young, dumb, & broke

[ployboy]

WHO: Tim Drake and (---)
WHERE: Fountain Park, nowhere and everywhere
WHEN: August 28, and surrounding days
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: N/A but will warn in threads

---

Arrival (South Village) : Fountain
[He coughs, and he wakes up.

He wakes up because, when he coughs, there's water rushing down his throat and up his nose and into his lungs. It's not the most pleasant way to wake up after an exhausting night's work. Thankfully (for some given value), it isn't the least pleasant way to wake up, either. Not in Tim's mind. So his throat burns and his eyes have trouble adjusting to the blur of being underwater (fresh water), and it's taking a hell of a lot of control to not give in to the urge to let the coughing fit take over and instead suppress it (Tim's pretty sure he's either beet red or splotching blue at this point). He listens to training, though, and refuses to drown before he at knows what the hell's happened; he's climbing over the lip of the pool (no, fountain) in no time at all, just kind of hanging there for a moment as his eyes adjust again to the surface.

No... immediate threat, that he can process. And still, he's got goosebumps of sorts. The backpack (waterproof-- weird) is ditched and Tim sucks in a breath before submerging himself in the water again. He dives purposefully to the bottom of the fountain-- it's all solid underneath. He pushes, what bit he can. And gives up for today because he's wearing clothes he hadn't been wearing before and that's weird and the next time Tim surfaces, brows pinched in frustration and tiredness (he couldn't even get one full night's sleep)] _{Damn it...} [he sees a-- person. You. Close by. He swings out of the fountain and prays that backpack he's slung onto his shoulders has a towel but first:] You don't look surprised to see me climb out of that thing. [Game: start.]

Arrival (South Village) : Police Station
[He's fresh from the fountain, but his navy blue shirt is hanging from where he'd tied it on a strap of his pack (for easier drying) and he's left in the tank top. It's uncomfortably moist and clings to his skin and Tim wants nothing more than to find a dryer, for heaven's sake-- but that seems like less and less of an attainable fantasy with every block of this town he passes. He's a tourist.

He takes in the sights.

And then he maps out his first destination: coming up this street is what looks undeniably like a police precinct. He makes a beeline for it. There should be records, files, computers, something familiar--

and then he is, not for the first time, so horribly let down.] People keep animals here? [Speaking to himself: check. Stating the fucking obvious: check. Tim steps... almost gingerly through the place anyway, because something has to have been salvaged, right? --god, it's obvious the boy very much wasn't raised on a farm.]

Settling In (South Village) : Inn & Housing & Boathouse
[He'll be around, trying to keep his head relatively low and (amazingly) keeping the exploration to a minimum until he understands this whole... bullshit a little bit better. But Tim isn't keeping still, isn't holing himself up, not really. He knows there's hubbub of something odd, something very uncommon going around. Three cheers for gossip and the habit to eavesdrop. He spends the next few days scouring houses that seem unoccupied, venturing into the Inn during its busier hours just to kind of... hang, and maybe ask questions when someone looks like they definitely know what they're doing.

Occasionally he makes trips to the boathouse, because he doesn't sleep (you can't prove that he does, anyway).

Here is the wildcard option.]

Comments

[spoileralert]

[ She opens her eyes again when she hears him move, turning just enough to see the motion without having to see his face. She stares at the shirt for a long while, unable to make herself move. She's standing on a razor's edge, and she can feel it moving under her but she still doesn't know which way she'll fall.

It would be easier if he just came out and said it. 'It was your fault, and I can't forgive you, and we shouldn't talk.' Tumbling into that bottomless pit would be better than this... anticipation.

Finally she reaches to take the shirt back with hands that shake. She leaves it clutched in one hand on her knee, staring at the fabric and willing her brain to work faster. It's been too long since she said something, too long to be anything but awkward torture.

She opens her mouth to say something, anything, but all that comes out is a squeak. She closes it, swallows, and tries again. ]

I'm sorry.

[ It comes out as a whisper. Now she does start to cry, and she's learned from experience that once it starts there's not really anything she can do to make it stop. ]

I'm sorry. I-- Nobody was supposed to get hurt.

[ It's too much. She can't break down in front of Tim, not about this. Not with him sounding so cold. Her body starts to function again as she gets to her feet, setting the bowl of stew down in her chair and picking up the staff. When she speaks again her voice is at least a little stronger, though she's turned all the way away from him. ]

There's nothing I can tell you about this place you couldn't hear from someone else. I'll stop bothering you.

[ployboy]

[What? No, no he hadn't meant for her to

but of course she would, because he's a jackass, and won't somebody please explain to him when, exactly, he got worse than Bruce? At being normal? At being anything other than a robot who sees suspicion and lies and fault. There's a monster in his stomach. It pulls just under his skin.

Stephanie is crying, and Tim sighs.] Steph... [And he doesn't have a damn thing to say. "Just another way to let her down", isn't that what he had told Bruce at her funeral? He hadn't cried then either, and the mallet that hits his chest, his heart, feels like it cut more than bruised.

