it's been a long october.

[afterdrop]

Who: Charles Rowland and YOU
What: Monthy catch-all
When: Throughout October
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Specifics TBD; general warnings available here.


𝒊. 𝒚𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒅

[A short jaunt up from the town center, where the road gets rougher and the sparse trees begin to climb towards Milton House, there's an overgrown, decrepit cottage tucked back in the trees. Blue once, maybe, but faded into a mildewy grey, its windows utterly piled with what hasn't been worth scavenging.

At least, until today.

It's been almost six weeks of squatting in the near-hoard, stuck between pretending that he wouldn't be here long and feeling overwhelmed by the monumental task of making this place livable, when Charles finally wakes up, opens the front door, and starts dragging shit outside.]

Sorry, mate. [He gives a sideways little wave, plunking down a plastic cat carrier.] Just trying to clean up a bit, yeah?

[If it looks like it might have belonged to a 70-year-old woman prior to the apocalypse, it's sitting in the front yard now. Several ceramic horse figurines. A needlepoint pillow with a Bible verse on it. An ornate mirror, slightly scuffed. Use your imagination liberally. Surrounding it all, however, are items in much worse shape. The mattress looks like someone may have died on it, judging from the stains, and there's plenty of busted, broken furniture that's ripe to be chopped into firewood.]

Nick whatever you want. Don't think Gladys'll miss it much, will she?

𝒊𝒊. 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆

[There's one thing he won't part with from the old lady's house - an old, crumbling stick of black eyeliner he found in a bathroom drawer. With a tragic lack of sufficient inside light, however, he's toted a compact mirror down to the lessening hours of the town's unfiltered sun, and sat down against the back of the hunting supply store.

After thirty years of spiritually manifesting his eyeliner, it's harder than he remembers, especially with the scavenged pencil.]

Fuck. [Someone's having a hard time.] Bloody piece of shit.

[If you approach, he'll have one of a couple of reactions. Older men, particularly those broad or bearded, or otherwise classically masculine, will have him scrambling to conceal the pencil behind his leg, quickly barking out a, ] What're you looking at?

[If you have the good fortune not to remind him of one Paul Rowland, however, his reaction will be much less hostile. Instead, he'll give the pencil a little wave and offer a crooked smile.] Bit harder than back home, innit?

𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝒐𝒐𝒄

[Contact me at ghoulsonfilm or pantsghost @ discord to plot a custom starter. Brackets are prose are both fine!]

Comments

ii

[ployboy]

Tim is stepping through the old store with a fresh haul of dog-fence wiring in his beat up backpack. This would be the sort of thing he would have asked du Lac to source for him- but the past doesn't matter. Tim's got an 'invisible' fence. The Aurora will promise that he stays occupied. Out of people's ways. Maybe even productively so. There's so much crap to do--

and so, lost in a myriad of half-thoughts, Tim can do nothing but come to a halt and blink away his confusion at being called a bloody piece of shit excuse you. One more fraction of a second and Tim, a genius, catches on to what the other guy had meant.

But he's still lost about why the colored pencil and the mirror and the smudge-- and then the wiring in Tim's brain connects.

Oh. Makeup.

"If you put it under your shirt for a minute, it should soften up," he hears himself say. He's had girlfriends. This is a thing that he's learned. Eyeliner in shirts equals easier application and

and Tim sputters-- horror washing over his face--

"Wait, wait, wait. Where did you find that eyeliner-? You're going to get pink eye."

Bro.

[afterdrop]

The brief squaring-up at being spotted by another teenager isn't as sharp as with the town's larger men - Tim is certainly in no danger of reminding Charles of his father - but there's still a split second of tension, his fingers starting to pull the pencil away. As soon as the boy speaks, however, Charles eases, recognizing that he's not in any danger of getting pushed around.

"I washed it!" He waves the pencil as though Tim will be able to see its lack of grime. "Soap and everything."

The real question here, of course, is whether the soap itself was clean.

[ployboy]

Bro.

(It feels good to clown around.)

And is it really clowning around if Tim's being genuine? "He washed it," he exhales in dread and terror. This is like that time Jason (the cool Jason) had thought he could survive the winter with six blankets.

Regaining composure, and stepping closer due to sheer curiosity, as if squinting to inspect the eyeliner will make any of this make sense, Tim squeaks out the heebie-jeebies. Jesus. You people are insane. All of you are insane.

"I think-" he tries again, "I think the girls in my class would take a lighter to it if the point was too hard."

[afterdrop]

The theatrical horror in Jason's voice is a breath of fresh air, and Charles can't help smiling up at him from his hunched seat on the ground. The comparison to girls might have sparked a buried nerve some decades ago, leading to a defensive lecture about fashion and the underground music scene, but he's had a long time to get over any of that.

