kid still looked nervous, but Hansel guessed all they could
do was offer. Maybe Ombre could make him feel better, or that Azriel fucker
would be able to help him.

Hansel just felt fucking powerless to do anything, himself.
Maybe it was because Ba'ob was about Jonn's size and clearly weird and stabby,
but he kept just wanting to scoop him up and squeeze him to make him feel better.
Was pretty sure that might just traumatize the kid worse, though. Dammit.

"Hey, uh, you hungry, kid?" he tried, because that
was the only other thing he could think of. "I got some stew goin' down in
the kitchen, if you want a hot meal." Real careful to not tell, even though
that was what came more naturally to him -- insisting that people let him take
care of them. Seemed important to try to give Ba'ob a choice, even if he didn't
quite realize he had it.

**ABBY**

Ba'ob shifted restlessly. Kept talking about Ombre-- and now
offering food-- interacting with these people was stressful. Wolf looked happy
though. Looked half ready to trot on over and say hi. Only wasn't cause she
could tell Ba'ob needed her close.

He kept staring at the ground, rubbing his arm. Now was
offering food. Probably keep sticking around too. Suffocating Ba'ob under lots
of attention. Wanted to snarl, bite, make them leave. Couldn't though. And if
he was stuck anyway... maybe food would be okay? They'd promised no hits. And
Ba'ob still wasn't convinced, but he was behaving now. Knew how to avoid it.

"Okay," he said quietly. Looked up slightly,
enough to watch them move.

**IZZY**

Hansel nodded. It was so fucking hard to tell if the kid
actually wanted anything or was just trying to appease him, but he decided to
just go with it and quietly led the way downstairs, to the kitchen. The wolf
seemed pretty happy, at least. Hansel wondered if there was some kinda druid
shit he could do and talk to her, or something. The Lady had said he was a fuckin'
child -- maybe he couldn't do it yet, but he'd be able to later.

The kitchen smelled fucking great. He'd started the stew that
morning, chopping up carrots and celery, garlic and onions, a nice handful of
herbs. Raef had taken care of boiling some chicken and shredding it up
separately, for the rest of the castle, and Hansel remembered Ba'ob being a fan
of meat, so he fixed a bowl with plenty of it, setting it at the table and
pulling a chair out, then going back and making a bowl to sit on the floor for
the wolf, too.

**ABBY**

Ba'ob glanced at the spot set for him, at Hansel briefly,
and then at a corner, and then back at the chair. The wolf has no such
hesitations-- licking the orc's hand before diving into her bowl. Ba'ob thought
about it a second and eased into the offered chair, keeping a wary eye on the
two others in the room. Wasn't supposed to sit, while they weren't. Usually.
The orc seemed to want him to though. So Ba'ob watched to see if they was gonna
get mad about it.

Didn't though. So he carefully picked up his spoon and set
to the chore that was eating. Stupid cuff, getting left on his right hand.
Doing things with the left was always more awkward.

**IZZY**

Hansel winced a little, seeing the kid have to eat with his
non-dominant hand. He kind of fucking forgot that was a problem people had.
Figured it'd be the stronger one that got fucking cut off. He wondered
fleetingly if that was why the cuff'd been put on that arm.

He wondered, a bit, why this cuff was different from
Mishka's. What made Mishka's so fucking special, anyway.

He got another bowl and held it up to Goro questioningly.

**LINA**

Goro eyed Ba'ob, eyed the bowl Hansel was offering, then
shrugged and nodded. When Hansel had dished him up, he leaned against the wall
to eat, close to the table but not sitting at it. Fuckin' weird, but sure.

**IZZY**

Once Goro had a bowl, Hansel dropped a bit more chicken down
for the wolf -- there was a gracious fuckin' dinner guest, god knew -- and
pulled a thick ceramic carafe with a cork lid and fur padding on the outside
out of a high cabinet, and filled it with stew, as well, pressing the lid in
firmly to keep it warm.

He took it over to the table along with a glass of water to
sit next to the kid, tapping the carafe with a finger. "Take some for the
road, or whatever, eh? You can bring the dish back whenever. Or Ombre can after
she visits."

He wanted to pat Ba'ob's shoulder, and almost did before
thinking better of it and pulling his hand back. He fixed himself a bowl,
instead, and sat not right next to the kid but near him to eat quietly. It was
something, he guessed.

**ABBY**

The orc reached for him and Ba'ob froze. He'd been good he'd
behaved he knew he shouldn't have let them bring him-- and then the orc pulled
back. No hits. Just... more food.

Ba'ob eyed the jar for a second before slowly reaching out
and pulling it closer. Sounded... okay. Jasper could bring back too. If they
didn't break it. Just have to be careful.

And go back to eating, trying not to think about the orc
close enough to break him.

**ABBY**

[END]

Title: Returning Gem

Summary: Ba'ob goes back to the castle to return the gem
Ombre gave him. Hansel and Goro happen across him and attempt parenting. Are
not entirely successful.