And me without my coon skin cap.

[the_hit_list]

Who| Tim Drake and OPEN
What| Tim derps about, until someone finds him?
Where| The outskirts of Frontierland, where it meets the river
When| Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Previously existing wounds, zombie.



His stomach is starting to gnaw on his gallbladder, Tim's sure of it. He hasn't eaten since in thirty hours, and he wonders if he shouldn't have stayed in Tomorrowland, where there was food. But, aside from that, he doesn't think that he's in bad shape. Dehydration is his biggest fear; he can feel the headache coming on. Water would trick his stomach into feeling full, too, for awhile. Other than that, a couple of bruises, a few scrapes. Not bad for a death match. It's all from doing things that were borderline inadvisable - mainly climbing the rotting facades of New Orleans Square. The only actual cut he's gotten was from trying to break off a rusted pole early this morning. He had thought one of the feral cats was around, but the clanging protests of the metal must have scared it off. He wasn't hungry enough to eat a cat anyway. Not yet.

The cut's on the back of his hand, red and painful, even when he doesn't try to make a fist. He needs to clean it. Sitting on one of the few intact lengths of fence, Tim is looking towards where he knows the Rivers of America are. After Bruce's warning, he'd given the largest body of water a wide berth, but he needs to drink soon, before delusions set in. He'd rather not die of thirst. If he had more oranges, he wouldn't need to go near the river, but it's a trek back to where the trees are. There might not be any fruit left, anyway. He'll have to brave the water here eventually.

A silver parachute drifts down into his field of vision, and Tim instinctively reaches out to snag it. Dangling from its lines is a small flick-knife. He looks up to see where it might have come from, but sees only sky. This place just gets weirder. "Uh, thanks?"

Pulling the knife free from the parachute, he takes opens it up and inspects the blade. Short, but sharp. It may come in handy for all of the vermin running about. The chute, itself, too is a gift. He can cut it into strips to bandage his hand, once he cleans it. With a sigh and knife in hand, Tim gets up and starts heading toward the river.

Comments

[shambler]

Every time R thinks he's in control and he's got a Plan like a real person, suddenly he's getting things like "negligent trespass" thrown in his face.

R stares at the guy, wondering if he was a lawyer or a writer or something because he's still trying to work out what negligent trespass is supposed to mean. Is he really going to stand here arguing the difference between trespassing and intruding? With the way the words are spilling out of the guy, R's sure he won't win if he starts getting sucked into this. The guy can already speak circles around him - winning an argument with R isn't that hard. Between the big fancy words and the knife, R almost wants to take his chances with the knife. At least that's obvious.

"Same," R groans out warily. (If anything, he's actually slowed down in his approach, confused). "But...still. Go away. This spot's...taken. Find...other hiding...place. Howard has...dibs."

R tries to look like he means it. Put some oomf in his this-is-my-serious-face. Instead he looks like he's not even sure what he's doing here in Disneyland, walking and still Dead and having nitpicky conversations with a Living boy about intent to trespass.

[the_hit_list]

Yes, yes, he really is going to argue semantics, because, sometimes, talking is the best weapon that you have. Right now, it's the clear winner, as he's chatting with the zombie rather than being attacked. Which Tim knows that he would be, if he tried to use the knife.

"Howard?" The zombie knows another tribute's name and is his... friend? Guard dog? Tim wracks his brain to try to remember if Solomon Grundy's ever had anything resembling an ally. It's hard to visualize; he's usually so busy yelling "GRUNDY KILL!" and hurling large objects.

"I met Howard. He's - we're good," Tim hurriedly corrects himself. He does not mention where he met the other teen or how horrible maimed he is.

Bite marks. Human bite marks. Is this who ripped Howard up? How can it be anyone else, Tim notes grimly. He should see how far he can get the zombie to follow him, away from known potential victims. "I gave him my word that I won't hurt him. If this is his place, I'll keep out. Then we're good, too, right?"

[shambler]

That’s enough to make R pause for longer than a few seconds. “…You’re…one of the…cool ones?”

The zombie stands there listing slightly, that thought clicking around on his face as he tries to size up the Tribute and decide if he really is telling the truth. R’s terrible at lying and that means he sucks at telling if someone else is too. How can he tell? Gut feeling? Instinct? They’re on opposite sides of the fence here. R’s mottled mouth moves silently as if he’s trying to work out what he wants to say. That, or he’s let it flop open again like he’s waiting for flies to come in (it’s happened before). Satisfied that he has himself a spanking new sentence, R starts up with the tortured moans.

“Good. Yeah, we’d be…good. Howard is…a friend. But…he has…bad friends too,” R groans it out piece by piece. “I’m…R. You?”

He wishes he could say he isn’t lumped in with the bad friends, that he’s cool too. Making it up is going to take awhile.

Patience is the name of the game. R’s working eye fixes on the other Tribute, gray and unblinking. The guy still has that knife out like he knows how to use it, R’s still standing there trying to look like he means business, and they’re at the closest thing to a standoff a zombie and a human can have.

[the_hit_list]

"Yes. I'm one of the totally cool ones. Just like you," Tim encourages. He's not entirely sure what's going on here, but he'd agree to anything to make the zombie go away, preferably not in a second death. This chat is complicating matters. This is not a mindless killing machine with no concept of good and evil.

