singillatim | from enemies of mankind to their protective spirits (closed)

Entry tags:

from enemies of mankind to their protective spirits (closed)

Who: Tim, the Bats, potential others
What: December catch-all
When: Month of December to early January
Where: Lakeside

Content Warnings: Keep an eye on thread headers (animal death, casual suicidality, past injury to start us off:)

It's been a week since-

Well, whatever, it's best to start from the beginning.

The beginning: it's dark. Not your average everyday darkness: advanced darkness. Because of this, and because of a lame(ish) leg, the trek to Lakeside takes longer than Tim would've liked. But he had been to Lakeside before (Kieren knows) and he had swapped out locks to the Blackbear resort cabin: out with the old, in with the new seemed fitting and it was always top of the lists of things to do when searching for tips for a big move.

So: new town, same darkness, same snow, new locks.

(Tim, being Tim, had been unable to resist rigging his bear traps to launch themselves to any successful intruder- boobytrapping is illegal but who gives a fuck? This is Canada.)

It's freshly December, he thinks, when he knows he's been followed.

It would be less unnerving if he didn't have the nagging suspicion of who stalked him- Tim distinctly remembers praying for a grizzly attack when his suspicion turns to certainty. But he needs to hunt, and the bo staff with the retractable blade makes for a fine spear (and after so many month of maintenance he had been unable to find a substitute for keeping the thing ready that's as effective as keeping it in use). He returns with two rabbits, dead and tied to his pack, and Blackbear cabin has yet to procure an actual bear to maim him. Tim digs out his keys to the front door, simply because he has keys to the front door, and so: suck it.

He wonders if his brothers are aware that this is what his nightmares are made of:

Jason Todd and Damian Wayne are in this house Tim's been convinced he'll be using, and Tim knows he's outgunned. He remembers the pirate Edward's cabin, had popped in there every once in a while. But it was tiny and unsafe. And this resort cabin is now very unsafe, and tiny.

(It's not tiny.)

Tim unlatches the rabbits from his pack and decides to not acknowledge-- (oh, who is he kidding-?)

"This is the worst intervention I've ever seen."

There's not even a banner.

And Tim hates himself, because he's frowning (he's always frowning) and as he lays out the rabbit to skin and dress, he can't even grasp his one knife as he turns to the yahoos and asks, loathing the words- "Is everything okay?"

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Louis is a gentleman to a fault, and he has many faults. Curiously, he watches Tim's gears turn. Louis doubts the Boar will punish them for stalling, but then again, he's never tested this theory. Tim does that for him, in his classic Tim way.

Louis thinks about being rude, telling Tim it's none of his business where he goes tonight, but he can leave him if he so wishes. He is no longer his employer, and he doesn't like to be watched when he feeds on the next sorry half-starved deer.

But—ah, the concern. Time plays its tricks in the storm of ennui. Where has Louis been? Louis knows, mechanically, that he sleeps with Lestat, that he rouses himself just long enough to feed, but he can't say he truly knows. The nights have passed, and he still lives.

And Tim buzzes about this like a damn mosquito.

"I—Yes, I still have the store. It's still standin', isn't it?" Unlike his house, a burnt-out shell after the attack, abandoned now. "Reduced hours. Too damn cold. Winter is for sleepin'."

And he doesn't have a day shift employee anymore—not that it matters. Daytime is so short in the winter. Still, it matters. He misses dragging his hand down his face in the wake of Tim's problems, and he hasn't bothered to replace him. Deep down, he knows no one really can in any way that matters.

It's concern and it's shaky and precarious, clumsy and halting and loose. Tim can feel pain behind his eyelids and it's up in the air whether his eyes themselves are freezing or if there's tears there, only the wind dries and takes them with it. Overcompensation has never (always) been Tim's preferred distraction; his eyes narrow in tired rote action. "You could've told your friends you were going to take a sabbatical."

Can't even name drop Chloe, though Tim figures he c-- Tim, cringing against himself, stammers something that might be a scatterbrained apology if it weren't for all of the air that isn't in his lungs.

