4 - No More Wishes (Sad Oscar AU)

There was laughter in the other room.

Oscar looked up from where he sat curled up on his bed, startled by the sudden burst of noise. Noriko was watching TV out there, enjoying her favorite show. Oscar never knew what made her laugh so much, but so long as it kept her attention away from him for a while, he liked it. Whenever Noriko paid him attention, she wanted to hold him in her hands constantly, poking at him or petting his messy hair.

He hated it. He hated it so much, but he knew better than to think things would be any different. Oscar was just her latest favorite doll.

His prison proved it. When Noriko was bored with him, she put him away in a wooden box with a glass front, all designed to look like a room in a house. A dollhouse with him on display at all times.

In one corner there was a round cushion, meant to be his bed. There was a doll couch facing the front glass wall, and to the side opposite the bed was a table and a chair. The walls themselves were decorated with cheap patterned paper. Oscar wished he could find an escape through that tattered wallpaper like he could in a real room.

Instead, he could only lounge around in the miniature room, staring sullenly through the glass front wall. The room beyond was the very same one where he’d tried to make his escape under the floorboards those weeks ago. He knew better now. Every entrance he might find to the walls could be a trap, and it wasn’t worth getting hurt again.

His ankle had only just healed, and the memory of the pain it caused him made him curl up tighter on his cushion. Noriko laughed again in the other room.

Oscar had no idea how many people like him had spent time in that workroom. Noriko made a hobby of them, measuring them for clothes that she made herself. She played with them by corralling them between her hands, watching them try to get past. Oscar knew because it was her favorite game with him.

Even now, he wore a new outfit made for him by her delicate sewing work. It was more cumbersome than the clothes he always made for himself, but those had been too ratty, she said. Too plain. Oscar had watched his hard work get thrown out in the trash after she made him change.

It was a good fit, but the fabric was thicker than he was used to. Oscar found it stiff and unwieldy, hard to move around. It worked well for the humans keeping him captive.

He shifted where he sat, turning away from that depressing glass wall. Even though he knew Noriko would be back at least one more time before going to bed herself, he lay down on his cushion. Teary eyes traced the simple pattern on the wallpaper until it blurred and he had to blink.

Oscar wasn’t hungry anymore. He wasn’t cold or desperate for supplies anymore. He had someone around that seemed to care, in her own terrifying way, when he was injured or scared. These were all things that he thought he wanted.

If this was how his prayers were answered, he didn’t want to wish for anything ever again.