singillatim | august catch-all.

[Treacherous thoughts, but damn it Jason this is why you died.]

Hey!

[Runt, he's not... finished. Tim runs a hand through his hair in exasperation, conflicted on how he's handling this next... phase. He sighs, coughs into a fist, and pins a look on Jason-- on Robin.]

Take a shower. You freaking smell like you're on hour 73 of your 72 hour deodorant. First door to your left after the fireplace. It says "Garage". Got it? I'll get you your clothes.

[There's a continuous, deliberately steady stream of gray smoke from the main floor's chimney. Inside is nearly distastefully... warm. As far as interior decorating goes, the house is a disaster.

There are sketches of engines strewn around, entirely ambitious and doomed to stay a fantasy. The walls might be acting as calendars or countdowns, tallies drawn on them with robust charcoal or even paint. There are hand tools littering the walkways, everything Tim Drake has been able to vulture from the property is at least safe from the elements even if it's lost to any semblance of organization. Shovel, the shovel. A conduit bender discarded by an electrician. Cut parts of aluminum, axles and springs from cars.

But the fire- it cracks and flares steadily.

The fire doesn't need tending to: it feeds itself. It tames itself. This is the work of gravity. There are logs of dried wood waiting to be consumed, the iron V-frame of the fireplace only letting the fire devour what it needs to keep strong, not letting it choke itself with too much, and then be starved by lack of fuel. There is a... water trough suspended just above and out of reach of the crackling cinders and orange flames, propped up by... wooden stands, flimsy crisscrossing of strategic lumbers. And there it is, folks: insurance of safety in the face of an unsupervised fire. The sprinkler system. The flood that will drench the fireplace the moment it misbehaves.

Physics. A Rube Goldberg machine made from too little supplies and too much time.

Pipes extend, here and there, from the water trough. They snake to the first room, named "Garage". Turn a valve. Get a hot shower. Not too hot, because the winding journey of the water exposes it to forced, cooler temperatures.

Science, bitch.]

And don't worry. Literally nobody comes by. I'm glad your arm's doing better.

[He waits for some confirmation of understanding, not so much of compliance, and then Tim's off to the skeleton remains of one barn. He can fetch his things, take a moment to think... really think...

And eventually he'll meet with his brother, still tiny, but Tim will chuck well-fitting, good-enough clothing at him. No rainbows, butterflies, or sparkles to be found.

Keeping friends close is something that you have to practice, sometimes.]

( wow, rude. telling him he smells.

jason raises an arm to confirm tim's accusations, nose scrunching up when he does get a whiff of himself. it's not his fault he's stuck here where there's minimal access to showers and everything's fucking freezing all the time. tim, at least, has a setup where he can go inside and get warmed up. and from the looks of the farmhouse, he's spent a shitton of time working on improving his temporary home.

he'd bitch at tim about his ability to organize shit and keep things tidy, but tim is gone before jason manages to get there. and while he would clean up a bit, he's not fucking with tim's chaotic disorganized mess that he's likely got his own system for remembering where shit is.

yet.

instead, jason snoops around a bit. takes a look around the farmhouse, memorizing rooms, and locations of things he may or may not come back for later before he does make his way into the 'garage'. the warm but not too warm shower is still significantly better than anything jason's had access to in months, so he - takes his time enjoying it.

luckily, he is small as hell, meaning it takes him a little less time to get all the grime off and scrub through his hair.

by the time tim comes back around, he's out in the living area, oversized shirt and shorts on, but he takes the clothes when they're thrown at him.

shoves pants on over the shorts, then takes off the oversized shirt so he can put on the correctly sized one, and - throws the oversized one back on over it. layers are nice. )

It was B. ( he starts, easily enough. looks down to his arm when he says it. ) We were on good terms for. . . a while. But I got angry and fucked up. So he beat the shit out of me again an' told me it was over.

[The animals used to have warm water, warm ground to nest in.

Jason might find barrels of stale gasoline siphoned from the stranded vehicles outside. Not many barrels, of course. There's some buckets of soap shavings.

It's easier to thaw the ground before digging any graves.