He's always a mess around Louis. Can never get ahead or ahold of himself. Tim swipes a hand to clear his face of windswept hair, what's lost its place under his hood and is now just a dingy spiderweb to free himself of before his mind takes him back to the Cradle.

Blood, Tim thinks.

He whines (or something), swallows down a voice without words because he can still remember that massacre, that blood, clear as day that's left them and he can't not think about blood with the vampire and he looks to the pig and says,

"5th edition."

Son of a bitch, maybe it doesn't have to be blood, okay?

"Dungeons and Dragons. The Essentials Kit and Starter Set bundle. It's sold as a single thing so I know you can do it. It has the 6 dice sets, the master screen- there's figures and stat sheets. Those are important and y-"

The Boar is old and patient and Tim can see it close its beady creepy eyes and ohmygod it's going to barf-

"You gotta save the pages! Laminate the-!"

That is amenable.

"Ain't like I planned on it," he shoots back at Tim, and his house was burned down, and he ate a lot of people that night. He interrupts himself to shuffle awkwardly away from the splash zone. Season's greetings. Eugh.

A book, Louis thinks. Nevermind all the extra paraphernalia. He thinks Tim is asking for a book, and honestly many men have drowned in the pages of a book to escape life's travails. Louis has. It's not a bad idea. He ought to ask for one himself, one that Rorschach hasn't already scavenged from some house for the library already.

But he doesn't. What's the point? Louis feels his sadness is too deep. But he does take an interest in Tim's... whatever it is. He stares down at the kit protected in its odd modern packaging, and the Boar (none the worse for wear) can sense Louis holds no request on his lips.

"Must be a good read if there's five editions and it ain't a textbook." Okay, grandpa.

It's predictable and childish and Tim snorts his crude amusement when it's Louis sidestepping the pig vomit, not him. The grimace during and immediately after the act of procuring the goods is inevitable as well, even as Tim shuffles as close to the book- the kit, the set, the whole shebang- as he can and then kneels into hard snow to gather it like the something precious it is. One handed. The other still holds the dying torch.

The Aurora now is dim, and dull and distant. But it helps his stinging human eyes see through the night as he takes stock. His wish is all there.

Louis doesn't say his wish.

Tim is hit by the lead, dead weight of having made the wrong choice and by the time he lifts his head the Boar is no more. There's no crunch of snow to follow for an idea of where it might've gone, there's no hooves prints to track. Tim's not sure if his heart is beating or if his chest his moving, but time sure is: his knees are aching and he might be delusional if he hears vague interest in du Lac's comment. But it's the exact type of mental gymnastics that are going to keep him from stabbing that spear of his deep into his own stomach tonight.

So Tim, waving one tacky flannel baggie of dice in an invitation for Louis to take it, says from the snow, "It's the best."

The praise may be sounding hollow but it is what it is.

"You make your own stories and you never know what's going to happen in the very chapter that you're writing. Because other people join in, and they're the characters in those stories. And before you know it half of your party is plotting world domination but the rogues can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag, and the bards are too busy agonizing about whether they should woo the scummy village fortune teller or burn down their stand. Meanwhile there's one gold coin to split amongst everyone, because said village isn't going to pay the gang of yahoos for not, you know, banishing the dragons from those dungeons as they had promised. And that's how you get murder hobos."

Edited 2025-01-07 01:27 (UTC)

Louis's head moves in tandem with Tim's to look at the air where the Boar was. There isn't even a whoosh of collapsing air like there should be when something that big moves away fast. Louis wishes there was. Alarm and despondency fight for supremacy. Tim jolts him out of this, for now.

He gingerly plucks the dice from his hand. Tim has plans for the future that involve setting up a game. He isn't just going to throw it all away. That's good. That good, and Louis finds himself wanting to stick around to see that Tim does.

"It's a... game?" he amends his theory. He knows gambling and someone grasping at it to stay afloat all the while sinking deeper—Louis spent the later part of his human years taking advantage of the sorrows of men—but Tim makes no mention of betting. He talks about writing again, and there is this thick book to help him do it, and what are rogues and bards in this context? That's Robin Hood stuff.

