the more you suffer the more it shows you really care.

[ployboy]

Who: Tim Drake's broken arm and ____
What: uselessly tidying up the graves at the churchyard
When: Nov 1, 2
Where: church, the community hall



Content Warnings: general depressive moods, some bashing of traditions, a very superficial understanding of a culture, death and talk of death is a given

Tim is actually pretty sure he's managed to snag himself a women's coat: it's black and long and elegant, and it has this faux fur lining it and the big hood. It's very quickly become his favorite garb on account of it fitting stupidly well and the aforementioned fuzziness. Paired with sufficient layers (as if there is such a thing) and the heavy black (sparkly) scarf snaked around his throat, the attire even looks good. Good enough, anyway.

It'll have to do.

Dark circles under eyes seems to be a common symptom of Milton's lifestyles and Tim isn't too far behind already. The fitful sleep has him moving excruciatingly slow as an additional precaution. (If he hurts his arm again he will fucking. shoot. someone in the face in feral retaliation.) The thought makes him snort. It's the closest he's come to emotion since he started his day's pet project. It's hard to scrape off ice and years' worth of snow packed onto stone with only one arm functional, holding the shovel.

A few names on grave markers have been freed. Other memorials just have parts of them newly unobstructed through Tim's efforts but are still well buried in white.

Tim works in silence. Kinda hates it, honestly.

But it's whatever.

Between clearing snow from plots and trudging carefully around the yard, Tim ducks into the community hall to warm himself. Or maybe to hear some chatter around him, to see people who aren't, like, ghosts.

And so goes his day, and the next.

He's never put so much effort into something so fruitless before.

][ooc: prose, brackets, wildcard or bump into this fool elsewhere, go wild! HMU if you want anything specific][

Comments

[jackdawvision]

"You know," says Edward, having clambered up onto a post outside the churchyard and perched there for some time to watch Tim work, "it would be much easier to get this done if you'd asked someone to help you with it."

He drops from the post and rolls as he hits the ground, gets to his feet surprisingly fluidly for a guy who looks like he's in his early forties and also might need some sleep too. Softly, he says, "Is there a point to this? Sheer respect for the dead? I imagine they'd appreciate it more if you had both arms working."

[guidemyway]

Ruby had taken to hanging out in the community hall to stay warm. She wasn't a stranger to the cold having spent the last few months of her life in Atlas, a frigid winter tundra in her own world, but that certainly didn't make her immune to the cold.

She's been watching him work out in the cold for the last little while- And a part of her heart aches. It had been so long since she last had the chance to go to mom's grave, to tend to it, and talk to her. She didn't realize how much she missed it until right now.

When Tim finally comes in to take a break and warm up, she'll move to approach her red cloak wrapped loosely around herself to stay warm.

"Hey. Looks like you're uh. Keeping busy out there." Yep. Doing great the whole small talk thing here. "Do you really think you should be doing that with your arm like that, though?"

[questioningmermaids]

"What's the point?"

Holland March isn't exactly hovering but he has been watching Tim for a short while, bundled up in a neutral looking coat with an ushanka hat shoved onto his head and tied around the chin. He's got his pink-tinted 70s aviators on and a cigarette dangling from his lips that he hasn't lit yet solely because he's transfixed as he watches the kid.

Probably, he should offer to help. Guy looks injured. Something with the arm. March finds himself more curious than anything else, so the thought only briefly occurrs. If the new stranger wants help, he'll ask.

God. 'New.' More people in this hellhole that don't deserve it. He tries to bury that thought down by actually flicking the zippo open and lighting his smoke.

[solitarysoul]

Levi'd passed by the church yard and Tim's work earlier in the day, but a few hours later he comes by again and finds that Tim is still doing something. He pauses to watch for a moment...not digging graves, but doing something to the existing ones?

He's not really sure there's a point to that. But this guy seems pretty intent on it.

After watching for a few moments, the boy in the oversized coat with the rifle slung across his back approaches. "What are you doing?"