But knowledge of accepted morality and social norms does guarantee adherence thereof. Tim remembers the nasty bites covering Howard's face. Maybe R is a killing machine. Maybe not. Tim only knows that, if he attacks R for existing, he's going to end up with infected wounds.

And that's at best.

"I'm Tim," Tim suppresses the gentle, patronizing voice that he almost slips into. This is not a lost toddler. There is a limit to how soft he is willing to appear in hopes of walking away. He's convinced that if he's too accommodating, he'll be a lamb chop. "Listen , R. You can go ask Howard. Ask him if Tim Drake touched him. I didn't. He'll tell you for himself."

Taking a few more steps, he widens the gap between them. "I'll warn all my friends that this place is Howard's."

Actually, he'd warn them to never attempt the river in the dark and to try to trusted backup, but it was close enough to the truth. It's how you finesse the presentation. He doesn't go so far as to offer his own friendship. His parents. They looked like this. Talked about missing him, glad to be together again and rotting...

No. He can feel the facial muscles tic. Don't glower. Don't let him see the revulsion. It's not at him. Not all of it.

[shambler]

Just like you, Tim says.

R feels guilty all over again.

Peering at Tim, trying to read his face and all those tiny twitches in his muscles, see past the pulse of his neck and the flush in his skin, R thinks he believes him. No, he’s sure he believes him. It’s not like he’d be able to pick out any tells if he was lying, but R decides he wants to go on his gut feeling on this one. If he really was one of the uncool ones, he wouldn’t tell him to go back and ask, right? R turns it over, chews on the question a bit in his head. He still comes away thinking that Tim’s telling the truth. R’s shoulder drops down from where it’d raised – he’s still dead but he looks more relaxed in his slouch, his head tilted slightly to the side.

“O…kay,” R finally says, unaware that he’d been staring for several long seconds that go past plain awkward and into creepy territory. “You…do that. I’ll…take your word.”

That wasn’t so bad. Maybe he doesn’t have to kill him. R really rather not. Tim seems like he’d be down with talking it out and that’s fine with him if they can be people about this (and he's willing to sit through groaning). R doesn’t chase Tim as he takes a few steps back, all sneaky-like, R not even noticing the space between them has suddenly grown several more feet in the meantime.

[the_hit_list]

Tim huffs out the breath that he'd been holding as he stood there and took the stare. He thinks that R may have been trying to work Tim out somehow, but whether he wanted to know if Tim was tasty or trustworthy is to deduce. He could read anything in those milky eyes and slack jaw, anything at all. It's better than any mask.

But it takes so much effort for R to growl the words out that Tim thinks the zombie is predisposed to being truthful. Energy better spent forcing dead muscles to walk or something of a similar ilk. Why waste it on lies? Furthermore, why is he wasting it on making friends?

There's something Tim is missing there, something that doesn't fit with the prototypical zombie. The Black Lanterns fed on emotion. Maybe this one misses emotion? It would be hard to feel anything at all without functioning glands to stimulate the brain.

"Okay, good. We're good," he reaffirms, with a cheerful smile. "So... now's when you go back to whatever you were doing, and I go back to where I came from. If we see each other again, we just wave and keep on going, right?"

[shambler]

That’s exactly the words R wanted to hear. “We’re good” are the two magic words. That smile is encouraging.

R buys it. Tim could’ve sold him elbow grease and he would’ve bought that too. It’s the smile that seals the deal, R deciding he can trust Tim and they can resolve this like they’re both people.

“Good. Good’s…good,” R says, nodding and bobbing and his loose eyeball wobbles dangerously for a second. Luckily it stays parked where it is instead of falling out. It’d be one way of ruining the good impression R thinks he’s made. “That’s a…a plan. If you’re…cool…then we’re cool.”

The zombie tries to fix Tim with a stern look, the same one he tried to hit Hoawrd with when he was trying to go “I’m older than you”. Try to impress on him that he takes the cool thing seriously, that…well, he can’t hunt him down and R doesn’t want to, but…yeah. He just wants things to go smoothly for a change, that’s all. It’s not often a zombie and a human can be in the same space and have it end peacefully. Most humans wouldn’t give it a chance. Tim, though. Tim did. It’s one of those unicorn rare things R is struggling to get used to. Satisfied he made his point, R nods again, turns, and starts to slouch away.

[the_hit_list]

Feeling a bit nauseous at the eye jiggling in its socket like that, Tim nods mutely at R. He stands there meekly as he gets hit with a hard look. It isn't true timidity, more astonishment at his good fortune. He just talked a zombie to a draw. He'll take it.

He gives R a wave when the dead young man nods, watching as he starts off. Tim wants to tell him to take care of himself, but R is beyond that. The zombie isn't headed directly to where Tim last saw Howard either, and that's a relief.

He's still unsure about letting a zombie go off to... do zombie things, but Tim promised Bruce that he would stay alive. Anyway, he justifies it with giving R a chance to continue working whatever threads of humanity are making him protect Howard. They give the living second chances, putting them in Arkham for treatment instead of in an electric chair.

But he's wasting time again. With a final glance to the retreating R, Tim takes off towards the garden marking the Arena's entry point at a full run.