"Left my lighter back in 2023, mate." Well - the eighties, actually. He hasn't had lungs to smoke with since he was alive. "Not sure holding it over a campfire would have the same effect. Might light up the whole thing."

He's not looking to lose one of the hands he just got back.

[ployboy]

He hid in Mount Justice with a freshly minted Superboy; Cassie had done the whole wig thing, and Bart was Bart. Which is to say, fashion-? Tim knows fashion.

(Debatable.)

He mimes tongs, index and thumb pinching together as he suggests (interrupting but in good spirit, taking the liberty he's denied himself for so long of goofing off), sure holding it over a campfire would ha -- "Hold it over a campfire like s'mores."

If it burns then that's good and nobody will die of pink eye.

Jesus.

"Or at least let me strike a match so I don't feel wholly responsible for letting you go blind for some sick wings."

[afterdrop]

Charles shrugs. He's done his makeup under sketchier circumstances (though not by much, if he's honest).

"I'd say have at it, if you've got one to spare." Not that he truly means it. The larger part of him doesn't want Tim to be serious. "But you can't go wasting those on shit like this, mate. Bit of eyeliner's not worth using up supplies."

Sure, finding the pencil had sent a thrill of relief through his stomach, at the chance to finally look like himself again, but there are other ways to do that. He's still got his earring on, dangling under the wool toque, and he's moved some of his beloved pins over to his heavier coat - the rave smiley face, and the Jamaican flag.

[ployboy]

"You'll go blind," Tim hears himself say for the Nth time in two minutes. Then he's swinging off his backpack and it's his ass on the floor next to (but not touching) Charles as he sits comfortably with his back against the wall. Tim thinks he feels a draft; he takes it back- this is so not comfortable.

And yet his legs will refuse to cooperate for the next minutes.

Tim's expression has slipped to his familiar frown now- he seems unaware. After all, he's just dug out a flint and steel from his bag. Don't look at him weird. They're in a camping store.

"You can reach it. Get me that magazine to your left. If you're going to get infected then you should at least look fly. We're getting that liner in working order."

[afterdrop]

Charles does look at him weird, but only a little bit. He's never actually seen flint and steel off of a television screen in his life (or his death).

"Look at you, Beaver Scout."

He easily does as the guy asks, though, reaching over to grab a magazine from the rack under the front window. On the cover, a fisherman in waders stands faded and sun-bleached with a gigantic catch in his hand. In the back of his mind, Charles absently wonders if the man is still alive somewhere, after all that's happened to this world.

"Can't say fly is quite what we're going for," he adds. "Little more punk back in my day. Bit smudge. None of those fancy tips the girls are all doing now."

[ployboy]

"Ha ha," he grouses; doesn't mention he's actually a Ninja Camp reject only because he's still sore over the rest of the Bats being utter jackasses, though it would have been humorous like it had been when he had told Du Lac and March about it. It takes Tim a handful of strikes before he gets a spark on a page of that magazine.

He knows how to survive, yeah, but it doesn't suddenly negate the rest of his life as a cozy city boy.

What had this guy said? He's from 2023?

March was right- it is freaky to confirm that time marches on (hah-).

"So, like, The Clash?" He dumbly asks, now holding out a paper cone of a... lit torch? (It feels like he just woke up and Tim blinks as he wonders what the hell he's actually doing.)

[afterdrop]

Eyes following the flicker of the flame, Charles is thinking much the same thing. He doesn't move, though; for some reason he finds himself trusting Tim.

"Oh, yeah, for sure. They broke up when I was still young, though." Twelve or so, he thinks, when he'd just barely heard of them, and mostly listened to whatever was on the corner shop's radio. It would still be a couple of years before he started sneaking out to underground shows, collecting cassettes from punks and skins who passed him plastic cups over thrumming music. "Think my first cassette was the Ramones. Maybe the Sex Pistols."

He closes his eyes and stretches out his legs, ease smoothing into his posture at getting to reminisce.

"Got more into the ska scene later, though," he adds. Between the open zipper of his coat, he taps on the Jamaican flag pin. "That a thing in America?"

[ployboy]

The Clash disbanded in 1986. Tim nods along, easy and understanding. Because there's no reason to fool himself into thinking that the timeline is something he should be shocked about.

He wants to be disappointed in having lost a-- a- a potential friendship or something, but not even Tim is sure what the appropriate label there would be. Therefore, it can't really matter. It's alright.

He gestures for this guy to pass the liner pencil, humming in thought because he barely noticed the pin. (Some detective he's turned out to be, huh.) "Sublime is the cop-out answer," he muses. Tries not to burn his fingertips. "Operation Ivy is Californian, though. Ever check them out?"

(There used to be a guy, a real metalhead. Tim had only badgered him about DnD. Live and learn, right?)