[ployboy]

You know, he doesn't say, this would be so much easier to get done if people quit treating him like a sideshow. But as he lifts his head and shakes shaggy and limp hair from his face, Tim's met with a body so under control that he briefly thinks of Dick.

--capital D, as in, his brother. Dick.

And he's smirking despite himself at the lame and secret correction, a very dry expression that mirrors what he's feeling at the man's question. He takes the moment to lean against the shovel. To remind them both that despite a lame arm, the wood and steel is there.

"I would appreciate it if both arms were working," he points out easily. "But we'll make do."

A pause. He shrugs. "I don't know any of these people. But I guess I hate the idea of my parents ending up the same way."

[ployboy]

Logically, Tim knows that he's not about to catch his death out in the church just because it's a cold day out. Again. But that doesn't really stop him from thinking that, dang, he's probably going to catch his death out there because of how cold it is. As the warmth of the refuge soaks into him, he begins to unwrap that scarf of his to breathe a little easier.

He hears her approach before he can come up with a good excuse to duck out.

Tim is, at least, flushed red from physical labor and frigid winds, and that will make it hard to tell just how flustered he is now that he's stewing in his own conscious. "Hey," he greets back.

Absolutely killin' it.

He smiles a smile that still won't reach his eyes, though he musters up some abandon as he nods at his trusty shovel. "I'm not really doing much. Besides, I'm staying close and I don't plan on staying out at night. What's the worst that can happen?"

[ployboy]

"It's just going to get covered again the next time it snows." Tim recites, scraping the head of the shovel against the corner of one grave marker. It's one of those simple ones, either very old or-- very simple, where extravagance wasn't a necessity for what ultimately amounts to only a memory.

He knows how follow the man's train of thought because it's been his train of thought too. It's not wrong.

And yet, it takes some (awkward) juggling around of the handle to mark the rectangle of what should be holding a name. And Tim does so anyway. And, annoyed with the common sense and sound logic of a good argument against his actions, he retaliates by not looking up.

"So that means everything is going to look exactly as it had by tomorrow morning."

But.

"But it means that some of these graves get to look different, until then. For one night. Maybe that's enough."

Why climb a mountain, just because it's there?

[ployboy]

It turns out that being a spectacle is a good enough way to take stock of the current residents of Milton. Throughout the coming and going and the tedium, Tim's gotten a look at, he thinks, most of the other Interlopers.

They're all doing this weird thing where they're attempting to keep busy and come to their own rescue or something. There was even one dude Tim had had to dumbly blink after, because he swears the guy had been grinning and toting ice skates around as he went on his merry way.

Anyway. Watching and being watched. Tim's used to it. When the other guy starts to come up, Tim pauses from wiping soft ice off a cross. "It's November, right?" he says, so entirely casual about this.

"Well. That's what the computers said it should be, when I got them to turn on. So that means,"

he really isn't sure he feels any pep, but there is an undercurrent of-- excitement, in his next words. "It's Día de los Muertos."

The Spanish is good. Textbook and Old World, but good.

Contrary to the belief of some Gothamites, however, not every Wayne will spontaneously combust from decades' old traumas at the mere sight of a firearm. Tim gestures to the rifle with his one good hand. Asks, "You any good with that?"

[solitarysoul]

"Is it? How can you tell?" He has no idea what month it is, he's not even sure of the season. He hopes this is winter and things will get warmer...but if it really was November they had the worst of winter to still go through. Ugh. "I don't think I know that, um, holiday?"

He nods at the question about his rifle. "I am. Its my service rifle."
He was pretty good with it, too, but that hadn't been needed here quite yet.

[jackdawvision]

“You could wait, since it’s not as though they’re demanding you to get on with it,” Edward suggests, but he’s already stepping closer and kneeling down at a grave next to the one Tim’s working on. He flexes his wrist, and a blade springs out from under his arm, six inches of cold steel glinting in what little light there is.

This, he uses to start chipping away at the ice and snow on the grave himself.

