apocalypsehowcomm | Event - Appalachia: Into the Pines

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Event - Appalachia: Into the Pines

Appalachia: Into the Pines

Footage plays on the television as a new story comes on, showing a series of sweeping vistas, intercut with clips of wolves that have clearly been filmed at some local wildlife sanctuary. "As far as anyone knows it, the last wolf to ever freely roam the Allegheny Mountains was slain in West Virginia in 1897. Daniel Stoffer Hamrick saw to the beast's passing, and the woods in our part of the world have gone quieter ever since. Appalachia does not forget its history, though. It buries it beneath coal and flyash, debts and white powder and pills. And the blood of people taken before their time, by the mines, by the mountain, by things we don't have names for, just hurt. But Appalachia does not forget.

"This is Cindy Parsons with Channel 5, Wolf News." Footage cuts to a newscaster standing outside a gated apartment complex with FYRE's logo emblazoned on it. "As we know, our beloved Wolf Pen is home to one of the biggest FYRE worker housing complexes in Wyoming County. It is a monument to the history of our town, and this week, we'll be on the lookout for visitors from all over the country, coming to see the grand re-opening of the historic Bluestone Mine as a museum."

Footage cuts to a nondescript businessman, identified by the news footage as Carl Watts, CEO of FYRE. He's smiling blandly as he stands at a podium and gestures to the entrance of the mining tunnel behind him. "The Wolf Pen community has been a partner to us for decades now, and we knew it was finally time to give something back to all y’all. We'll have our soft opening on Monday with a full Rumble Down Under party in the old mines scheduled for June 15th. We'll have a live bluegrass concert and anticipate a huge influx of tourists to the area to help out our neighbors itching for a few more pocketbooks to tend to." A wink.

The footage returns to Cindy. "FYRE has stated that this new museum will provide an educational tool and tourist attraction for those wanting to learn about West Virginia, Wolf Pen, and the hard-working men and women who have made this beautiful part of our nation their home. Time will tell. Time is always telling when it comes to the promises of people who have used our land and our bodies to line their pocketbooks. They fill our blood and our lungs with black tar and-"

Cindy cuts out and is replaced by in-studio anchors. "Thank you, Cindy!" a blonde woman says, smile just a little strained. "I think we're all looking forward to seeing the big opening by FYRE on Sunday and that rocking good party next month. It should be a gneiss one! Now to Tim with the weather. Tim?"

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"Do not touch the thumb."

Somehow that seems like the most important thing to get out. Tim turns and, trapped by the illusion of the dump and with the training to find things like... severed thumbs, he wrinkles his nose as he sees it too.

He wanders over closer to Malcolm.

"Uh, yeah. Like that."

“It looks like the thumb I had in my freezer,” Malcolm tells him. He looks at Tim. “At home, not here,” he clarifies.

"Why..."

--Tim shuts his mouth. Nope. On second thought, that's not a good question to ask. He furrows his brows, some wariness to him, but it's not because of Malcolm's... Malcolm-ness.

"What was so special about the thumb? Or the... person it had been attached to?"

“He was part of an international smuggling ring that was being picked off, member by member. I needed to get into his phone so I could figure out who was next,” Malcolm explains, his attention still focused on the thumb on the ground. “…I guess all severed thumbs look pretty alike, right?” he asks Tim dubiously.

You know, that's a good deal. Tim just nods, like this isn't something that would make half of the Gotham night shift squeamish.

"After you see your first dozen," he drawls, "the body parts all start to look the same." It's an agreement, and one he prays doesn't doom them to this dump morphing to a body farm.

Not if the faces are recognizable.

Tim cringes back at the thought. Shakes his head, a newspaper at his feet reading about the arrival of Haly's Circus, the mention of the Flying Graysons barely making the ad spot.

He bites his tongue.

He doesn't think... this is...

"I saw a postcard before. It looked familiar to me but I ignored it. And this... paper is familiar to me to."

It strikes Tim as horribly disrespectful to let the mention of the Flying Graysons rot away in this--

"What do think the point of this is?"

“The point of most things around here is feeding the Entities, right?” Malcolm points out. “Who suggested you come here?”

"None of this is making me feel bad," Tim points out. "I don't know about your thumb but... the papers I see- they bring back good memories."

Which makes him frown. It wasn't that long ago that good memories turned into a nightmare.

The point is: good feelings. can't trust 'em.

That sucks so bad.

He had all but forgotten his list. Tim slips a cheap lighter from one pocket, his handwritten Hit List from the other. "No one told me to," he clarifies. "I heard talk about it on my way out to find you."

--oops?

"So I thought if we're supposed to be investigating, why not? I expected a landfill to be boring, not... hiding objects we recognize."

“The thumb day was a good day,” Malcolm tells him.

The day they got free of Endicott for good.

He looks at Tim curiously. “I didn’t know you had good memories.”

