✟ 𝟹𝚁𝙳 𝙻𝚃. 𝙹𝙾𝙷𝙽 𝙸𝚁𝚅𝙸𝙽𝙶 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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singillatim2025-01-16 10:10 pm
extramuralise) wrote in singillatim2025-01-16 10:10 pm
» THIS IS THE STORY OF YOUR RED RIGHT ANKLE; AND HOW IT CAME TO MEET YOUR LEG.
Who: Edward Little, John Irving, Kate Marsh, Wynonna Earp, + open to other CR drop-ins in need of temporary shelter!
What: STORMED IN (Winterstille).
When: January 24th - 28th, and/or potentially just before / after
Where: The 41 Mackenzie Street cottage
Content Warnings: 'Does one not bring his habits [aboard]?' — which is to say, all of these characters have their own canon and in-game baggage, shared or otherwise, so please label all threads accordingly!
What: STORMED IN (Winterstille).
When: January 24th - 28th, and/or potentially just before / after
Where: The 41 Mackenzie Street cottage
Content Warnings: 'Does one not bring his habits [aboard]?' — which is to say, all of these characters have their own canon and in-game baggage, shared or otherwise, so please label all threads accordingly!
✒︎ how it whispered ❝ Oh, adhere to me⨾ ❞
The bear-beast alone would have been bad enough (and no question, knowing it was out there somewhere made actually preparing for this storm a beast in itself), but at least the looming presence of such a monstrous creature was sure to drive people indoors before the weather really turned.
As it happens, the cabin on 41 Mackenzie Street (home to Lieutenants Little and Irving, and Kate Marsh) is well-kitted out to weather (ha ha) the coming — now imminent — storm that's been circling, or at least as insulated as possible without knowing precisely how bad the storm will be yet. The windows and doors have been protected, reinforced; candles, matchbooks, and oil lanterns abound throughout various parts of the house; there's plenty of firewood, and food to last about a week if needed (which is not to say plenty of food, but hopefully enough to get them by).
So if you're passing by and need some shelter, come in and warm up by the fire! Have some tea, stay for supper! And hopefully you can be on your way again before the snow really begins to come down, or else you may be stuck here for the foreseeable.
» ARRIVALS; GETTING WARM; SETTLING IN FOR THE STORM.
The bear-beast alone would have been bad enough (and no question, knowing it was out there somewhere made actually preparing for this storm a beast in itself), but at least the looming presence of such a monstrous creature was sure to drive people indoors before the weather really turned. As it happens, the cabin on 41 Mackenzie Street (home to Lieutenants Little and Irving, and Kate Marsh) is well-kitted out to weather (ha ha) the coming — now imminent — storm that's been circling, or at least as insulated as possible without knowing precisely how bad the storm will be yet. The windows and doors have been protected, reinforced; candles, matchbooks, and oil lanterns abound throughout various parts of the house; there's plenty of firewood, and food to last about a week if needed (which is not to say plenty of food, but hopefully enough to get them by).
So if you're passing by and need some shelter, come in and warm up by the fire! Have some tea, stay for supper! And hopefully you can be on your way again before the snow really begins to come down, or else you may be stuck here for the foreseeable.
✑ For we are bound by symmetry⨾
If you have been trapped here, never fear! There are still ways to keep occupied, especially for those would appreciate a distraction from the concerning colored strings that have mysteriously appeared on everyone's fingers (because seriously, what's that all about? Well, if you know, you know, or maybe you at least have developed a suspicion or two...), because don't you know? Victorians simply adore parlour games, and surely there are even a few old board games lying around that had been left behind back whenever the great Milton exodus occurred.
So, if you're feeling bored and not yet quite up to socializing about the weather (or, again, especially not those threads which seem to be connecting everyone to each other), take your pick! Gotta pass the time somehow, after all.
Blind Man's Bluff—
Charades—
Forfeits—
Yes and No/Twenty Questions—
... Not to mention other (more modern!) classics such as Truth or Dare, Never Have I Ever, and Two Truths and A Lie (if you can convince your hosts, that is!), or card games, or the much beloved campfire tradition of scary storytelling!
( OOC | Feel free to include in your prompt games that are NOT mentioned here; these are just a few examples, but anything is on the table! If it's a board game, you're welcome to assume your character can find it lying around in a closet or on a shelf somewhere. )
» FUN AND GAMES?!
If you have been trapped here, never fear! There are still ways to keep occupied, especially for those would appreciate a distraction from the concerning colored strings that have mysteriously appeared on everyone's fingers (because seriously, what's that all about? Well, if you know, you know, or maybe you at least have developed a suspicion or two...), because don't you know? Victorians simply adore parlour games, and surely there are even a few old board games lying around that had been left behind back whenever the great Milton exodus occurred. So, if you're feeling bored and not yet quite up to socializing about the weather (or, again, especially not those threads which seem to be connecting everyone to each other), take your pick! Gotta pass the time somehow, after all.
