ployboy: <user name=beruna> (When the sun came up)
ᴛɪᴍᴏᴛʜʏ ᴅʀᴀᴋᴇ ǝuʎɐʍ ([personal profile] ployboy) wrote in [community profile] singillatim2024-10-14 07:41 pm

Dirge For That Ungrateful One I Lost (open)

Who: Tim Drake, "Shovel" the shovel, the dead, and you
What: Maintenance on the graveyard, with a dash of Mexican custom-- dia de los muertos, frozen hellscape, year.... two
When: Let's say October 21- 22.
Where: Milton churchyard

Content Warnings: we doing themes of depression, talk of death, and real janky grief (also very possible but not guaranteed: suicidality, culture bashing, religious themes. and religion bashing. will add to thread headers as needed
To add: the writer is very mexican and it means a lot to me to share some appreciation for the celebration with this character even though he's a punkass. Lyrics from Janitzio. Also I'm slow-slow this month.


------

The thing is, he could be getting a few more hours of sleep. With daylight escaping them, Tim figures that he'll be all caught up in paying for his sleep debt by the end of the week; after the light show of the Aurora, the dark of night is only getting darker. Even mornings are getting eaten up by shadows. It creates a conundrum.

Aurora means electricity. That means that Tim can do work that he can actually boast some competency in. It's still light out, and Tim could be sleeping because night will come soon.

But no.

Some moron had to remind him about Shovel, (the shovel) and then Tim went to dig out Shovel from his rat's nest of a bedroom and now he's here. In the churchyard.

Again.

It makes sense (to him).

It majorly sucks to commemorate a year's passing by keeping company with the dead. But it is what it is. And some part of Tim might even argue that the tending to graves is appropriate. Of course, Tim just likes to argue for argument's sake; this is, frankly, likely incredibly inappropriate.

This year, again, Tim (and Shovel), dig out headstones from the snow even though it's snowing. He's learned the graveyard now, at least, and he doesn't trip over buried memorials.

He's also now got two working arms. He's limping along the frost trying to scrape out names of the deceased who got the privilege of a name etched into stone before it gets too dark. But he's got two working arms this time, so, like.

That works.

He works in black gloves and black furs.

Second verse. Same as the first.

"Don't even," he growls. Whether it's a friendly dog-ish dare or a warning is entirely up to the poor sucker who approaches.

"Yeah, it's a little early. But to be honest, I don't think that they care."

So then why, Tim. Why. For god's sake, why.

"Feliz Día de Muertos," he grumbles and (shockingly) the Spanish is fair. "Now go grab a shovel."
sputnik: — 𝑺𝑷𝑼𝑻𝑵𝑰𝑲 (ᴀ ᴍᴏᴜᴛʜғᴜʟ ᴏғ ɪɴᴛᴇʀʟᴜᴅᴇs)

[personal profile] sputnik 2024-12-27 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
Norilsk, he knows it well, even if it's been years since he came anywhere close to the city. Isolated and industrial and not at all the place for starry-eyed young dreamers. But Russia's still home, and he tips towards the conversation with some deep-rooted warmth as he listens.

(Not that it counters how cold it really is out here, even for him — and especially for his awful little passenger, a thing that can't take such harsh temperatures.) He knows he should head back in soon. Somehow though, he'd rather talk with the kid for a little longer instead of leave. The conversation's interesting, even if he's only putting together a few pieces from what's given, little snippets here and there. (Tim's organisation? Something he inherited from his late father?)

It all also makes him miss his mother all over again, but it's not a bad feeling. She's in Moscow now. It's where he was supposed to be heading before... before this place happened. This is a good reminder of that, now. Moscow's still real, his mother is, too. (Assuming nothing bad happened to her because of him, of course. He can't think about that. Only about reaching her again, somehow, someday. Maybe she's already found Aleksei, and they're both waiting for him. Maybe there's actually a version of reality somewhere out there in which he's able to return home.)

"Your father sounds like he was one smart man."

His studies, a pharmaceutical company. Must have had some decent money, too.

"We Russians do love our hockey," he grins, quirking a brow over at Tim. "You ever play?"