thecapitol | Now, you shall deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of Hell.

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Now, you shall deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of Hell.

Who| Tim Drake-Wayne and OPEN
What| The dragon attack on the tributes is shown live at a party. Tim is forced to eventually witness Stephanie Brown's death. He is not happy.
Where| A random Capitol party. Feel free to claim it as something your character threw together, or make up details as you go.
When| Late evening. When the freaking dragon shows up.
Warnings/Notes| Probable extreme violence. The dragon nightmare will be on the viewing screens at the party. Characters may mention the Tributes getting burned, maimed, eaten, etc, as the dragon log itself unfolds. ALSO: If you want to use this thread to have two other characters watch and discuss what's going on, just let me know and I won't bring Tim into it.

Tim had begged to go to this one, as the gold-leafed invitation had proclaimed it to be an exclusive viewing party. He had hoped that there would be enough televisions that he would be able to keep a consistent eye on the games, and he was right. The ballroom - and it was a ballroom, albeit a small one, had televisions everywhere. All of the tvs were the same soft, buttery yellow that draws the eye without detracting from the beauty of the rest of the room. On the buffet tables, tiny screens sit amongst the serving platters and dessert towers, all of which hold skillfully crafted bite-sized portions. Custom-sized televisions were fit periodically into the paneling along the walls. Huge, 70" inch displays hung from the ceiling on chains that had been interwoven with ribbons and roses.

In front of these, there were U-shaped collections of comfortable chairs and loveseats gathered around round tables. This was not a party that has a focus on a large dinner, Tim surmised from the small size of the plates and tables. The party planner meant for each guest to regularly return to the buffet, perhaps meeting new people along the way, and find a different seat when they returned. By Capitol standards, the party was tame, with only quiet ambient music and no performers or dancers. A chance to celebrate on a Friday night without missing any of the late arena action while chatting about the Games, and that was the draw for the addicted attendees. The invitation had promised that all Tributes and Victors were invited, and, from the crowd, it appeared that not many had declined.

Tim had arrived an hour ago, not long after the party began, and had wandered around the room, waving occasionally at a stranger who caught him looking at them. He wanted to get the lay of the place and an estimation of the sort of Citizens who were in attendance. Wealthy was assumed, but he'd met plenty of rich at home who owed everything to the cleverness and connections of forefathers. Eventually, he had drifted to the food and then the tables, armed with two glasses of sparkling wine for the conversation.

When the dragon first broke the surface of the water, a woman screamed in shock and delight. Tim, returning to the viewing area with another glass of wine, didn't understand at first, until he looked directly at the television. A giant, black dragon was rising out of the river, water sluicing off its body. "Steph."

The flute cracked in his hand, and glass shards and wine hit the floor audibly, the room had gone quiet in awe of this show of Gamemaker ingenuity. Tim, who was slightly tipsy even if he had pretended to be worse, started to apologize profusely and was waved away from cleaning up the mess by a silent servant.

He can't stay here and watch this. It's worse than having them murder each other. That was violence that he'd seen before. That dragon would be ripping people apart in short order, Tim was sure of it. He didn't want to see it. He had to leave, now, and go anywhere that didn't have a television. Tim started edging away from everyone, towards the wall, in hopes of a discreet exit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Howard hates it when people do that, the 'I'm a giant in the clouds towering over you' thing. It's about one step shy of 'and I could kick your ass', and he's spent most of his life being scared. Some people develop self-esteem issues from that, and some end up being angry at a world that takes plenty of potshots at the small, weak and vulnerable. Howard oscillates between the two camps and tends to nest in the latter.

So rather than giving Tim the satisfaction of cowering, as Howard imagines Tim wants, he just takes another mouthful of his green cocktail (tastes like applesauce mixed with hairspray, he imagines) and looks back at the screen. Maybe he'll see Wyatt. A little pang runs up his palm when he thinks about Wyatt worrying about him, not knowing if his 'kids' made it back to the Arena safe.

Some dark-haired white guy dumbass is running at the dragon as if he intends to fight it, and while Howard certainly understands a death wish, especially now that he's proactively used suicide to get his way in the Arena, he also knows that there is just about nothing more idiotic than running straight at something that wants to kill you. It's not all like Jurassic Park. There's no guarantee that death will be painless and pretty. Odds are dismemberment will come first, or serious wounding, and plenty of predators like playing with their prey.

Plenty of humans like to play with their prey too. Howard swallows his mouthful of apple crap and tries to swallow the fresh memories with it. He frames it in his head as all the torture he avoided, and not the fear he used a knife to rip himself away from.