- Blind man's buff is played in a spacious area, such as outdoors or in a large room, in which one player, designated as "It", is blindfolded and feels around attempting to touch the other players without being able to see them, while the other players scatter and try to avoid the person who is "it", hiding in plain sight and sometimes teasing them to influence them to change direction.
Charades—
- The basic object of the game is for a player or team of players to act out clues that will allow another player or team to guess a secret word. Most people today are familiar with the basic concept of the game, but there are different ways to play it. During the 1800s, Charades was played very differently from the modern form of the game. Mohr describes this older form of the game as "complex theatricals" and cites Cassell's Book of Sports and Pastimes (1881), which describes players staging a short play with two scenes in which the actors gave their audience clues to the word they were supposed to guess. This is different from the modern form of the game in which a single player mimes words for the other players to guess instead of speaking out loud and uses certain common gestures to help the other players understand the clues, like holding up their fingers to indicate the number of words in a phrase they want the audience to guess or tugging on their ear to let the players know that the answer is something that "sounds like" what they are about to mime. The only props used for the game are some basic household items that might be lying around, such as items of clothing or furniture. From there, it's just a matter of being clever and creative and acting things out. ( Read more about Modern Charades vs Victorian Charades! )
Forfeits—
- One person (called "the judge") is chosen to leave the room. All the other players must place a small personal item into a box. This might be an article of jewellery, or an item from the pocket or handbag, or a small item of clothing such as a tie or shoelace. The "judge" is brought back in to the room. They pick up an item and describe it. The owner must identify themselves and pay a forfeit — do something amusing/embarrassing — to win back the item. The judge chooses which forfeit to award the player. If the player fails, or refuses the forfeit, then the judge keeps the item.
( Suggestions for forfeits: sing a song; dance; stand on your head; tell a story; bark like a dog, do jumping jacks, imitate the person on your left, hold your breath for as long as you can; hug the person sitting opposite you; tell everybody something embarrassing that happened to you; walk around the circle backwards; etc! Many and more ideas can also be found here! )
Yes and No/Twenty Questions—
- One person picks a person, place, or thing, and commits it to memory (Mount Rushmore, the ocean, an item in the room). They do not tell what this item is but they say, for example, "I'm thinking of something large." The guests are then allowed to ask yes or no questions. "Is it a building?" "No" "Is it an animal" "No." "Is it a monument?" "Yes." "Is it in Europe?" "No" and so on until one person guesses the item correctly. If the person guesses incorrectly the game still ends and the wrong person must chose a new "something." Players should never guess until they are completely sure they know the answer.
... Not to mention other (more modern!) classics such as Truth or Dare, Never Have I Ever, and Two Truths and A Lie (if you can convince your hosts, that is!), or card games, or the much beloved campfire tradition of scary storytelling!
( OOC | Feel free to include in your prompt games that are NOT mentioned here; these are just a few examples, but anything is on the table! If it's a board game, you're welcome to assume your character can find it lying around in a closet or on a shelf somewhere. )
✒︎ And whatever differences our lives have been⨾
However long it's been by now, know that there is an ample enough store of tea, biscuits, and sandwich fixings to help keep a person from going too stir-crazy... not to mention a reasonably well-equipped bookshelf, and whatever other elements of personal entertainment the hosts may own, or that a guest may have brought along. Music, radio, handheld TV? Let's not succumb to cabin fever yet here, people!
Or maybe it's finally time to take someone aside and speculate amongst yourselves (or God forbid, even gossip) about the bear-monster, or even the strings... likely you've noticed some very telling colors and/or connections by now between others that you'd like to discuss in private, if not yet necessarily — or maybe exactly that! — with one of the concerned parties yet themselves.
» TEA & FOOD; SHARING CONFIDENCES; OTHERWISE PASSING THE TIME.
However long it's been by now, know that there is an ample enough store of tea, biscuits, and sandwich fixings to help keep a person from going too stir-crazy... not to mention a reasonably well-equipped bookshelf, and whatever other elements of personal entertainment the hosts may own, or that a guest may have brought along. Music, radio, handheld TV? Let's not succumb to cabin fever yet here, people! Or maybe it's finally time to take someone aside and speculate amongst yourselves (or God forbid, even gossip) about the bear-monster, or even the strings... likely you've noticed some very telling colors and/or connections by now between others that you'd like to discuss in private, if not yet necessarily — or maybe exactly that! — with one of the concerned parties yet themselves.
