Tim Drake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jokerized) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-07-09 02:25 pm
jokerized) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-07-09 02:25 pm
[arrival and ota] subtract my age from the mileage on my speeding heart
WHO: Tim Drake
WHERE: Fountain, Inn, various houses
WHEN: Evening of July 9 and onward
OPEN TO: OTA with closed starter
WARNINGS: Underage character who was subjected to torture, arriving from the moment he murders his abuser.
This is the way the world ends. With the bang and the whimper. The world is noise: Arkham's ruins creak and shift in the winds, whistle with the ghosts of rogues broken up and shipped all over the state. Joker taunts Batman as he darts in and out with the knife. There's a spot of silence he places as Batgirl, but she slips between Tim's own screams, projected with the steel slab and his old costume on a freestanding wall.
His knees are cold.
It's the recurring, ridiculous thought that brings him back. His knees are cold, the socks itch his calves. These are not his clothes, perhaps this isn't really him. Or is he both: the bang and the whimper? The boy with all the secrets shaken out, and the boy with the gun in his hands? Gloves and gauntlets, white and black. The Joker tells him to deliver the punchline but the joke is, the joke is--
His shoes pinch and his cheeks hurt and he hates the smell of greasepaint. It feels like he pulled on the wrong skin when he got up and he doesn't know how to peel it off. But he knows who made him wear it, and he knows who all those secrets die with.
Guns are never an option. Bruce taught him that as much as he taught him to throw a punch. They're better because they don't use them, smarter, safer. People hesitate to fire on someone who looks unarmed, even as they leap in to kick them in the jaw. The Joker is standing--grandstanding--yards away. He's sweeping the knife out in his hands like a prop, not a weapon, a glittering flourish as he calls for the finale.
Joker calls him Junior, and Tim wishes he'd died on that slab. His grip shifts on the gun, built like a flare with a spike loaded in the barrel. The flag has already fallen as he aims, lays over his feet. Bang. Bang. When he pulls the trigger, all sound seems to stop.
"That's not funny, that's--not--"
The Joker crumples with one hand dropping from the spike in his chest, dangerous secrets dying with him. A piece of Tim, dying with him. Relieved laughter builds to hysterics, tips into confusion, doesn't even sound like it's coming from his own mouth as it breaks into sobs. Barbara's silence resolves at his side, calling his name, and she catches him in her arms as he drops. The gun spills from nerveless fingers, and the last thing he remembers is the rightness of it, the smell of kevlar and nomex through the grease, before it's gone.
fountain; july 9; veronica
Tim doesn't want to die badly enough, if the deciding factor is the water's chill. When he wakes up, there's less shock than a physical ache, awareness of his own skin fading in the dark. If only it were warmer, he'd float here until it choked him back to sleep. If only he could just sleep, the dark and dreamless transition from Barbara's grip to this.
Whatever this is. It doesn't rush around him like the river, though it's almost as cold. Tastes better too, when it slips into his mouth.
It's the kind of physical, present, lucid thought that he clings to, swallowing a little more and putting his hands on what feels like concrete siding. Some kind of pool, a wall to kick off from. This is good, this is working: something to do with his body that is only about keeping it alive. Whatever its condition, he's a strong swimmer, and he comes up with his arms catching around the legs and sweeping skirt of a statue.
The park, maybe? The statue is in decent condition: no moss, no vines, no signs of long-term deterioration. An old part of the Manor, closer to the cave than the house? The trees he finds outside the fountain's edge are too wild, the path too foot-worn to be the manicured lawns and carefully edged forest. Bruce's neighborhood is the only part of Gotham to have this many trees without Ivy's meddling.
Nerves build with the chill of the water, soaking into his--scrubs.
Right. That makes a surprising amount of sense, and the first slip of a laugh is genuine, but what follows is a horrible tic, rasping out of a sore throat. He's still trying to swallow the laughter as he gets a grip on the statue and pulls himself up, standing on the platform with her to look out at the twilit wood. In his movement, he notices the press of the backpack, the dragging weight on his shoulders. Is he outside some facility? Did he give Leslie the slip? That--sounds like him, even if he can't remember.
Shuffling his way around the statue, still holding tight, he continues to huff and swallow nervous laughter, trying to decide which way to go.
exploring; july 10-11; ota
The inmates are running this prison, far as he can tell. He doesn't know if this is some remote, free-range asylum disrupted by an earthquake, or there's been no time to breathe before tumbling through a rip in reality.
Or he's just crazy.
That one always starts the wheezing laugh tickling his throat. Nothing is funny, but everything can elicit it. It isn't just--it isn't just what happened. The ugly laughter is just easier than finding the words. Easier than thinking: what does it mean to be stuck here. Would Bruce really send him so far away, let him be taken again?
Is he angry?
Disappointed.
Whatever this place is, it isn't an entirely foreign world. A yellow sun rises and sets, it's temperate enough for the clothes in his pack. People gather supplies and offer meals in two of the larger buildings, and no one is hunting him down with medication or mandates of group therapy. He shelves the first theory pretty quickly, and puts the other two up just below it, in easier reach. Theories get in the way of deduction, and there's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of disparate information to parse.
Finding crude paper in one of the storerooms, Tim adds to his pack, adding a small jar packed with charcoal and a sharpened stick. He wouldn't have needed a notebook on the streets, but he knew those streets the way he knew how far he could jump, the way he knew the fit of his boots. His grasp of information has suffered in transition, and when he isn't slipping in and out of houses that look shaken in on themselves, he can be found at the board in the Inn, copying information with his makeshift pencil, trying to pick out the facts from speculation.