"I picked when to waltz on out of the Arena. I think I made out alright." He looks back at Tim, one eyebrow raised as if to really express how unimpressed he is that Tim's tall enough to get on most roller coasters.

He doesn't see Wyatt on the screen. He wants to be snappy, but he's a little drunk, and mostly he just wants to know what's up with his sheriff, and Tim's comment jogs an idea for mutual benefit. "Speaking of friends, who're you looking for? Maybe I saw them."

Tim hates it when people do that to him, as well. He's one of the shortest males that he knows. Even Bart has caught up to him. He has no esteem or anger issues over it, but he knows that you have to work harder to win a debate/argument when you've got the height disadvantage. Size is interpreted as strength. You win the argument if you can kick the other person's ass if you lose. Tim finds that it often works to his advantage, but it's still irritating. That's why he did it.

Understanding dawns on his face. Howard committed suicide in the arena. It's something that had never occurred to Tim, but given the shape that the kid had been in when Tim had seen him, maybe it was preferable to dying slowly of infection or starvation. But even if that were the case, if Tim had given up like that, he doesn't know if he'd ever be able to get back on track. It's a dark step to take.

"I went out fighting," he says with a touch of pride. He did not die like a coward, fleeing a fight and getting run down with by a swordsman when his body couldn't run anymore. He had faced it. That's about the only thing he did right in his last moments of the arena. "I saw one. Barbara. The woman who - "

Got eaten. No, not thinking about it. Not remembering it in all its futuristic high definition glory. Tim takes a gulp of the wine. "The redhead who got thrown over the wall and made it. The other is a blonde; her name's Stephanie."

Edited 2013-05-08 02:53 (UTC)

"So you didn't go out winning." Howard sees no valor in going out fighting, maybe because he's never done it. He's gone out pleading, seizing, crying - he fought to survive after Aunamee left him bloody and slit open, but that was just a matter of trying to keep breathing and stay awake even when his body said no, no, no. During the wounding itself he begged not to die and tried to barter with everything he could think of.

In a way, suicide was a method of fighting, of cheating a system that kept putting him in cages with evil people getting off on cruelty. It should have been traumatic and in a horrible way, it was sort of empowering.

Howard pauses, drinking the last of his cocktail. "Stephanie? Is she like...relentlessly optimistic? Because she came into my camp and I thought she was going to shank me and instead she offered me medicine."

There isn't really any fondness in Howard's voice - on the one hand he hopes she's okay, but on the other the whole encounter left him feeling less comforted than highly disconcerted. Left him feeling as if he was somehow playing the game wrong by playing it smart, as if they came from two different worlds, and he wonders if Stephanie will become as jaded and scared as Howard is regularly.

Relentlessly optimistic? No, not always. Not with Tim, anyway. But when he thinks about Steph as a whole, maybe. Tim had already encountered Howard, injured, days before he'd stumbled on her when she arrived. If she had found the kid as well, it's easy to figure out what her approach would have been. To help. She's told him before that she's no longer in the hero business for selfish reasons. 'I'm in it for all of them.' In the Arena, that's relentless optimism. Thinking that you can help others survive a game with a 96% failure rate.

"That sounds like her. She won't shank you," Tim says this with authority. Despite the massive chip on Howard's shoulder, he wants to be trusted. He wants to get agreements to not attack in place with as many people as possible before the next Arena, and those treaties have to cover Stephanie as well. Probably Bruce, too, although Tim thinks Bruce can handle any Tribute they drag in, despite his death. There were extenuating circumstances to that, and maybe he shouldn't include Bruce in this. Tim has realized that Bruce's chances for survival increase exponentially if he doesn't have to keep an eye on Robin. A plan falls into place in his mind: he's going to have to stay away from Bruce Wayne in the next round.

Which puts more urgency on finding more allies, because Steph has a chance to win this and be free of it. "I'm not going to shank any-"

Tim catches himself here. Don't say anyone, that's borderline lying. It might not be something you're planning on doing, but you've done it. Howard may know. "Any kid I see. If you don't attack me, we don't have to have any problems. We don't have to talk to live."

Which is about the closest he's going to come to apologizing for snapping at him in the arena.

Howard catches that pause. He doesn't comment on it out loud. He'd like to pretend he has the moral high ground here, but he's fully aware that he doesn't; after all, he has four kills under his belt, even if two of them were out of mercy and one was out of self defense.

And he hears that, and he hears the apology, veiled as it is. "Well, I'm not going to attack you. You haven't given me a good reason to."