✑ We together make a limb⨾
Some people may end up having to shelter overnight, or possibly even more than one night, so make sure you know what your sleeping arrangements will be if it comes down to that. Not a problem, if so; these things happen, and there's a comfortable sofa, plenty of blankets, and (maybe?) even a spare room for guests to avail themselves to.
But let's also circle back a moment, because maybe this will also demand confronting your string situation head on in some way; if you're sharing a room with someone you're connected to, for instance, that's a hard thing to miss, let alone ignore. Maybe it's time to talk about it, or talk about something else that you hope can eventually lead into talking about your threads in a more casual, natural way— if such a thing is even possible.
It could also be that you're struggling to sleep, and find yourself "alone together" with someone else who is experiencing the same problem... offering, again, the ideal moment to confront the connection privately, or else talk around it until you finally build up the courage to address it, talk about it by not talking about it, exactly, or simply avoid the subject at all costs. Ultimately, in the end, that part is up to you... but remember the storm, remember that privacy is hard to come by in such a claustrophobic situation; maybe it's not the worst idea to take advantage of it while you have it.
» WINDING DOWN; CONFRONTING THE UNSPOKEN... (OR NOT).
Some people may end up having to shelter overnight, or possibly even more than one night, so make sure you know what your sleeping arrangements will be if it comes down to that. Not a problem, if so; these things happen, and there's a comfortable sofa, plenty of blankets, and (maybe?) even a spare room for guests to avail themselves to. But let's also circle back a moment, because maybe this will also demand confronting your string situation head on in some way; if you're sharing a room with someone you're connected to, for instance, that's a hard thing to miss, let alone ignore. Maybe it's time to talk about it, or talk about something else that you hope can eventually lead into talking about your threads in a more casual, natural way— if such a thing is even possible.
It could also be that you're struggling to sleep, and find yourself "alone together" with someone else who is experiencing the same problem... offering, again, the ideal moment to confront the connection privately, or else talk around it until you finally build up the courage to address it, talk about it by not talking about it, exactly, or simply avoid the subject at all costs. Ultimately, in the end, that part is up to you... but remember the storm, remember that privacy is hard to come by in such a claustrophobic situation; maybe it's not the worst idea to take advantage of it while you have it.
no subject
And it's an unfortunate truth that well, yeah, Meth Man is to be believed. At least in the matter of weather. Always.
So:
Tim's got a thing to do before he gets his stupid ass locked outside the Center, aching bones or not. The eye of the storm won't hold forever, and all Tim needs to do find out whether his feeling matches the truth.
Kate's fine. She's fine. She's freaked, she's stressed. She's fine.
He doesn't even need a red string (a burgundy now) to trace her. Tim's made his way to her cabin (shared with-- roommates who-- but whatever) too many times, all undetected, to think twice about what he's doing until he's picking open the window in Kate Marsh's bedroom. Again. No wolfdog this time.
And Tim wonders why he doesn't act to track down the other people who haven't been accounted for in the Center, the ones who don't pulse warm emotion through their ties to him, the ones who don't have a veritable army (sorry, navy) wrapped around their little finger.
Tim's panting when he finishes slinking inside: his bones hurt, his lungs hurt, his head... and there's... not a vibrant-color on the string, the singular string, that's now pulled taut between him and...
So, really, it doesn't matter what fangs Wynonna's brandishing at him: Tim feels gunsmoke and the vertigo of teetering on an edge, the whisper of wind that he's felt in Smallville of all places-- something grand and important and noble that can turn to destruction--
but won't.
So Tim, shutting the window behind him, with all the ease of someone who knows how to jiggle the window so it doesn't creak or catch before it locks, says-
"I just want to know if she's okay."
-but what exactly makes him think she'd tell him if she wasn't? so Tim ducks his head just enough to suck in a warm(ish) breath from the fabric of his coat, from where he's lifted the crook of his arm to his mouth and nose.
Damn.
Damn, damn,
of all the fucking times to not throw a goddamn pebble, but if Kate can't get to the-- and why isn't she in-- this isn't Wynonna's space to--
(ah, blessed hypocrisy)
"And I'm going to see her whether you want me to or not."
It's not even said hot or said cold or-- god damn it, it just is.
no subject
Her own little walkabout had calmed some of the flight instinct that's been rising steadily throughout the last few days, but only in the sense of having smoothed the surface. She still doesn't know if she really should be here. She still knows that she doesn't want to be any further than a few rooms away from Little. She's still working through all the shit that's broken through her damaged and cracked emotional dam.
And she doesn't have the goddamn energy to deal with Tim's assumptions and defensiveness today. As if she hadn't been the one to reach out to him, back in Lakeside.
She doesn't have Peacemaker aimed at him, but that's more a function of having felt an exasperated sense of familiarity with the feel of this thread, once she'd breathed through the electric shock of touching it. "You know there's a door downstairs, right?"