"So... you write stories together." Nothing new there. That's how the Shelleys came out with some of their best work. "But how do the dice come into play?"

Nevermind harakiri and the past five years of learning the necessity of preparing for the chronic emergencies that plague the Territories: Tim Drake is blinking bleary and befuddled up at the vampire who refuses to recognize himself as such. And he's explaining the die of DnD.

Tim couldn't stand up if he tried.

"So th-the game itself is a D20 system," he explains and thinks that doesn't explain anything at all. "The 20-sided die is the important one. Honestly you could do with it alone. You roll it, and that tells everyone if your character lands a hit with their attack or if they evaded a magical or environmental hazard. The d20 says if you successfully sneak past a guard. If you manage to save a priceless historical vase from being knocked over."

Tim breathes- forces the action, mechanically.

"The other dice? The rulebooks guide you on what for. Some are for moving spaces across th-the board. The 12 sided die will give you the amount of increases in your abilities when you finally level-up. The 4 is for weapons damage against enemies. Th-that sort of stuff."

To think, he could have gotten a field blood transfusion kit.

Instead Tim got evil, wriggling, magical eyeball monsters and tie-dye dice.

His stomach hurts, but so do his lungs, and so do his bones and so do his scars.

From his place on the ground, he weakly asks, "You're going to Milton soon?"

Louis stares into the bag, and yes, there is indeed a die with 20 sides. But he's still stuck on the writing part.

"...Wouldn't that spoil the story you're writin'? Havin' the plot take a turn that doesn't make sense, all from the roll of a die?"

Because the wet and cold of snow don't encourage kneeling in it for long, Louis puts out his free hand to help Tim up. His hands are almost always cold, but they're gloved properly for the weather.

"...Consequences," he answers his own question. Something nags at the edges of memory, of happier times. "Cadavre exquis. You could've just told me it was a parlor game." Louis mostly just played cards with acquaintances, an excuse to get together and schmooze. He wasn't much for parlor games otherwise.

"Milton? Do you want company? After—all that?" The Boar, the Forest Talkers, the argument. Little Bilbo or Thumper or Derpy or whatever name Tim gave that bunny that may or may not have been wild. Memory is a monster, and so is Louis.

"No man is an island," he says in rote intonation and he'd be flush any other day. But he isn't, because he's not doing anything more than explaining the game. The story.

Tim has no hand to grab onto Louis' with. He sighs as he lets the dead torch fall, and he takes the hand outstretched to him with a pained hiss as he feels old injury stretch in his leg. Dumbly and against his will, he wonders if the muscle will snap. Like a rubber band that was already nicked and then got too cold. It doesn't. His everything just hurts.

It's fine, and Tim shuffles a number of his loot to unwitting arms. If Louis will take it.

Tim's swinging his backpack around to his front, feeling

well, he doesn't have a word for what he's feeling so Tim just continues to explain DnD.

"It's not a blind collaboration. Everyone at the table sees and is affected by the actions. The Master has the plot, the twists and turns, hidden behind the screen. The story marches on but there's detours. Finding the end is the fun of it. It started with... a big... I think a big inspiration for these games were the wargames."

Ain't that a loaded word for Tim.

He stills, hand (gloved) still only on a zipper. But not pulling.

Want--?

Does Tim want--?

"I'm not going," he says, aware of the way he doesn't imagine a plea that's not in his company's voice. Tim's too tired to feel guilty for wishing there was one. "But I do need this to get t-to the Community Center."

A cliche? C'mon, Tim. Louis keeps a firm grip until he's sure Tim won't buckle under whatever is ailing him. Louis would rather walk with Tim just to make sure a wolf doesn't get him. The wolves here are like vampires: They prey on the weak.

"It sounds complicated. If I wanted to do somethin' complicated, I'd get my business ledger." Or Lestat.

He looks up from curiously examining the items foisted on him to stare in his unblinking way at Tim. Too-bright green eyes in the dark. His voice softens by a hair.

"Avoidin' the Center like Chloe? Why?"