[afterdrop]

Operation Ivy was another whose heyday Charles missed, though several of his icons are named after their songs he managed to find a copy of Energy years after their quick dissolution.

"Nah, Sublime was pretty mint," he answers, passing the eyeliner over. He sits up straighter and leans forward a bit. "Actually caught one of their shows once." Years after he died, of course, sitting unnoticed on a balcony railing. The only shows he went to when he was alive were in cramped, graffitied venues his mother would've fainted at seeing.

"My favorite was the Specials, though. Band out of Coventry. Tried my bloody hardest to dress like them, but I just looked like a schoolboy headed to church." Especially when his dad trashed the brimmed hat he'd fished out of a thrift bin, saying it made him look like a fairy. Of course, his dad probably would have said that if he was wearing a construction vest and work boots. "They were big on fighting injustice, and stuff. Probably why my dad hated them so much."

[ployboy]

"No kidding?" He asks, the words out of his mouth a placeholder as he gets the pencil and juggles angles and distances and squints in the already poor light to try to not... melt the thing.

Young Justice got into plenty of shenanigans- concerts were good shenanigans, and even the early days as Titans had plenty of resting and recreating. San Francisco was only kinda famous for the scene. So in spite of being an angry and black hearted soul, Tim finds his lips twitch up in reserved amusement.

"Schoolboy headed to church is any day ending in Y for us with boarding school syndrome," he says wryly. Doesn't miss the blazers, does miss (and he despises this part of himself, this piece that shouldn't have fit in the puzzle but does) the fighting.

And the fighting he had learned he could do in a suit. And tie. In a room full of other, older people in suits and ties.

(Tim Drake was Bruce Wayne's neighbor, once upon a time. Since then, he's learned a lot about privilege.)

With an eyeliner deemed good enough (he has No Idea what he's doing) and offering it back to its (second or third) owner with a commiserating sharpness, he prods, "Your dad a cop or something?"

(It's not painting a great picture, the information he does have.)

[afterdrop]

"Nah, just a massive dick." Which is a gentle way of saying he was a complete fucking monster who terrorized his family, but Tim doesn't need to hear any of that. Right now, it's all smiles and easy conversation, Charles taking back the warm pencil with fidgeting fingers. "Not in my life anymore, at least."

Except in the quiet, aching moments Charles spends magicking his mirror, checking in on his parents' home. Making sure his mum's safe in his absence.

"Boarding school, though, yeah?" He gives a low whistle, sympathetic, and starts about cleaning off the pocket mirror to examine Tim's handy-work. "Hope yours wasn't Catholic at least. You think the place can't get any worse, and then they add bloody mass to it."

[ployboy]

Good riddance Tim thinks and doesn't say: he remembers Steph (she never leaves his thoughts) and Arthur Brown and all of those nights with heavy talks and high emotions. Still, as he readjusts and brings his backpack to his other side in belated protectiveness, Tim hopes the sentiment shows.

"You missed him," he muses somewhat lowly, because- well, Jason's been on his mind a lot lately too, though Tim attributes that to Jason. "There was a guy around our age." He stamps out the last stubborn breath of light from the now discarded magazine- "We were both new, heading into town, and he was decked out in the blazer for Saint Someone's school. I was just jealous for the blazer."

No,

"It was almost military school for me. Lucky, I know."

[afterdrop]

The blazers. Charles can just barely remember the feel of them, scratchy at his wrists, bunched beneath his arms. Pins poking at him since he couldn't afford to get his tailored like the other lads.

"Hilarion was ours. St. Hil's." He says it like it's a curse, like it tastes bad in his mouth. "Named after some old codger who starved himself to death 'cause he was embarrassed about being randy."

There isn't much he remembers from his classes, but that one was amusing enough to stick with him. The stunning result of ten years of formal education culminating in two helpful facts: the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, and Saint Hilarion killed himself because he wanted to fuck.

"Poor old Hilly would have lost his mind knowing how many blokes were sneaking their girlfriends into his school after hours for a shag."

[ployboy]

Tim snorts, but he's grateful for the returning shadows that might hide the hopeless red of his ears. He's learned a lot since getting chased out of Ari's house with a shotgun trained on him after an unfortunate misunderstanding of two high school freshman. He now knows where babby come from- not from hand holding, Steph had told him with a nudge of her elbow.

No, Tim's no prude. He's pretty sure.

But this talk has never been his-- scene. He shakes his head, still good natured and enjoying the moment but he- like, not if they're going to be talking about girls. He says, "I only did co-ed for some months before I had to transfer. Then Brentwood, all boys' school, had dogs on the grounds after hours."

Timothy Drake, chastises his last remaining brain cell, the dog was a pug.

"Nobody went in or out, but that didn't stop the fun. It was alcohol and gambling in my wing. We even had a big 3-letter agency investigation once."