She gives him a flat, utterly disinterested look. "What is this? You think just because I'm in the same house as her I'm gonna start acting like a parent from the 1950s? Why should I give a shit one way or the other? See her, don't see her, I don't care. But you better hope Little and Irving don't find out you've been climbing through her window."
Wynonna eyes him. "How many times does this make, huh? Because I seriously doubt this is your first attempt."
no subject
Tim narrows his eyes and glances to the door, to the space between it and floorboards where light can filter through or where shadows will announce a presence of someone no matter how quiet they are.
Why should she give a shit or why- and how the hell should he know what to expect from her? One time she pulls a knife and the next she has her fun with making him think Kate was ready for--
What's a door is pushed aside for the sudden and racing panic that he's now gotten Kate in trouble with the 1950s den mother.
(No, Tim realizes with a frown, not a mother. Because when he had barged in on Wynonna's turf, when everyone was being eaten at by their shadows, he can remember seeing a photograph of young girls on the mantelpiece and...)
"I don't know," he answers, and he doesn't care about what the men in this cabin would say or do about it, not if it doesn't startle the girl. But like hell if he remembers how many times he's done the routine of welcoming himself into this room. "I used to crash here. I'm not anymore. Don't worry, I'd stay on the dog bed."
God forbid someone react to him expressing worry with any half-assed attempt at reassurance. No. Life has dictated he has to prove his worth.
Or:
He could ask again, and it wouldn't be the first time he tries Wynonna's nerves when they're already so frayed (how does he know that-?)
"Have you seen her?" Tim asks, playing dumb or playing it safe, he doesn't know. "Is she okay?"
no subject
She gets it, okay. Thinking of everyone as the enemy. Believing they all believe the worst of you. It's been her whole goddamn life since even before Willa— since before Daddy—
But that comes way too close to the faded gold thread she can't bear to touch, and her throat bobs as she swallows. "And I pulled a knife on you because you broke into my house, dumbass."
During those shadow-tinged days when it seemed like there wasn't anything left of her but grief and guilt, when Willa haunted her in the shape of Wynonna's own shadow, cold fingers gentle on her shoulder, on the back of her neck. "Stop breaking into people's houses. Or at least don't be surprised when they want to kick your ass afterward."
Everything has been such a swirl of misery and confusion and awkwardness, she responds without wondering whether or not she'd actually heard the things she's responding to aloud. It's not like Tim ever fucking shuts up, so how could she even tell the difference? "I've been here with her the whole time, since the storm started, so yeah, I've seen her. She's fine."
There, a little reassurance for that worry that had so clearly been at the top of his mind (no it hadn't, except for being yet another thing for Tim to be aggrieved about).
no subject
Tim hadn't been expecting the mind reading.
Despite Wynonna's nagging, it is his fault.
Despite the glaring red flags, Tim's never backed down from waving the things at the bulls.
"Her name's Willa?"
Her sister, obviously.
Trained for this, Tim can save himself from the nauseating lurch in his stomach where his sentimentality to any daddy should be by shoving forward the fact that
(the alleged fact that)
Kate is fine, just like he knew she would be fine, could feel she was fine,
and the fact that he can play a complete mp3 loop for elevator music in his noggin by sheer force of will.
Because if she's in his head... his hair's standing on end... his shoulders hurt, it's such a tight line... he's supposed to relax when it all comes back to...?
(It's the threads, isn't it. The ties, the leads.)
(And he doesn't think she knew about the consequences of the charcoal-black that unites them. Tim wants to shudder at the word 'unite', too. But Tim has to know, he can't help it, he can't help it that his skin begins to feel all wrong if he doesn't know-)
He asks, "The mind reading's new."
Which is a question. Shut up.
Shut up and listen to smooth... jazz.
no subject
She doesn't have a knife on her now, more's the pity.
Her mouth opens as she jerks forward a step, ready to spit you don't say that name, don't ever say that name except how the hell could Tim even know it? Only a bare handful of people here have ever heard the name Willa. Little, March, Kate... and Kate wouldn't. She doesn't think Kate would ever tell him... any of what Wynonna's told her about Willa, Willa is sacred. Kate understands sacred.
Except then he's saying something about mind-reading and her own mind is suddenly awash in truly mediocre elevator muzak. "What in the Kenny G hell...?"
It's not really enough, the music, to muffle all the thoughts that go on under it, and she glances at her fingers as he thinks, cringing, about being united, then shakes her hand rapidly, like she's trying to get a bug off. "Oh, ew. No. If I wanted to sign up for hearing teen boy thoughts, I would've stayed in high school. Gross."
no subject
His back is close but not touching wall, not ever touching wall: he remembers chains when he's around Wynonna.