“Or at the very least you ought to ask around town for help,” he adds, while he works. “We’ve a notice board. You can post a note there.”

[ployboy]

Tim finds himself shrugging.

(He should pay more attention to why he can string his thoughts together so much easier when someone appears to be his age. Then again, Occam's razor says that it's just normal practice to want to appease peers.)

"Honestly, I don't know the date for sure. But with the, uh. At night? When there's some electricity? I've logged in to enough desktops and cellphones, and I follow the calendar app from there. Totally foolproof, right?"

Wow that's a lot of talking.

Out of practice, he nods at the confirmation of the rifle without more fuss.

"Day of the Dead ring any bells? I know it's not a... celebration, everywhere. But it's gotten pretty popular."

[solitarysoul]

Desktops, cellphones and apps? He knows what a desktop is (no he doesn't) but logging into one? Was this more crazy future(?) shit? It probably was. He looks confused for a bit then shakes his head, moving on to something he does...well, understand a little better.

"That only happens with the lights are in the sky. I don't think any of us know why or how yet."

He thinks for a few moments, then shakes his head. He figures any 'day of the dead' in his world would include necromancy and ghouls and he's not heard of that. He hopes its not a day people make ghouls go on parade or something. "I don't think so. But, um, where I'm from isn't like where a lot of people are from." Hm. "Actually the people here are from pretty varied places."

And/or time periods, but he still feels weird about that so best not to mention it to a newbie.

[questioningmermaids]

Ah, shit.

Fuck. March stares at the kid--what is he, like 17?--and watches him for a few moments, taking in his words. There's a weight to it. Something March picks up in spite of himself, and the blonde flicks the lighter shut to promptly cut off his own train of thought. It doesn't work: the weight of the wedding band he keeps on a chain buried underneath layers of warm clothing is a little too heavy after hearing the stranger's reasoning. He can't quite look at the graves, so he scans the sky for a while instead.

"Okay," He says, his voice neutral. It's a completely fruitless endeavor, a lost cause, and he thinks the kid's kind of crazy for doing it, but March finds himself not blaming him in the slightest. He doesn't want to interrupt too much or invite himself to help in case it's more of a meditative ritual, but he'll brush some snow off of a nearby ledge and perch. He's got a cigarette to smoke after all, and he's fully planning on grabbing a warm drink for the grave cleaner the moment he finishes it. Least he can do.

"Hey. You got a name?"

[ployboy]

He really hates having to stamp down the reaction to the blade, and Tim is mostly but not all the way successful. It's frustrating that the hard line of his shoulders only tenses; it takes effort to make it seem like getting on with the job is no big deal.

He makes a little noise of protest.

"You sure?"

About not having a deadline.

"Some people believe that this night opens a way for... them, to join this world."

[bigbaddy]

The first time Bigby comes across Tim doing his thing - or rather, spotting it from the road as he walks past the graveyard while on his own business - he doesn't really think much of it.

Nor the second time.

But when he still sees the other at it by the third time, it's starting to kind of stand out. Bigby figured the other would give up on whatever he was trying to do out there, especially when it very much seems like the kid can only use one arm, and when working out in the snow for anything that isn't just survival in this place frankly sucks, if you'd ask Bigby.

So he can't quite resist stopping and actually speaking up to Tim that time.

"You trying to take up the job of graveyard keeper or something?"

It doesn't sound.. super friendly.. But then again, that's just due to Bigby's naturally gruff tone and his resting grump face. Hard to know how to make polite conversation when you've never really tried, after all, even when his intentions in speaking up aren't malicious here in the slightest.

[ployboy]

The other guy looks confused. Tim looks mildly disheartened. And so it goes. With a sigh, he turns back to prodding through the snow on the ground, a boot kicking steadily here and there. Sophisticated technology right here, folks: kick at the snow until you feel a rock. The rock is probably a buried Somebody.

Sometimes it's just a rock, though.