The open space of the house overseeing the chimney has (figurative) rats' nests as seating, and a couch. Tim's laid down on it. He turns his head when Jason dresses.

It's just habit.

It's insanely difficult to find... words. Tim is no good at those.] He forgets himself sometimes.

[Forgets that Batman is a punishment for his sins, not anybody else's.

And, what difference did it make if B broke an arm instead of, say, broke a rib or two in one their infamous scuffles. The difference, Tim swallows, is that this new world he's learning about is marked by a unified... family. And family doesn't...

Tim doesn't want to think that it's...]

When I got here, I met this other guy named Jason. He was going to be graduating in three days. We got to the Community hall and then I ditched. I found a black, fluffy dog.

[Keeping friends close is something that you have to practice.]

He was being all friendly so I thought he belonged to someone. Anyway, he pushed me off a cliff and I broke my arm.

[Keeping enemies close is something that comes more naturally to Tim.]

Jokes on him, my arm was already broken.

[And then Tim had... broken. his arm. Like, a day later. On purpose. Shockingly, that harebrained scheme hadn't worked out well.

Cold day in Hell when he ever admits that one. Feeling braver, Tim eyes Jason again.

Good god, he's small.]

Did Goodsir set it? He didn't even know how to work a cast.

( how modest of tim.

with laters back on, jason sprawls out comfortably on the couch, one elbow resting on the armrest with his palm pressed to the underside of his jaw, idly relaxing into the cushions. where jason may not usually allow himself to relax, he's letting his guard down and making himself comfortable now. it's tim. tim's not going to do jack shit to him. )

No. It was some guy named McCoy. Haven't seen him around since.

( if jason's lucky, he disappeared just as logan had. lucky because - mccoy caught him at a bad moment, saw him vulnerable, and jason doesn't like knowing people are around who have seen him like that. )

The dog pushed you off a cliff?

[McCoy. Tim thinks he showed the man the barns, but he's also been doing a good job at not learning names. He says,] Same happened with Jason.

[and,]

The dog pushed me off a cliff.

[The difference is, this time it's far more difficult to keep a straight face as he says it. He struggles with the shy, ridiculous smile, but bodies are treacherous and his eyes see Robin and Tim, predictably, loses that struggle.]

It was a small cliff. But still. I thought Lassie was supposed to get Tim out of trouble. I was wrong.

How'd you let yourself get pushed down like that? Christ. Tim.

( he wasn't intending on going by jason here anyway, so the lack of having someone who shares his name isn't - well. it doesn't sound like tim had the time to properly bond with the guy, so it's not like it matters much. )

You're fucked up enough as-is.

( even ignoring the stupid way tim's looking at him. as if he's different, as if jason being smaller somehow makes his presence more tolerable. he knows it's not the perceived lack of a threat: he's capable of kicking ass still, not that tim's ever seemed to care one way or another.

it's robin, isn't it. gross. )

[Consider:] It was a big dog.

[It was not.]

( doesn't matter whether or not it was, because jason is just - raising a brow regardless. )

You're telling me a dog took you out.

[Tim's flushing red, an ailment whose symptoms grow stronger the longer he's braving facing Robin.

To go from what's frankly repulsive family violence (because Jason is Bruce's son and that's what it is and there's no pussyfooting around it with the excuse of too many murky terms)-- to talking about dogs being out to kill them all (or maybe just him, he's undecided), is dumb.

It makes him feel dumb.

Dumber still, because that stubborn remnant of boyishness demands that Tim clarify, again,] It was a big dog.

I had just got here like, ten minutes prior. I didn't know that dogs were on a mission to end us all. Nobody did! I'm not the only one who got pushed down a hill by that dog!

( it sounds ridiculous, because it is ridiculous. and jason's laughing; it's loud, obnoxious, the kind of uncontrolled laughter that's obviously genuine, even in the face of tim remaining indignant and trying to defend himself. )

I can't--I can't believe you got taken out by a dog. Holy shit. Timmy. ( if it was a lot of dogs - okay, sure. a particularly rabid one, totally reasonable. one dog though? especially given how new tim had been, when he should have still been in robin-shape? ha. ) Timmy. Really?

august catch-all.

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