And he should have expected the mind reading and Wynonna hadn't clarified a dang thing for him other than their apparently shared aversion to high school. And on the subject of clarification, he's still only got her word- and, he's learned, on matters beyond him her word is good. He still can't help the neuroticism that demands real, concrete proof (and maybe he can blame Steph for that too, except he can't because it's all Bruce's-)
Tim winces.
Ear ache.
The clock still ticking down to Milton's newest Doomsday.
The inescapable discomfort of being what you always swore to never become, faced with the greater-than-life immovable object standing in front of him. Or so her thread says. Tim says, "Well I'm staying here until I see Kate."
What does he think she is, some Bond villain? Tim can't sit until Wynonna does. Like everything else, it's just a thing.
"You didn't know about the... the influences, of these strings?"
He's sorry, damn, but he just needs some certainty in his life, occasionally sprinkled in. As a treat. He offers, lame and weary, "I have a lot of Green Day memorized. You can just pick an album, any album, and-"
(It's supposed to be an innocent, if stupid, gesture: Tim cocks his head to one side and lifts a finger to flip on a switch. Like some switch on an old-time radio. It's not his fault if it looks like something else he's recently taken to miming. He never thought it.)
no subject
She glares up at him and lets her hands fall with a smack to her thighs. "How do I unsubscribe from the Tim Drake livestream?"
It's not even his thoughts that have her worried; it's hers. He's already broken into her house, and now he can break into her head, go rifling through everything tucked away there that's too sore and tender to be prodded at. And it's not like she's had such a great time in her own head lately, with the threads and March and Little — and, okay, that last one turned out to not be so bad, and it might even be good if she can find some way to not go all Wynonna and fuck it up like she always does.
God, she wishes Waverly were here.
She reaches up to rub a hand over her forehead. The Tim-shaped headache that's spiking in her temples is a familiar one. "What exactly makes you think I'm gonna stand in your way? See Kate. Go for it. Stick around until she comes back up. I was the one who told you to talk to her to begin with."
no subject
But it's not.
He needs to yap on, do anything he can to flood the radio waves with white noise or risk his world on fire so maybe it's good that he couldn't sit his ass down if he tried; Wynonna's so sick of him that it hurts but that's just him being this horrifically sensitive jackass who hasn't gotten those regularly-scheduled knocks to his thick skull that apparently have kept him functioning for the last [REDACTED] years. Can he do that? Can he just [FOGHORN] until
he's already spoken to Kate, he's just here to see if she's okay; he paces and can't dare to touch anything.
He wouldn't anyway but the hell would Wynonna believe that--
"Adele."
--Timothy Drake what the fu
"There's a CD-player around here somewhere. If you crank up the volume then you won't have to listen to my rendition of Rolling In The Deep."
Wynonna... hadn't known about this mindmeld schtick. Tim looks at her, for once- and god, he's sorry but it's not his fault. He can't leave.
no subject
And it's a tape player, not CD, which she knows because she's found a series of cassette tapes for Kate expressly to put on the damn thing: the first because she wanted something to remind her of the Mountie and the other two because no matter how cliché it might be it sucks when it turns out your crush has a girlfriend. "How do we turn this Vulcan shit off?"
Yes, she's seen an episode or two of Star Trek. That's not important. The important thing is that, as far as she can tell, there isn't a way to stop any of the threads from doing their thread thing. She can still feel the emotions coming along the lines of gold that web to her fingertips, and if she focuses on that glowing scarlet string it'll feel almost like Little's standing right there at her side.
(It had been flickering and nervous when it first showed up, but now it's steady and strong and it only blinks when she thinks about it, like she's doing right now.)
She never even thought it was his fault, fuck. It's not like she doesn't know what it's like to be blamed for every goddamn thing that goes wrong.
no subject
And really, that's it. That's the thing that stops his manic, rhythmic to-and-fro, the silent-as-he-can-make-it stalking from the frame of the window to the little study desk (and the dog bed at the foot of the desk). Tim swallows down the amusement- marred and muddied by aggravation, it is amusement, because he could blast Big Bottom...
...but damn it, it just wouldn't fit.
It wouldn't fit in with the lack of cold draft, with the creep of overheating now that Tim's spent time inside and as he refuses to shed layers, with the ease of a cabin inhabited by others who (get this:) don't worry about getting their throats slit in their sleep. There's indistinct chatter downstairs, and Tim can smell something cooking. And he doesn't think Vulcan shit would be appreciated by the home, either. Less because someone would have to explain the allure of The Final Frontier to (potentially) too-eager Sea Men, and more because crap would be as equally frowned upon as The S Word that Wynonna just muttered and.
Oh my god.
Tim's been still for way too long, and he's at risk of dissecting-- no.
If he keeps fidgeting then he keeps flooding Kate with all of these unwavering and unwanted things that are him now, and the least that Tim can do is...