Tim thinks he can read between the lines at what the other means-- but it'd be weird to say aloud, right? It'd be weird for Tim Drake to talk about timestreams and their slips, Mother Boxes and New Gods and dying worlds. And, to be fair

there's a veteran who can't be any older than Tim is, service weapon well in tow, just to his side.

Bear with him, here. "What's your name? I'm Tim. I guess you already figured out I'm with the fresh batch of-- Lopers? Do you know what's up with that name?"

[solitarysoul]

"Oh, sorry. I'm Levi. Its good to meet you except for all the...this place.
"I figured you must be new, I've seen pretty much everyone by now. Well, all the people who showed up at the same time as me. I didn't put much thought into the name. Who cares if we're interlopers? Its not like its our choice to be here."

[ployboy]

He finally glances at the man, a frown that contradicts the fleeting confusion flaring through his body. Here he'd expected more pushback. He had been bracing for a fight no matter how small, and being left without one is... disappointing?

Did he really turn into the type of guy who's always itching for a fight?

Slowly, Tim stops disturbing the dead.

This man is-- tall.

He says, "Tim Drake." And as an afterthought, "Wayne."

And, feeling frozen and like talking is a chore too large to suddenly handle (which considering he's the figurehead of Wayne Enterprises, shuttling to and from interviews to sales pitches to conferences-- is laughable), he adds, "It's uh. Día de los Muertos. Today or... tomorrow night. I don't know. But it's--"

Hell, he doesn't know. So he shrugs, proves the man's criticisms correct even if they hadn't been voiced. It's freeing, kinda.

welp congrats, cw: anxieties and death and some very disjointed thinking

[ployboy]

Oh my god, is what Tim wishes he could say. He wants to be seen leaning against his trusty shovel, a biting sarcastic reply ready to volley back to the newest gawker.

Instead he thinks he kinda chokes on his own breath, finds his ribs and chest and clothes constricting when they'd never been an issue before, and he barks out a noise that he guesses is supposed to be a laugh if it weren't so damn cheerless.

(Which, dude, what is even up with that-?)

He does ultimately have to brace the shovel against a marbled stone, and bring his good hand up to twistpushpull at hair that's run wild on his face, having escaped its confines. It's as good excuse as any to blink the bleary dizziness of Gray away from his sight, hiding behind himself as he is. It only takes a second. He's been at the foot of tombstones too many times for one more jab at Poor Tim Drake, Orphan to have any effect. Tim is too distracted by the idea of being promoted Keeper that it's kinda growing on him.

"Maybe I will."

If he hadn't been raised by-- well, Alfred, maybe, he doesn't really know if it counts-- but if he could get away with it, he'd be flipping this man the bird. But Tim could hear Alfred telling him to mind his manners even now. So Tim doesn't flip this man the bird.

His Fuck You is about as predictable. But... productive. Maybe. (He doesn't know. Tim's very starkly looking ahead at snow and more snow and coming to terms that he doesn't know a damn thing, doesn't even know how to breathe because it's so weird to have to--)

He keeps on scraping at ice with his trusty shovel.

[jackdawvision]

Edward angles the blade away from Tim, as if to show him that he doesn't mean to harm him with it. Or at all. It does make him wonder how the boy broke his arm, but...that seems like the type of question that will only get him silence in response.

"I'm sure," he says, chipping away at the ice anyway, scraping off the snow with a gloved hand anyway. "I've seen their ghosts with the northern lights. They're more interested in playing out their final moments, if they're even capable of holding any interest anymore."

[questioningmermaids]

"Oh. I'm Holland March. Happy remembering," March responds with full and undeserved confidence. Is that the right thing to say? His upper lip curls in thought, but it lasts only a brief moment. It probably wasn't, but it's been three seconds, so. Too late. He exhales his cigarette.

"Christmas for me. Not--" a vague wrist twist at the snow covered world "--not as cold as this. More palm trees, less freeze-your-nutsack."

This is what having a normal conversation is like, right? A little chit-chat among frozen corpses? At least there's no moving them out of the street like last time. They're all neatly in pine boxes.