It’s not sarcasm; he’s genuinely surprised.

Two things:

One: Tim can honestly say he has never heard that sentence in his life, and two: "Oh my god."

It brings a laugh forward, a real hearty one, and Tim is far more delighted by the tinge of heat in his face than he is embarrassed by it. Speaking of firsts, huh?

"I'm that bad?"

Yeah, no, don't answer that. Tim eeks out a little noise of protest.

And he flicks the lighter on. Might as well, before some gust of wind ruins his intent.

"I-- no. Yeah, Malcolm, I have good days. I have good memories. My life's... been great."

Like, he can actually believe it. But the laughter has died down and it's kind of taking a lot of energy to keep some lopsided little smile on his face, and it's really not long at all before Tim's smothered back to his... new norm.

He brings the lighter to the paper. One edge of it catches fire.

Tim continues, wind out of his sails, "There's been a lot of crap, but-- my life's been... good. Really."

Malcolm watches him a moment, watches the paper burn a bit, then finds his face again.

“Then why are you so afraid to let anybody love you?”

It's easy to play dumb when he's trying to not singe his fingers. Tim clicks his tongue, one edge of his mouth twitching up again in... what, amusement? Kin to it.

"What do you mean?"

“I mean please spend some more time pretending you don’t know you spend most of your time and energy pushing us away, even though you don’t actually want us to go,” Malcolm tells him.

Playing stupid is Brucie Wayne's thing but Timothy Wayne is a good runner-up. It's wild though, to have to work through the surge of emotions brought on by the imagined slight of Malcolm's words. Like Tim hadn't been tearing himself apart with trying. Trying to hold people together. Trying to insert himself where he doesn't belong.

His eyes find Jeff's name on the burning list, and Meredith's. RenAkechiStrangeWandaJeffMeredith.

And then Tim does end up singeing his fingers, and he drops the last bit of black paper before dutifully stomping it down. Only you can prevent wildfires, says Smoky the bear.

"I don't?" Tim says, even if sounds like a question and if it came out a little too late.

(It's just his luck that stomping out the tiny ember from his list made his heel come in contact with the Gotham Gazette. Tim thinks he can spot a... batarang... just where he's now looking past Malcolm.)

Oh, no.

"I told y... it's different, Malcolm. I'm not used to spending this much time with people. Living with you and Meredith, that's the longest streak of... like, real human interaction that I..."

Said as he all but dives for the batarang with his bare hands because oh no, no nonono--

"I'm not trying to push anyone away!" Because he has to defend himself here. This isn't fair. He has secrets on top of secrets and only a fourth of them are his. And Tim deftly folds that batarang and stuffs it into his pocket and prays that nobody else saw that. "You have no idea what you're talking about. And-- that's on me. I know. I'm sorry. But I can't change it."

Edited 2022-06-01 14:59 (UTC)

"I'm sorry," Malcolm tells him sincerely. "If I don't understand. It just. Seems like you avoid me a lot." He gestures towards Tim's pocket. "Was that a throwing star?"

Stupid Malcolm and stupid guilt and stupid Bat-stalking tendencies of youth:

laid out a few feet away, taunting him, is another newspaper clipping. Front and center is a (blurry, adding to that mystery) shape of the Batman, mid-leap between buildings, cape dramatically wooshing behind him. The letters read The Caped Crusader and Tim knew that red inked scrawl on the margins was his.

Little-him would... would-- rush to jot down his observations. After a night out in the city.

Malcom had asked him something? Maybe? All Tim can remember is guilt, and stupid, and "Uh."

So convincing, he is. Tim sinks to his knees, because clawing up that damning note is a priority and he can reach it faster if he's on all fours and wow this is humiliating and speaking of humiliation:

"Ninja camp. I did ninja camp. It's nothing."

Edited 2022-06-01 23:50 (UTC)

"There's no such thing as ninja camp," Malcolm points out. "I would have signed up so fast." He looks over Tim's shoulder like he's sitting in a coffee shop and not scrabbling through garbage on his hands and knees. "So if it's not avoiding, then what is it?" he asks.

"There is ninja camp," Tim asserts with all the necessary conviction to salvage his shame. "I even dragged Ives into it. Ohmygod I dragged Ives into it."

Ah, memories. Hindsight.

Tim, having successfully... not torn the news to shreds, as he should, and instead neatly folding it and holding it in his loose fist, jabs an accusing finger at Malcolm. There's grime on his hands, and that's gross, but this fine. He... saved some memories.

"It's not my fault New York is slacking."

Ah, avoidance.

"Do you see... other questionable contents of your freezer around here?"

Tim... wants... needs to look around some more.

Malcolm hasn't really been paying much attention.

He glances around. There's a padfolio nearby with the FBI logo on it. He cants his head and steps forward, picking it up.

"It's not from my freezer, but it's from my house." He looks over at Tim. "They can't know in advance. They're pulling this out of our heads," he suggests. A beat. "So you're suggesting that you don't avoid me?"