"Can you get me a plastic bag?"
--the snowmelt.
He can clean it up, but his boots and his--
he's like, trying to surrender to his neuroses responsibly.
(And Wynonna doesn't know how to cut off the silk of the spiderwebs either. So distance- for a second, just one second- would be great. Or else he'll be doomed to this ache between his eyes and ears for weeks. )
no subject
If they do, she's never seen them, probably because neither Little nor Irving would have any idea what they are. "I can get you a towel."
Which will mean leaving him alone in this room for a minute, and turning her back on him, but Tim hasn't tried to attack her in a while, so maybe they'll all manage to make it out of this with minimal bloodshed and wet all over Kate's bedroom floor. "And me swearing doesn't do anything except give Irving something to look judgmental about. Say 'fuck' around him, go ahead. It's fun."
Potentially Irving would be more likely to scold Tim than her — she is still a lady, by his reckoning, even if he never seems totally convinced by that label for her — but one thing Tim's never had a problem doing is mouthing off to people. He'll be fine.
She shakes her head and turns to the door, deliberately giving him a decently long amount of time to go for her back, if that's what he wants. She doesn't think so, but you never really know. "Give me a second."
no subject
He's never attacked her, he's never attacked anyone (not matter how much he's wanted to and fuck it maybe he should (he won't)).
(Maybe he could have done the stick retrieval arc better. But he'd needed it back. There were shadows and images of who they all could be haunting the corners of their vision. And if he's going to harpoon anyone...)
"No?" Tim squeaks.
The only person he's spat curses at has been du Lac. Jason. March. --fu
--fudge, maybe he oughta rein it in.
He sits, wet and pitiful. And he reminds her, "Don't tell anyone."
Not that she would rat him out, for Kate's sake. But you never really know.
no subject
Her voice is sugar-sweet as she bats her eyelashes at him, annoyed. "Don't tell me what to do."
Has Tim ever actually managed to be in control of a situation he so desperately wants to control? She remembers him standing up at the Community Hall, lecturing, and has to wonder if that's ever actually worked for him. "You should know by now I'm the contrary-just-for-kicks type."
Will she tell? Not likely. Fortunately for Tim, a teenage boy sneaking through a girl's window is pretty wholesome as far as teen boy activities go, at least based on what she remembers from her own years as a teenage delinquent. And she can rest easy that Kate's not about to stand for anything stupid from him, and she's pretty sure he knows getting thrown into a snowbank would be the least of his worries if he ever really fucked up and hurt Kate.
So she closes the door behind herself and heads off down the hall to the linen closet to grab a towel: clean but with that scratchy feel that comes from line drying them inside. Christ, she misses modern appliances. Next Aurora, she's gonna see if she can get a dryer to work.
She even pauses outside the door when she gets back and raps lightly with her knuckles. "It's just me. Plus towel."
no subject
When the door closes behind her, Tim exhales: again, she's too much like Kon in that invisible moment, thinking being loud is supposed to mean more than just noise. But with the gift of privacy (and what a gift- ten outta ten- the gunslinger missed her true calling as Curator and Concierge) he has to wonder... and it's not that he means to, it just colors his thoughts in the same natural way that he casts a shadow on the wall as he sheds his jacket and boots and gloves to contain everything that drips into one bundle: does Wynonna know about what Kate keeps under her bed...?
Tim can stay still and silent (he likes being calm, likes the quiet). Weirdly, his thoughts go all dull too.
Weirdly, Tim thinks he's too good at shutting down because his heart's in his throat when someone knocks on the door- he hadn't seen the shadow approach- hadn't heard the footsteps- he thinks it's one of the guys because who else-
Oh my god Wynonna, what the f...lip is he supposed to do? Chirp up, come on in?
There's a paperclip on the floor and Tim chucks that at the door in response. In a massive show of... trust, Tim is where she left him. Blinking back the heaviness of sleep and very much not... hiding. Behind the bed. In the closet. Just outside the window. Just between the window and the window curtain.
She has a towel and Tim, relieved, mumbles, "Oh, cool. Thanks."
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Well, it could be worse. And maybe Kate's read Twilight and thinks weirdly possessive teenage boys who climb in through bedroom windows are romantic, who knows.
She comes close enough to toss him the towel, then sets her hands on her hips. "Do me a favor and don't go sniffing around for her diary, or whatever, while you're in here. And just so you know, I've been sleeping in here with her, so if you were planning on staying the night things might get a little crowded."
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that's funny. They could'a just talked to each other.
In comparison to the bone-chilling bitter cold of the storm, this is a safe harbor. Tim keeps the towel over his head, over his shoulder.