That's as close as he'll get to apologizing too. He looks back at the screens, at the great beast shooting fire and rampaging through the place he used to get churros in, where he used to clutch his mom's hand as she told him not to get lost with the crowd.

That's the weird thing about Disneyland as an Arena, he thinks - not that it's deadly, but that it's empty.

"I'm looking for Wyatt Earp. Sheriff, got a big mustache, maybe late twenties or early thirties. He took care of me after I got really mauled up, nursed me back to health."

Daubed antiseptic on his wounds. Pulled glass from his hand. Stood watch as he slept and reassured him when he jolted awake from nightmares. And went looking for him when he was gone too long. It's strange, to be cared for, and Howard doesn't know what to do with that feeling. Part of him wants to reject it, to denounce it as a trick to lure him in and take advantage of him, as it has been too many times in the past. But the part of him that is still a scared kid wants to believe it's real, that he has someone in his corner.

He rubs his fingers over the rim of his now-empty cocktail glass. There's sugar on the edge. He licks it off.

Nodding at the accord - Tim's not going to trust it with his life, but now that he's seeing Howard at his 'best', he can trust it pretty damn far. The kid wouldn't win too many fights. It was no wonder why he got so pissed off at cliques and labels. That skinny frame practically begged to be shoved in a locker.

"I think I've seen him on the broadcast a few times," Tim said. He'd at least seen one big mustache, and facial hair didn't seem to be common in the Arena. Tim freezes for a moment, reaches up and touches his cheek. How did he miss that? How the hell did they do that? Some form of electrolysis, before he ever woke up the first time? Chemicals? He hasn't been given any pills, but, even in the arena, he was essentially eating and drinking what they had supplied.

What else were they fucking with?

He forces himself to let this line of inquiry go. It's not going to be productive; it's going to freak him out. It's pointless. He can't take samples of everything and analyze them - there's no Batcave, primary or one of the secondaries, there's no safehouse, there's nothing but reluctant, disgusted acceptance for now.

Keep the conversation going. An older man is helping out the younger Tributes. This is good. "So, his name is Wyatt? I was wondering who'd given you first aid. You were pretty messed up. If you can't find him in the next one, I've stitched people up before."

"Yeah, the viewers seem to like him, even though he doesn't do much killing. I guess it's because he makes it to the end each time." Howard finishes licking the sugar and tosses the plastic cup aside, carelessly adding to the litter on the floor. Avoxes will clean it. Howard's already getting used to the Capitol lifestyle. Maybe Tim will eventually too, although Howard suspects Tim is stubborn on that issue.

"What, you don't believe I can first aid myself up? Arena five, I went to someone for first aid and they butchered me like a dead pig."

There's a commercial break for the greatest hits of this Arena. Howard does look away this time; there's a clip of Eponine biting his face off under the Imperius curse thrown in with a pack of zombies eating Beck alive and Katurian holding a knife to his own throat.

Maybe he should be grateful that his now-girlfriend trying to kill him while mind-controlled has bought them another chance at the next Arena, but he can't seem to muster up any enthusiasm for the idea. A bony hand reaches up to touch the cheek where a hole once was, before he turns his expression from sad and distracted to a forced grin.

"Would you believe that's the first time I made out with my girlfriend?" Bragging about being in a relationship is one of the few status symbols he feels like he has, and he tries to show it off as much as he can.

He watches the cup as it hits the floor, almost goes to pick it up but leaves it there. He's already been seen cleaning up a mess once this evening, he isn't about to do it again. It's not his cup, and he isn't one of the hordes of servants. He's a Tribute, and, even if that title has no power whatsoever, it makes him something of a D-list celebrity. Howard should have more care, though. They are guests here, and, if you aren't prepared to show some manners, you might as well not show up.

"First aid is important. I'm not about to butcher you. I wouldn't have lasted as long as I did without Steph there to set my arm - there's some first aid that can't be done solo. I'm trying to tell you that we're safe to go. The Games are as much about survival as they are about killing," Tim noted. A mindless killing machine would not last long in the Arena, or anywhere. It was why Cadmus had implanted Kon with not only fighting knowledge, but everyday knowledge and history. "If he keeps lasting to the end, it's not a shock that he's popular."

The clip of Howard is sickening. Tim has a hard time watching it, but he does. It's not just for the show of looking interested for the citizens at the party, although that's why he hides the disgust. It's about respect for the Tributes on the screen, about not wanting to look away and pretend that they aren't all dying for someone's amusement. He is going to stop it, somehow. "I don't know if that's the best first kiss ever."