Tim stays sitting, because he can't... think. Of what he's doing, of what he's supposed to do next. She hadn't wanted him close when they'd-- she wanted him to forget her, and maybe that's a constant even in whatever universe they're now in.] You're not bothering me. [Even if he sounds like he's forced that out through grit teeth but it's either that or

but he's honest, and when has that ever gotten him anywhere? He'll end up alone, because he's always alone, because no one wants to die and the best way to ensure that] Steph, just. [His train of thought stops there. Tim hates himself a little more because obviously that's still somehow possible. Steph's not even looking at him, so what in the hell is he even]

You were right, I guess. [His mouth feels sour and his throat is burning. But maybe he doesn't have to be a selfish goon here. He's already seen how that plays out. So if Steph (she's stronger than he'll ever be and he wants to tell her about Batgirl and how much better she is than him now) can be confident about this (she had been confident about it in his own time, too; something that's making him feel sick and dead), he can too.

Honesty. He owes her honesty. Because she's going to leave him, and that's not new. Everyone did. It's not new. He remembers spinning her in a hug, knowing she was alive again, and then learning she always had been, she'd just never wanted] I wouldn't be good company. [No one wanted him. Damian didn't have to spit it at him; the fact was tangible. She deserved more than-- someone who wouldn't dare leave his chair. For instance.

But he's sorry. And thanks for the help.

And please don't go.

But Tim does what Tim does best, and grimaces and takes the fault and stays quiet. He wonders how she built the staff, wonders just how functional it is. Thinks, he has a new project, because he'll be damned if he dies of-- suffocating heartbreak, for instance.]

[spoileralert]

[ The sound of her name is the only thing keeping her from running away right now. Whatever he has to say to her, she has to hear it. She's earned any and every rebuke, she has no right to run away from them.

But rebuke isn't what comes. It isn't exactly forgiveness, either, though. She sniffles, and wipes a few tears from her face. They'll make it hard to talk. ]

You don't have to do that, spare my feelings. I get it, if you--

[ She chokes on the words. If he hates her now, she can't say it. ]

I haven't exactly been great company either, since I. You know. Died.

[ployboy]

You don't.

[He's breaking rules, here. Distraught, distressed, desperate-- he's not stupid. He's aware he's doing something he shouldn't, but that's been the point of Red Robin since the beginning of it all.

His eyes had gone wide at that, fearful but not anything less than bone-tired. The world has really screwed them all over, right?

Welcome to Club Robin.

Christ, she didn't deserve to think--

he wants to hurl, because he knows what her last memories must have been. So he stares dumbly, numbly at the fire ahead and breathes to counts of four. Then three. Then he squares his jaw and lifts his head and Steph is still there.

He doesn't want to run her off.] You don't die, Stephanie. [The funeral had swam in his head for weeks, and Dana would bring her up out of the blue in her broken rambling and Tim would always be so hurt by] You're Batgirl, actually. It's a good look on you. [So he breaks rules and he omits truths, but he's being honest and she's still there and if she stays a second more he might just] Your costume's eggplant, because of course it is. [He wishes his voice would waver, just a bit. It doesn't. He's experienced with-- this.]

[spoileralert]

[ You don't die. That stops her short. Her brain comes to a full stop, taking his words in but failing utterly to process any of them.

She doesn't die? ]

What?

[ She finally turns to face him, stunned confusion the only expression left on her face. The tears keep falling, of course. She has far too many of them and has let out far too few. She's numb most days, getting by without feeling much of anything. ]

But... how? I was bleeding out. I remember bleeding out.

[ She's pretty sure she couldn't have made it out of the building like that. ]

[ployboy]

[He'll barf, but not now.

He can't promise he didn't feel something rise up in his throat, though, and suddenly he has an excuse for the sour, dry taste in his mouth.

Tim half-wonders if she knows how much he wants to claw at himself right now, because his skin doesn't feel like his own, it doesn't feel comfortable to him, he can't tolerate it right now.] It was bad.

[She'll hate him for that, and Tim figures he'd be fine with it, because if someone ever flat-out told him his life had been "bad" he can't be sure he wouldn't want to drive a knife through them.

He doesn't notice the tremors in his hands, because why would he? He can't process the reality of their lives on a good day and no, he really isn't cut out for this job, he guesses. It makes him feel like he's swallowed cement. That's how heavy that lump feels.] But Leslie helped.

[spoileralert]

[ 'Bad' feels like an understatement. She was healed when she came here and it's still bad. But she can see the tremor in his hand, even if he can't. She tries to imagine what it would have looked like, what it would have felt like.

She swallows thickly and rubs at one wrist. They still ache, a little. With how messed up her hands got she's surprised she could ever use them again. She stares at the scars there, for something to look at. ]

How did she...

[ No, that's not the right question. She swallows once more and tries again. ]

I didn't think anyone was looking.

[ She'd convinced herself- let herself be convinced- that she was abandoned, forgotten. That when she died it was alone and unmissed. ]