And Wynonna is... being Wynonna, and any amusement is gone. And he's not sure if she brings up the diary because of what he had wondered before- it's uncomfortable. But he's not sorry. "That's not something that you ask as a favor," he drawls.
He wouldn't root around and trespass that human need.
And he hopes nobody else would either.
A lurch in his stomach makes Tim looks ruefully to the window. He's not possessive, he wants to argue but can't. He'd been worried. But-
"I throw pebbles," he settles on, to scatter the restlessness and make it feel less like it's coming right from Wynonna's judgement and more like it's an inevitable part of him being, like, alive. He even extends a hand from his- blankie, and he mimes a toss. He's always a little too desperate to be a fool. "I couldn't find any today, so I..."
You know. On account of the. whiteout.
(Note to self, start carrying pebbles.)
Tim sobers.
"I didn't know where to go after- I got booted from the Farm. Kate said I could stay for the night. It wasn't supposed to be..."
(it wasn't supposed to be: a saga in 3 parts.)
"Like, a regular thing. I don't know." And now here he is, looking forward to it again, now that he can. And now here Kate is, looking forward to-- maybe. Tim loathes it, feeling so stupid so often.
"Don't worry, I'm going to Lakeside when I can, anyway."
But maybe he hates it less than the idea of being invisible.
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Not unless he gives her a reason to care or to make it her business. So far the worst thing he's done is sit here and leak sadly onto the hardwood floor. "My only point is that if you planned on being here tonight, you should know that I'll be here, too."
With her hands on her hips like this, maybe she's unconsciously imitating March. She's picked up plenty of his mannerisms after all this time. "If you need to stay over, just go downstairs or go back out and knock on the door. Little would literally give you his bed and sleep on the couch himself. I guarantee it."
how tf are they so bad at missing The Point (i say knowing damn well why, smh)
He knows there's a front door.
He's not drip-- but with a little noise, Tim admits he is indeed sadly dripping, which is hugely uncomfortable phrasing, just F.Y.I., and he parts with the towel to set it under his gloves and coat and boots as he'd said he would. So at least that's the hardwood floor protected from his dumbassery. Give a cheer. Alert the goddamn press.
Like the spark of light at the notion of a gesture even vaguely approaching the likes of the offensively garish PI, the actual mention of Little- how familiarly the name just rolls off her tongue- shuts him down.
There are several black strings on Tim. The Lieutenant's screams: no.
It's vast and cold and rolls like a wave about to crest.
And Tim's not interested in seeing through anybody else's perfect storm, isn't interested in watching what that tsunami will ruin, destroy. (There's one person he's trying to get to higher ground.)
Stupid fucking spiderwebs. Because of them, Tim's almost certain, can guarantee it: Wynonna can't not feel... the depths of that ocean, the disquiet and dread.
"Fine," he challenges back.
"I will."
Boldly go where no man has gone before: the Front Door. Just to get her off his back.
(He'll return with a re-frozen coat, and a yellow blister of frostnip.)
"But I told you I'm looking for Kate. That's it. Because I don't know about you-" and it's somehow going to end up being his fault, what he brings up next, but there's nothing else for Tim to do but say it. "My threads don't exactly come with built-in GPS. So it's like. with the... it's like with the damn Demon Spawn. I only feel there's people on the other end. I don't know where they are."
The exhaustion of yapping without making any progress is worse than literally marching in circles.
He won't stay here. He'll go to Lakeside.
Wynonna should understand the silent screaming going on at the thought of having lost the freaking baby brother, but-- Tim's neither supposed to know or assume about those things. He looks to the window again, too eager to bolt. But the wind is howling viciously.
He'll get the chance to get the hell out of here soon.
(Always an optimist.)
"I can't just tune in to someone's frequency and suddenly know everything."
So he worries.
About everything.
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She lifts her hand and waves it back and forth, and the charcoal string between them moves with the same motion. "A visible line you can just follow."
And, whatever, she doesn't know why a simple mention of the least offensive Victorian here would make him shutter like that, but he'd pick it up from her thoughts anyway, so she adds: "That's how Little found me."
And if Little can manage it, following the string all the way from here to the open woods of Lakeside, finding her like the proverbial needle in a haystack, she's pretty sure Tim can, too, unless whatever string he's got with Kate is a lot harder to see.
But then her head cocks to the side, like she's just heard something interesting (she has). "Your little brother was here?"
Because he's correct in his assumption: that does mean something to her, someone with a baby sister of her own. Waverly's not here, thank God, but she gets the stress it would put him under.
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Tim wiggles his fingers, sees that charcoal string bob up and down and side to side with their combined efforts to make it visible, and he has never wanted to flip someone off more.
True to himself, and peppered with that scornful amusement because what does that even mean?, Tim does not flip her off.
"That brat is here," he stresses with a lackadaisical shrug. And another waggling of his fingers.