[Find Tim at the blackboard and map on the Inn's first floor, or exploring any house in a state of disrepair. It can even be your house, if it's suffered damage in the quake.]
WHERE: Fountain, Inn, various houses
WHEN: Evening of July 9 and onward
OPEN TO: OTA with closed starter
WARNINGS: Underage character who was subjected to torture, arriving from the moment he murders his abuser.
This is the way the world ends. With the bang and the whimper. The world is noise: Arkham's ruins creak and shift in the winds, whistle with the ghosts of rogues broken up and shipped all over the state. Joker taunts Batman as he darts in and out with the knife. There's a spot of silence he places as Batgirl, but she slips between Tim's own screams, projected with the steel slab and his old costume on a freestanding wall.
His knees are cold.
It's the recurring, ridiculous thought that brings him back. His knees are cold, the socks itch his calves. These are not his clothes, perhaps this isn't really him. Or is he both: the bang and the whimper? The boy with all the secrets shaken out, and the boy with the gun in his hands? Gloves and gauntlets, white and black. The Joker tells him to deliver the punchline but the joke is, the joke is--
His shoes pinch and his cheeks hurt and he hates the smell of greasepaint. It feels like he pulled on the wrong skin when he got up and he doesn't know how to peel it off. But he knows who made him wear it, and he knows who all those secrets die with.
Guns are never an option. Bruce taught him that as much as he taught him to throw a punch. They're better because they don't use them, smarter, safer. People hesitate to fire on someone who looks unarmed, even as they leap in to kick them in the jaw. The Joker is standing--grandstanding--yards away. He's sweeping the knife out in his hands like a prop, not a weapon, a glittering flourish as he calls for the finale.
Joker calls him Junior, and Tim wishes he'd died on that slab. His grip shifts on the gun, built like a flare with a spike loaded in the barrel. The flag has already fallen as he aims, lays over his feet. Bang. Bang. When he pulls the trigger, all sound seems to stop.
"That's not funny, that's--not--"
The Joker crumples with one hand dropping from the spike in his chest, dangerous secrets dying with him. A piece of Tim, dying with him. Relieved laughter builds to hysterics, tips into confusion, doesn't even sound like it's coming from his own mouth as it breaks into sobs. Barbara's silence resolves at his side, calling his name, and she catches him in her arms as he drops. The gun spills from nerveless fingers, and the last thing he remembers is the rightness of it, the smell of kevlar and nomex through the grease, before it's gone.
fountain; july 9; veronica
Tim doesn't want to die badly enough, if the deciding factor is the water's chill. When he wakes up, there's less shock than a physical ache, awareness of his own skin fading in the dark. If only it were warmer, he'd float here until it choked him back to sleep. If only he could just sleep, the dark and dreamless transition from Barbara's grip to this.
Whatever this is. It doesn't rush around him like the river, though it's almost as cold. Tastes better too, when it slips into his mouth.
It's the kind of physical, present, lucid thought that he clings to, swallowing a little more and putting his hands on what feels like concrete siding. Some kind of pool, a wall to kick off from. This is good, this is working: something to do with his body that is only about keeping it alive. Whatever its condition, he's a strong swimmer, and he comes up with his arms catching around the legs and sweeping skirt of a statue.
The park, maybe? The statue is in decent condition: no moss, no vines, no signs of long-term deterioration. An old part of the Manor, closer to the cave than the house? The trees he finds outside the fountain's edge are too wild, the path too foot-worn to be the manicured lawns and carefully edged forest. Bruce's neighborhood is the only part of Gotham to have this many trees without Ivy's meddling.
Nerves build with the chill of the water, soaking into his--scrubs.
Right. That makes a surprising amount of sense, and the first slip of a laugh is genuine, but what follows is a horrible tic, rasping out of a sore throat. He's still trying to swallow the laughter as he gets a grip on the statue and pulls himself up, standing on the platform with her to look out at the twilit wood. In his movement, he notices the press of the backpack, the dragging weight on his shoulders. Is he outside some facility? Did he give Leslie the slip? That--sounds like him, even if he can't remember.
Shuffling his way around the statue, still holding tight, he continues to huff and swallow nervous laughter, trying to decide which way to go.
exploring; july 10-11; ota
The inmates are running this prison, far as he can tell. He doesn't know if this is some remote, free-range asylum disrupted by an earthquake, or there's been no time to breathe before tumbling through a rip in reality.
Or he's just crazy.
That one always starts the wheezing laugh tickling his throat. Nothing is funny, but everything can elicit it. It isn't just--it isn't just what happened. The ugly laughter is just easier than finding the words. Easier than thinking: what does it mean to be stuck here. Would Bruce really send him so far away, let him be taken again?
Is he angry?
Disappointed.
Whatever this place is, it isn't an entirely foreign world. A yellow sun rises and sets, it's temperate enough for the clothes in his pack. People gather supplies and offer meals in two of the larger buildings, and no one is hunting him down with medication or mandates of group therapy. He shelves the first theory pretty quickly, and puts the other two up just below it, in easier reach. Theories get in the way of deduction, and there's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of disparate information to parse.
Finding crude paper in one of the storerooms, Tim adds to his pack, adding a small jar packed with charcoal and a sharpened stick. He wouldn't have needed a notebook on the streets, but he knew those streets the way he knew how far he could jump, the way he knew the fit of his boots. His grasp of information has suffered in transition, and when he isn't slipping in and out of houses that look shaken in on themselves, he can be found at the board in the Inn, copying information with his makeshift pencil, trying to pick out the facts from speculation.
[Find Tim at the blackboard and map on the Inn's first floor, or exploring any house in a state of disrepair. It can even be your house, if it's suffered damage in the quake.]