Alfred honestly can’t say shit about Bruce bringing in strays, because what if the Waynes got him the same way?
I genuinely can’t recall HOW Alfred, British special forces extraordinaire, ended up working for Gotham’s (scary) sweethearts.
In my mind, he came to them bleeding.
There’s a tang of bitterness pooling in his gut. Soldiers don’t have friends. They have guns. And he’s all out.
Just when Alfred thought all is in peril, a tiny little hand gently covers a nasty bullet hole on his abdomen.
The first thing Alfred thinks about is: ‘Jesus, this kid has scary eyes.’
“Hi, Alfred.”
“…How do you—“
“Bruce! Jesus FUCKING Christ, I swear, I’m not paying for your ransom next time you run o—…What the fuck is that?”
If there’s one thing about Thomas that Alfred will never forget is his voice; The bass , so chasmic and powerful it could shake the whole world, and the burning care in his eyes despite his vulgarity.
Bruce, — who’s the tiniest bundle of a boy Alfred witnessed, is yanked up by his father’s strong hands, squeezed to his chest carefully. “Hurt,” he says. There’s a tiny, red handprint on Thomas’ shirt.
“Yeah, I didn’t notice,” Thomas mumbling, looking around.
Maybe local gangs? The bullet point is too precise, too calculated. “Who the hell are you?”
Alfred, with his raspy breath, says, “I’m the terribly rude bloke dying on your doorstep, I’m afraid. Alfred Pennyworth. At your service.”
For a guy who’s about to bleed his last, he sounds awfully sarcastic.
“Yeah, wise guy, no one’s dying on my kid’s birthday. Bruce, tell Dotty to prep up the basement. And tell your mama to get my Budlight out of the cooler. Jesus Christ.”
Alfred ends up hoisted on this man’s back. Thomas asks if he has anyone he wants to call? Anyone that’ll come pick him up? Anyone to bury him, if it comes to it.
Alfred whispers he does not.
Thomas sighs. “Well. Kid‘a been asking for a playmate.”
3K notes
·
View notes
i was just talking about this after being wrecked by the discovery that the little elf-goblin fellows my parents/family used to tell me warnings and stories about as a little kid are regionally specific, and that you can trace people's geographic origins by what word they use for "little spirit-fellows who live in your house". no matter what you call them (domovoi, kobolde, brownies, so on); for purposes of this post henceforth "little guys"
i think one of the things that i find frustrating about like, idk, modern animist revivalist movements is that very few of them ime spend a lot of time romanticising and spiritualizing human habitation. obviously, we as a culture need to think more about protecting and defending nature/the earth/so on, but like.
if you don't have room in your heart for making up a little guy who lives in the water heater, or who squats under your stove and makes it run 15 degrees off the programmed temperature, and thinking of him with the same kind of respect/affection as you do for the spirits (or whatever) of the wildlife you interact with like.
genuinely: what are you even doing. you are removing a source of richness and fun and whimsy from your life! like, pip @creekfiend made up the concept of "little guys who live in an airport (and are the reason it's so shitty to be in an airport)" and i already like airports like 30% more just knowing it's the little airport inconvenience guys doing that.
more importantly, like. genuinely: interrogate what parts of the world seem ~rich with spiritual meaning~ to you. what parts of the world are "wild"? what does that make the rest of the world - a chore? a burden? who has to carry that burden?
we're never going to like, "return to nature", because that's nothing and the concept of untouched nature is also nothing; we're always going to have some sort of human habitation and interaction and cultivation with nature. if you can't extend grace and whimsy and genuine and sincere meaning to human habitation, including its inconveniences and annoyances, you are making your own lived experience duller!
notably, most of these kinds of little-guy-spirits historically exist in the parts of human habitation that are partially abandoned, partially removed: haylofts, inside the walls, under the house, in the bathhouse, behind the furnace... i've been thinking a lot about urban wildlife lately, and the animals who make space for themselves in and around human habitation. the "natural" and the "wild" persist inside and around the edges of the "tame" and always, always have. if you have a crawlspace, there's a little spirit who lives there and he's the reason the dryer always eats your socks.
LIVE WHIMSICALLY.
3K notes
·
View notes