The threads. do not. tell him. everything.
The blizzard responds.
"But do you know what happens when someone stays outside for too long in this weather? They die." And, "Fat lot of good that'll do."
In the tone of: fuck it, maybe it would do a fat lot of good. Damian may think so, and that prince does know Everything.
In that case, sucks for him and sucks for everyone here. Tim won't do it, won't strike out to become a corpse for The Big Brother to either mourn or gloat over. Or both. Tim pulls a face- he's sick of siblings, he's sick of them wanting him dead and then, magically!, not.
Fuck these spiderwebs. Tim scratches at an arm. Ponders therapy. And cows.
Two out of three missing persons accounted for. Well, closer to one-and-one-half. He still hadn't seen Kate.
Tim scratches at his arm. Whatever.
Defeated, summarizes the whole damn thing with a purposefully anticlimactic, "So yeah."
Funny, that people believe he prances through deadly winter storms for fun. That's just fine.
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Cherry-red, ugh. Like she wanted to know whatever the hell is going on between Kate and this kid who stubbornly thinks the worst of her no matter what she says or does or tries to do. Like help him. "Why do you think he's outside in this weather? Is he an idiot?"
Seeing as Tim clearly thinks she's an idiot — and apparently everyone else who isn't him — it seems like a reasonable question to ask.
cw death mention
(gosh darn it, her flipping him off is funny; Tim ducks his head to wipe his forehead on that sleeve he'd been tugging mindlessly at or else he'd, like, crack)
Tim was sure he'd explained himself. Explained what Kate had told him.
He had told his side. Wynonna had told him to quit the shit.
So he's grown wearily accustomed to the ebb and flow that comes with never finding his sea legs. But, again with the stupid moment of amusement snatched away as quickly as it had come, Tim just shakes his head and wills his mind to blank.
It breeds a headache to accompany his permanent headache and Tim thinks, for a blink, that he sees stars.
Regarding Damian, if he expands on literally anything more, then it's dangerous because--
He'd rather get shot than be fucking talking. is the problem here.
He went to a funeral where a girl had been buried; she had never died. No, she had been held and hurt. She had been alone. Fought and survived. And then, still, kept away. And there's a pain to that powerlessness-- and here Wynonna calls it possessiveness to insist to see the body, as if any of it, of this compulsion, was pleasant.
"Listen. I don't know. I've been telling you that I don't know what the hell is going on. I don't know if the kid is going to go outside or if he's going to think he needs to go outside. I know he's not at the Center and that made two people I cared about who were unaccounted for."
It's always the simplest things that he can't figure out.
But it's not simple, is the thing.
"Idiot or not, I don't think you would have been just fine waiting for the storm to blow over before you went looking for them."
Kate. And a mysterious younger sister.
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(Always assuming, of course, that he was reasonably well-adjusted before whatever happened; always assuming there was actually a Before and he hasn't been just Like This from birth, which is always an option—)
But she thinks there was something, because you don't lash out at people asking normal questions (why are you worried, why do you think he's outside) with lance-point strikes, trying to turn it around on them without there being some kind of reason for that to seem like a good thing to do. (She knows, because she does the same damn thing.) He's like a cornered animal striking at her, even though he's far from cornered, even though she hasn't actually been on the attack at all this whole time.
And yeah, she doesn't get Tim, except on that bone-deep, cellular level where surly damaged teenagers get each other — talking to him sometimes has her feeling like she's trying to talk to someone who pulls each word out of a bag, like Scrabble letters, and throws them down without bothering to see whether they make sense — but: whatever, Kate likes him and March seems to like him and he's on her radar now, whether he wants to be or not.
In a good way? In a bad way? Not even she could tell. "Obviously not, but in case you missed it, I haven't gotten on your case about waiting for the storm to blow over before you go out looking for them."
She leans back on her hands and blows out a breath. "So, what: you're not gonna take my word that Kate's fine, you gotta see it with your own eyes. Fine, I can get that. I can even kind of get the sneaking — I guess — even though the only other people here are so fucking Victorian that they wouldn't even get mad, they'd just look kind of disappointed as they give you tea and a blanket— "
Give her a second, Tim, she's trying to figure out where the hell your head is at. "So what's the problem?"
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He likes the quiet.
Until she mentions the men in this house, and there's that involuntary blip of-- avoidance, a cattle fence shock of innate understanding to not engage--
and then the quiet breaks, and Tim narrows his eyes.
He missed something along the line, wasn't paying as much attention as he had thought, he'd been too in head even now when he'd been trying, he
the problem
the what.
He opens his mouth, closes it, stammers through the pregnant silence because you're kidding me. But he can't figure out the joke. "I don't have a problem. What's your problem?"
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cw: mention of (poorly administered) electroshock therapy
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