"Need a hand, Tim Drake Wayne?"

cw for depressy things and death

[ployboy]

He notices. He stays quiet about it. And he stays quiet despite, or because of, the knot growing at the back of his throat. The desperate, isolated, wailing child he used to be wants to challenge that idea and be done with it, because naivety (or innocence, or ignorance) demands a happy ending to any good life.

Becoming worm food and nothing more is now a happy ending, Tim muses numbly.

"Yeah," he says. It can't be an agreement. He hasn't seen the ghosts just yet. Tim just feels the crawl and claws of Nothingness making the world seem off and distant; he at least knows he should try and stop it. "I don't know why they do that," he says instead.

The name on the marker comes to light, Tim chips absently to make way for the years to be revealed.

He thinks, suddenly and surprisingly, that this little misadventure makes him closer to his parents than he'd first thought, because he's, like-- a very amateur archeologist.

He thinks of his mother and her slit throat and he thinks about his dad and the blood and blood and blood.

Only, Janet Drake died of poisoning and not a slit throat. Tim frankly can't know why he keeps forgetting. He just knows that the muddled murmur of self-abuse should really be put to a stop. Like, now.

"What about the ones that you can't see, though? What are those souls up to?"

cw some death up in here

[ployboy]

Happy remembering. That's so not a string of words he's heard in this context before. Or in any context. And it's so absurd that Tim has to wonder if he heard it right. When there's no other explanation for it, he huffs a laugh. It's a sound born of obligation but not entirely devoid of, like, life.

Tim wonders if anyone in this place knows how to read a calendar. Or maybe they're just not too trusting of electronic timekeeping, when anything electronic is so flimsy. He doesn't figure he's brave enough to wade into Christmas just yet--

"Where in California? I have a place in San Francisco."

--because he woke up to Bruce Wayne's shadow reminding him that the 24th was when Janet Drake would be lowered to the ground, and because it was the wet kind of snow that was falling in Gotham then. Tim had done a darn good job in shaking hands, accepting condolences, and thanking the mourners for their time at that funeral.

Christmas is this... what, he's supposed to pretend his life was so wrong that having a happy family around a tree, for one night, was... It's a Made For TV holiday. They all are. When everyone's dead, it doesn't mean shit.

The corner of his mouth twitches up.

Not to be all My father, the inventor of toaster strudels... but Tim doesn't think anyone will understand how odd it is to have the name Wayne be met with absolutely no knee-jerk recognition.

"I won't say no if you want to help," he lands on. "But I've got nothing else to do today. You don't have to."

[moralabsolutism]

Rorschach had just jumped down from a nearby building and was pushing his way through the snow. He still had yet to find a pair of boots that fit properly and it was getting annoying. Apparently, there was few people in the town who'd had feet as small as his. He stopped as he passed by the church when he saw someone in the graveyard doing....something?

At first glance, he wasn't sure what that was. Then he paused to watch for a few moments as some kid slowly cleared snow from one of the plots. He crunched through the snow for a closer look, his curiosity piqued, wondering why someone would waste their energy on such a pointless task.

[jackdawvision]

"If the lights come back," says Edward, with some uncertainty, because he isn't entirely sure they will, "you might get the chance to find out."

He'd watched those ghosts. He hadn't been very terrified, after the first shock—there was really nothing they can do to him or to anyone else. Mostly he'd been trying to gather information on just what had happened to the town's inhabitants, and instead had come up with nothing for his efforts put into watching all these gruesome tableaux.

Nothing but a sinking sense of heartache, anyway.

He pauses a moment, then shrugs, keeping his eyes fixed on the gravestone he's chipping the ice off of. "I'm no priest, mate," he says. "Watching, I s'pose, if they haven't already moved on to whatever's next." Like Edward himself, a dead man yanked from England to live again here in Milton. Sometimes he wonders if this is a particularly cold circle of hell—except he imagines he'd see at least one other person he'd known in the bad old days down here, if that were the case.