from enemies of mankind to their protective spirits (closed)

[ployboy]

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?"

Comments

[ployboy]

I...

[What part of any of this could possibly make Jason believe... or maybe it's not even that Jason believed Tim would, it's just that he wants...

Tim, with open desperation, paces back to stand in front of Jason and he holds his hand out because] Sure. Yes. Why not.

[reneger]

( a good enough answer for him. jason doesn't pause any, just unsheaths the lightweight hunting knife, twists it around his fingers, and holds it with the blade pointed toward him so he can offer the hilt out to tim. )

Have at it.

cw derealisation

[ployboy]

[Not a lot to narrate when someone's only functioning outside of their body and even that third space of being is as cloudy as the water off Gotham's docks. Tim feels the solid weight of cold that signifies an object in this hellhole where everything unalive is simply cold, and he knows he closes his hand around it.

His hands are cold and Tim shakes off his free hand. Transfers the knife to that hand and shakes the cold out of that one. The one that had been holding the knife first.

He thinks he mumbles something like] Stupid. [before he lets the knife into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and he stalks towards an open room to the right of the short hallway- the washroom- with a sulking] Whatever. Give me a minute. I gotta pee.

[Never let it be said he can't communicate his needs.]

[reneger]

( good bye to his knife, which disappears into tim's hoodie without any bitching from jason. yet. there's a roll of his eyes at the stupid side commentary because why the fuck does jason care if tim needs to take a piss?

but he does wait until tim's halfway out the room before he calls out a, )

You'd better give me my damn knife back when you're done with it. It's hard enough to find anything decent around here, I'm not losing the ones I showed up with.

cw explicit SI and bitchiness

[ployboy]

[It takes zero amount of self control to not flip a middle finger to Jason as he retreats, because it doesn't even cross Tim's mind that he should. He's shutting the bathroom door with a decisive click and he wonders if it's really this easy to let him kill himself.

And then Tim thinks, well duh.

Of course it is.

He mulls over the fact that Jason will likely know that he won't: Tim's a chicken in all the ways that matter. He has the window creak open instead, and he flushes the empty toilet with the toe of his boot as he's halfway wiggled out of the window having used the toilet as a step ladder.

Outside and freezing his balls off in only a hoodie and jeans, Tim chucks the stolen knife into the snow, somewhere, because it feels about the same as flipping Jason the middle finger.

The whole ordeal takes a minute or three (or five because of Reasons) and then Tim's under the blankets in his own room (because of course he has to break into his own room), in his own bed.

Stupid fuckers, all of them.]

[reneger]

( jason doesn't stop to consider tim using the knife on himself in any potentially lethal way. because tim isn't alive for tim. he's stuck here for much the same reason jason is: there are people who he can help that others won't or can't, leaving tim stuck with the sense of eternal obligation to keep the rest of the world running smoothly. it's not that he's a coward, it's that he's too damn good at the job he gave himself.

tim flees, and jason - stays right where he's at for a few more moments, before he's rolling his eyes, shoving a hand against his thigh to pull himself up to his feet. jason grabs onto the gun, making sure the safety's on to avoid the risk of it going off when he tucks it into the back of his belt. so he can go kick the bathroom door open, note it's empty, and

jesus christ.

it's easy enough to make his way back outside. to find bitewing sniffing at the knife that tim's thrown onto the ground, rudely, because he's an ass. tim tucks himself under the blankets of his bed to hide away from the world, and jason shoves open his window, cursing under his breath at what a fatass his dog is as he lifts him up, shoves the dog through the window so he can have a grand old time chewing at the corners of tim's blankets, then turns around on his heels to fuck off.

his gun now. tim can borrow the dog because clearly he needs someone to talk to more than jason does. )