Because it's not a kiss, it's her ripping flesh off his skull, and, yeah, Tim hasn't had the healthiest relationships in the world. Kissing was never the problem - or if it was, it was because he was making out with girls that were trouble. Not like that. "Tell me she doesn't do that all the time."

Edited 2013-05-12 00:33 (UTC)

"I talked to a doctor here. He said most first aid out in the field won't even help, because it's all about stabilizing a patient until they get out to the hospital. Spoilers, ain't no hospitals in the Arena." On the screen, Aunamee runs a man with shaggy blonde hair through with a spear. Howard looks nauseated for a moment, swallows, drags a breath through his teeth that he savors on the roof of his mouth. "I guess there are plenty of people who'll provide emergency surgery, though..."

Howard knows about survival. He knows more than a full-grown man, much less a teenager, ever should. So he makes a mental note to watch Tim closer; he may pick something up, and they have the same priorities.

Howard laughs because he wants it to be funny. He's grateful Tim hasn't shot down his weak attempt at humor and has, instead, added to it, because that means he can buoy himself up out of the dark and regret for a bit with the idea that someday, someday, this is going to make a good story. This is going to be an amazing memoir. And he's going to be rich and live on a private island with an orchard and an electric fence and mechanized turrets to keep everyone else away.

It's possible he's spent a lot of time dreaming about the future. He doubts he'll survive long enough to ever even see himself owning a home, so why not fantasize about it as a lavish mansion? He's never going to live long enough to be disappointed.

And he doesn't say that he actually hasn't made out with Eponine yet, so he wouldn't know how she normally kisses. "Nah, she's more of a snuggler."

"The doc's right. It's about stabilizing someone until more critical care can be given, but, if the injury isn't life-threatening, just debilitating, it can keep you going. A well-wrapped wound could be the difference between a cut and a staph infection. You don't have to take my help - you dying would only increase my odds of living. It's an offer. The only catch - since I know that you know that there's a catch - is that the offer is rescinded the second that you attack me or Steph."

Or Bruce. Or anyone, but it goes unsaid. He's playing by the Capitol's rules, outwardly. There's a line that Tim is drawing, between suicides, kills done out of self-preservation, and mercy killings and coldblooded attacks. He can't excuse the latter. The former options... oh, they bother him. They twist his stomach. He understands them though, and there's the small comfort in the knowledge that these dead - that man who was just ripped open by the spear - will return whole.

The laughter draws Tim's eyes back to Howard, and there is the faintest touch of sadness to them. This is what he doesn't want to become - he doesn't want to go mad. There's nothing funny about Howard's joke, but Tim manages a quiet chuckle. "Snuggling's preferable. What's her name? If I bump into her in the Arena, I want to let her know that I know you, so she won't eat my face. Using names can diffuse a bad situation. It makes people view you as a person."

It won't work on everyone though, and this girl attacked her own boyfriend, which is why Tim hasn't explicitly said that he won't hurt her. If she comes after him like that, he will do what he has to come away in one piece. There's not much to her, even by Arena standards. If Howard knew her from before, maybe she's naturally just as starved as he is. Dislocate the shoulder or take out the knee. She shouldn't be hard to outrun, after that. It wouldn't be hard to knock her out, if it came down to it, but Tim didn't want to leave anyone unconscious to become an easy kill.

"You talk a lot. You air a lot of plans out loud." Howard meets Tim's eyes, and his own expression is scrutinizing, smarter than the rheumy expression his sicknesses gave him back in the Arena, smarter than the antisocial slacker attitude usually conveys. He's looking for a trap, looking for the lies he can tell are there but can't pin down.

But Tim's act, if it is an act, is impenetrable, and Howard chooses instead to focus on what more immediately concerns him. He looks back up at the screen, a worried expression crawling back into those eyes as he wonders whether Tim's going to use this to make snap judgments about one of the weakest Tributes. And the one Howard cares about most, naturally. People who like to control are pulled to need, and Eponine needs a friend, even if she's much stronger than her poor scores and short runs in the Arena indicate.

"Eponine. She isn't normally like that. Someone made her do it, forced her. Mind control or something. Me and her..." How can he describe their kinship? He's not a street rat like her, even though he's close. She's not a refugee like him. "We aren't the poster kids for polite society, but we aren't animals. Not like that."

He believes it more about her than he does about himself.

"The Arena before this, she...she k-killed herself. To make sure I might live a little longer. I didn't ask her to, she did it while I was sleeping." It's harder to talk about this than he expects. He remembers finding her body in the snow, head at that Escher angle, lips the gray-blue of frozen mud puddles. "She didn't want to play it their way."

