Work Text:
“Like this.”
Ratio’s face contorts into a slight frown as he attempts to ease a pencil into your grip, gently adjusting your hold on the writing utensil—a thing far too thin for fingers that border on claws. You nod slightly at him as if you understand anything marked on the paper before you, allowing him to move your hand around until he’s done showing you the same up-and-down motion for the fifth time today. The door shuts quietly behind him.
To be honest, you aren’t exactly sure why this human seems so set on getting you to move this small stick without assistance—all he has you do with it is try to copy miniature picture after miniature picture without breaking the thing (something easier said than done, in your opinion). But no matter how much wood you split, he always gives you enough food and a warm place to sleep. So you stay. So you stay with the human you can’t even speak to.
The mahogany wood of the table screams under your touch as you absentmindedly scrape your nail against it—Ratio only left about a minute ago, but it already feels like he took all the warmth of the room with him. It’s been a while since you spent so much time away from home. Part of you still wants nothing more than to crawl all the way back to it, broken ribs and all.
The other…the other likes the weird black-and-white stuff Ratio sprinkles onto your fish too much to follow through on that thought.
Or at least that’s what you’ve convinced yourself. That some fish is the deciding factor in this situation. That it’s most definitely not the way the human looked at you like you were something worth saving when he found you lying on the sand drenched in your own blue blood, and also not the way he so carefully carried you all the way back to his dwelling not to rip off your scales but to staunch the bleeding and dull the pain, and of course it is not the way he seems to understand the sadness that fills in your eyes when you look at the sea, understands it enough to pull a book off the shelf and flip through the pages until he finds a printed paper fish to present to you—no, no, of course not. The food is why you stay.
The man who provides it has nothing to do with it.