Tim catches sight of a bug under the trash heap he's kneeling on.

Tim yelps and then Tim's on his feet, somewhat desperately searching for signs of creatures on his clothes. It means he misses the FBI logo on the pad Malcolm picks up, and it means he deviates to the left as he darts to hide another... clearer, printed photo of the Dark Knight. And one of Robin. And Tim only keeps from screeching because he is a professional and because having Malcolm point out the kid in god damn scaly short shorts and pixie boot is

was the everloving hell was wrong with Dick

"Why?"

It's a high, heated sort of rhetorical question. Tim's stuffed photographs down his shirt. This is fine. He thinks about. Bugs. In his shirt. That is not fine.

Focus.

"Why us, is this happening because we attract the magic? Or are we the ones attracted to... cursed... Oh, it's Jason now."

Malcolm watches him as this goes on, almost passive in his observation.

“Are you really afraid of bugs or are you just avoiding the question? …Do you avoid me because I ask questions? You wouldn’t be the first.” Malcolm pauses, then bends and picks up a photograph. The Surgeon, but before his hair was grey, an arm around a ten year old boy that looks into the camera with big, serious eyes.

“Huh.”

He looks at Tim, shows him the picture. “Us because we walked in here. We’re in here and now it’s us.”

There's so much going on that Tim swears he used to be better at keeping his head on straight. He used to be good. But he's diverting energy into holding himself back from bristling, and he's aware of more evidence he needs to get his hands on, more... things from his head that he, Timothy Jackson Wayne, shouldn't know but which have manifested here. It's just that he and Malcolm are alone here that makes Tim stop in his next trek, further into the hills of junk, to round on Malcolm. "You're not all that great at--"

Something about avoidance, Tim was going to say. Something about bugs. Something defensive and moderately aggressive.

He sees the photo. Malcolm's showing this... literal snapshot into his life, all the while Tim is hoarding pictures of young men in green panties and a burly man in a leather suit like some pervert. It's just not right, and Tim wonders what is his life.

All defensive aggression having left him, he stays put and searches the photo and then Malcolm's expression.

There's a lot going on.

"It's a cute picture," Tim settles on. Because it is.

Malcolm's a cute kid and

"Yeah, I can totally see you going to ninja camp."

Nerd.

(Tim wonders, so why hasn't he found the photos of his dad? Of his mom? It's just been... one, distinctively impersonal postcard, and he had chosen to ignore it and)

“This was the last trip my father took me on. Shortly after we got back, I called the police,” he explains. “I only have fragments of memories of that time. He was drugging me routinely by then.”

He looks at Tim.

“I’m not great at what?”

See, he can't just accuse the guy of being an asshole after being confided in. It's a shocking reminder of the lens he ought to be seeing Martin in, and Malcolm's life in full.

(And Ainsley's, he remembers.)

"Nothing," he tries. "Nevermind."

(But it's true: Malcolm can be a real asshole.)

"Do you remember anything about that trip?"

“Tim…” Malcolm starts, but trails off.

This is why he avoids you, Malcolm. You’ve never neverminded a thing in your life.

It’s why a lot of people have avoided you your whole life.

He looks at the picture instead.

“I’ve started to. We stayed in a cabin that belonged to another serial killer he used to work with. There was a woman under a tarp in the back of the station wagon. And they got into an argument, the other killer and my father. Over killing the woman. So he grabbed me and I stabbed him with a pocket knife my father gave me.”

Fine. It's an appeasement and blatantly so, and Tim is one moment away from spreading his arms to show it. Then he feels the scratch of cardstock against his skin and he remembers: secrets under his shirt. Right. "I'm afraid of bugs," he states, and he didn't really notice when he waded shin-deep into the trash, but there's a glaring headline buried of... you know, that time when Batman lost his shit? Became hideously violent? After his son had been murdered?

It doesn't deserve to be in a freaking trash heap. Everything Jason had done and become and put into motion--

God, there's a lot going on. But saying he's afraid of bugs is easier than bringing up the revolting disgust of...

Tim remembers that bus ride home, from the beachfront barbecue so many months ago. He had learned about Martin then. Tim had asked, he thinks, if Martin wouldn't be better off dead. Tim thinks... well. Yeah. He would be. (Holding tight to screenshots and the history of his own life, Tim can't help but feel like a traitor. But. It's not the first time, is it...?)

He's doubled over, digging away at rotten fruits and human messes. It takes him a while to respond when he's in his own head like this. He frowns. Forcefully doesn't think about what that is that's now under his fingernails.

"So you've... always taken to stabbing people first, huh? Can't say I'm surprised."

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shhh I have iconz now

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cw bugs an dick grayson's robin costume smh

Re: cw bugs an dick grayson's robin costume smh

cw dick grayson's robin costume (yes im keeping that one)

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