Tim feels his lips begin to part, the words on the tip of his tongue. Witty and lazy, he would contest the idea of ledgers being complicated; he would give grief to the old guard of big business. But that ship sailed. Tim hums.

His brows pitch together in the dark.

Again, he's been misunderstood. Tim's gaze flies from the top of his backpack to Louis' hands, to Louis himself. He says, "Oh."

Why would Chloe be avoiding the Center?

"No, I'm not avoiding the Center. I'm just not going to Milton f-for a bit."

Like his campground pass is going to expire this weekend, and Tim will just be on his merry way after that. Like a bit is a promised thing, an entitlement, and not a frame of time granted by sheer chance alone. Knowing du Lac will have questions, whether he voices them or not, Tim drones on. "I'm looking for that Bear. If it gets me first then I don't want these things to j-just be left behind. If it doesn't then I'll set up-p the game later. Or maybe Ruby could do it. It's not that complicated. And someone... already wanted to get a campaign going last year. So I know there's takers."

It isn't much of a secret that someone never seen at the oft-frequented Community Hall is avoiding the place. As for the reasons, his former neighbor can give any she likes.

Louis avoids other things. The ledger of one general store is nothing; Louis owned several businesses, his little empire, in New Orleans. But Louis likes to use work as an excuse to avoid things and emotions he'd rather not face. He says it's busy or hard when in truth he is more than capable of carving out some time. Old habits die hard, and this is a very old habit.

He lets a sigh out through his nose. Time to put his foot down.

"You ain't lookin' for shit in your condition."

Fine: if he goes down then down goes the DnD with him. And when an intrepid explorer discovers his body and rummages through what matters, his backpack, they'll have no one but Louis de Pointe du Lac to blame for why it will take so long for decent entertainment to find its way to Milton's great and bustling Community Center. Tim doesn't huff but he wonders if it's too dark to see how his eyes roll; he packs the player manuals into the slot where laptops go.

And once that's snug and safe from the papers getting jostled around, Tim extends a hand to retrieve the dice from good ol' Lou.

"Correct," he says. He leans over, grits his teeth because even this small shift in posture wants to knock the hood back from his head. Tim's ears hurt already. He retrieves the dead torch from where he'd let it fall. --it'll be a pain to light again. Smart move.

"I am not... looking for crap; I'm using the tracks. Paw prints."

There's only one bird tied to his pack. Tim points at it. He's ultimately not sure why. "I've already been out here for days."

Two days.

Shut up, that's a lot.

And, as if it isn't obvious: "Still alive."

He groans as he hands over the goods. He hates when Tim dissects his words. Lawyers and teenagers have a lot in common. He doesn't want Tim looking for anything, DnD or no DnD.

"Your food's gon' attract creatures. You ain't gon' be alive for long. A hunter can sense weakness. I should know."

On his first hunt, Lestat directed Louis away from the powerfully muscular sailor and his friends and turned him towards a lonely pathetic tractor salesman at the end of the bar. Racing against the sun even up here, Louis has to select the prey that will give him the most blood for the least trouble. First it was rabbits, then it was deer. And, when the offer was made or the bloodlust was high, human.

It's the loneliness that irks him and that gets to him the most. It always has been. It's where all of the senseless yapping and all of the eruptions of hoarded anger come from.

Tim could yell at Mr. L again. But he wouldn't get it.

So quietly, Tim hears himself explain, "If you are a great hunter, then you know there's few things as appealing as fresh meat. Live bait will get me what I'm after. Everything else is for plausible deniability."

He holds up a hand. Feels woozy as he stands and, explains- "I don't want to die like this. But we do need to know what... what we're fighting. Wi-with the bear. No one else has had any luck. I'm not going to do nothing unt-until it comes to town and kills everyone. I'm tired of that."

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from enemies of mankind to their protective spirits (closed)

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Cw blood and deaths mention and also pig emeto incoming

Re: Cw blood and deaths mention and also pig emeto incoming

cw general blanket SI, thoughts of self harm

Re: cw general blanket SI, thoughts of self harm

Re: cw general blanket SI, thoughts of self harm

cw: pet(?) murder

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