Catchall (Summer)

[ployboy]

Who: Tim Drake, closed starters
What: Tim sees the past, sees the future, and decides he's done feigning acceptance of either
When: July, August
Where: Milton

Content Warnings: July's event warnings go here! Mind the headers in each thread

His birthday's tomorrow- Tim found out the date by accident. He knows he feels something with the reminder but mostly he feels glad he isn't flashing emotions as colors anymore.

Seeing things he could never finds words for was always infuriating.

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[ployboy]

He steps in and expects to find someone's glare when he peels his eyes away from Kate and Laelaps and they turn to the inside of cabin. If not a glare then an unveiled look of surprise from one of the others who live here. As if Kate hasn't been the person at the forefront of his thoughts (and actions-? is that true or just something he's telling himself?) since the day he fumbled helping out in the kitchen.

There's no one else here to judge him. For now. Tim, with relief, brings his sights and hand down to greet Merry.

He clears his throat (again?) and offers, "Right. Mr. Irving. We met."

The promise of getting down to business has robbed his voice of any inflection; Tim gives Kate a silent apology for it. He literally just said he'd behave. But it's not like he'd done it on purpose. He's nervous and-- and what if he experiments with... no second guessing...

He starts to step out of his boots, not wanting to track ice through somewhere... personal, tidy, warm. Somewhere where he's a guest.

"Is there tea? Lily and I were taking a walk. I didn't want to lose my nerve. But I am kinda cold. Uh. Do we need to stay, like, in the living room? To talk?"

[castitas]

Merry's pleased by the fussing, and he'll take a couple of moments to enjoy it before he'll be turning his attention to his sister — all relaxed and soft eyes. Kate closes te front door behind them watching for a moment, her eyebrows raising.

Tim's met Lieutenant Irving.

There's a brief moment of looking spooked, even with Tim's lack of inflection because oh God, how did that even go — and — when did that happen. Because if it was before or after Kate had told him about Tim then — oh, boy. But he's asking about tea and she's just going to throw her attention into that.

"Yeah, sure." she's already heading for the kitchen to bring the kettle to the fire. Of course there's tea, especially in this household. "I've got like normal tea, or herbal stuff. Or there's even my rosehip tea, if you want that."

She's rabbiting a little, pausing only briefly to open and close her mouth a few times to talk.

"I mean— it'd avoid anything awkward if Lieutenant Irving came home. Since you know. Victorian." And they were upstairs. Alone. Heaven forbid. "Or you having to climb out the window."

There's another brief pause and her head dips a little, and she fights back the smile that curls at the corners of her mouth.

"I'd guess it's probably considered polite, for having company."

She's not really gotten that far with Lieutenant Irving yet. Boundaries around guests, when the guest is Tim. She's absolutely not told him about the amount of time he's snuck into her room. Nope. Not once.

[ployboy]

"Green tea, if you have any," he mumbles, hit by homesickness. Following her into the warmth of the kitchen is deceptively easy.

As is rooting around the cupboards that he doesn't know, trying to fetch them both cups. (He's helping!)

"My sister got me hooked on that stuff and I haven't had any since coming to Milton." And, finally finding the cup cupboard, Tim explains, growing quiet, "And for what it's worth, I think it was... okay. Me and Mister Irving. We woke up at Milton House. There wasn't a lot of time for big introductions. That, uh, probably helped."

i couldn't let this go without a lil something something on it....

[castitas]

"Mmm, I... think you might be out of luck. Sorry."

Gunpowder, or jasmine tea? In this place? Not likely. She smiles a little, half-wincing in apology. It's weird. This all feels... so normal. He doesn't need to help, not when she's technically hosting — he shouldn't need to. But it's— it's normal. It's nice. And distracting, considering— well, she told him to come find her after he read her letter—

Butterflies, they say. That's what they always go on about, right? Butterflies. It's more like bees. A swarm of nervous energy and heat in her stomach, beneath her ribcage. It's not— it doesn't feel unpleasant.

Oh, wait. This might do? She holds it up to him.

"Here. What about this? Pine needle tea. It's got a bunch of Vitamin A and C in it. It's technically green."

No, she knows it's actually a kind of herbal tea.

There's a short exhale, her lips parting and eyes widening a little in realisation: Oh. Yeah, she knows that one. They're not the only ones who've been caught up in that again. Her lips press together, she doesn't want to think about the bodies she saw. At least Mr Heartman had looked just as she'd remembered him, when he'd died.

"I'm glad you got out of okay." she says finally, "Uh, again."

Yikes.

"Why... why don't you sit, I can finish this." The tea, she means. She smiles, shaking her head. "You're my guest, you don't gotta pitch in."

And it might be an idea to give him a couple of minutes to like, sort through his thoughts. And let her sort through hers. Otherwise whatever this turns out to be is probably just gonna be a whole lot of word-vomit. It took her ages to get everything down on paper.

"We've got a lot to talk about."

So she'll make tea, and then they'll talk. And then they just... go from there.

It'll be okay.