He doesn't know how else to advocate for her.

"Do I?" Tim's watching the screen as he says this, not looking at Howard. The commentators speak with a fervent glee that reminds him of news reporters on Al-Jazeera. The media are vultures everywhere, it seems. He hates them for it, even if he's sure that the media is completely controlled by the government; they're still playing their part and feeding into this insanity. "I think I'm more of an introvert."

Howard is incredibly informative, and Tim doesn't even think he realizes how much. He might be lying to make himself feel better about the attack, but it's such an incredibly vicious move that the girl was either legitimately crazy or being pushed to it by something. There are better ways to kill someone, and it's not hard for Tim to believe that there's another meta amongst the Tributes, one that specializes in mind control. That's now high on the priority list: identify the Tribute and avoid.

"Who was controlling her?" Tim keeps the curiosity from his voice as much as he can, concerned that asking too much about it will make Howard shut down the conversation. He wants to move on to something else, but there's nowhere safe to take the topic. Eponine's suicide doesn't lend much stability to the picture that's forming in Tim's mind of her mental state, but he knows that Howard, too, has killed himself in an Arena. He considers the other boy to be abused, but largely stable. Not someone that you want to provoke, though, because mental distress can build and erupt unpredictably.

He can't comment on her suicide with more than a tight nod. Tim doesn't want to play it their way either, but there has to be a better option. One that leads to survival. Instead, she picked the route that probably made things worse - the commentators are always mixing in little personality tidbits, and killing yourself for someone you love has serious traction. "Eponine'll be OK, you know. She sounds tough."

Putting a hand on Howard's shoulder, Tim lowers his voice so that it won't carry further than the two of them. "Her and Steph will be back here soon, one way or another. I don't think either of you are animals. I don't mind duck hunting. I mind this, you understand?"

"Draco Malfoy. Blonde guy. Think he's dead for good now." Howard saw him die on the screen this Arena and should have felt something, like he did in the replays of people he likes dying, in the replays of his own murder of Draco back in the ice Arena. He should have felt guilt, maybe. Or glee. But instead the most he could feel was some intellectual satisfaction, like a description of an image with no illustration. I am glad he is dead because I hate him and he deserves it. All words, no bile.

The screen shows two people Howard doesn't know again, though the ticker at the bottom of the screen tells him that they're named Albert Wesker and Maximus Something-Obscured-By-Fancy-Hat. His gaze again goes glassy, the disinterest of being able to detach from the people of the screen now that he doesn't know them seeping back into his face.

He wrenches away from Tim's hand, suddenly all angles and static shocks, the tipsiness being cast aside in favor of the agitated, startled aura of a buck at the sound of a cocking trigger. It takes a second for him to relax, and he realizes that he's shored up all his breath in his lungs, barricaded it in for a few moments. He exhales. "Whoa, hey, don't. Don't. Don't touch."

It doesn't matter that his brain can figure out that Tim was just trying to be reassuring and private; Howard's reflexes are still in the Arena. It always feels like that, as if he's only partially extracted from the Games. Parts of him are clearly here in the Capitol but pieces of his brain are still there fighting for his life.

Possibly, someday, literally pieces of his brain. That's an upsetting thought.

"Sorry, I just. I'm jumpy, okay? And you're taller than me."

Good. He doesn't want to have to face down a mind-controlling metahuman in a situation where only one person comes out alive, and he's surrounded by people that he knows and loves. Tim does not want to fight Bruce or Steph. But, before it can occur to him that he should be worried about why this Draco Malfoy is permanently dead, Howard is wrenching away from his hand.

Tim immediately holds both hands up in front of him, palms out, and gently slides them down a few inches. "Okay, easy. I didn't mean to freak you out. I won't touch you again. I'm sorry."

He puts his hands down and lets himself much looser stance, a typical teenage slouch. He's deliberately not standing as straight, not holding his shoulders back. Tim doesn't want to look threatening. "I don't know how many ways I can say that I'm not going to hurt you, Howard."

If he wanted to, he would have done it in the Arena. Even here, in a room teeming with people, Tim's sure he could have Howard unconscious on the ground before anyone could stop him, but he doesn't point that out as a comfort. It would just make it worse, because Howard has no reason to believe that he's one of the good guys.

Still, Tim's having a hard time reconciling so strong a reaction with the idea that Howard snuggles his girlfriend. It was just one hand on his shoulder. Was he more of a threat because he was male? Why is he even worried about this, he's been deliberately setting himself up to be seen as someone willing to play the game, to an extent, and showing off in the training room most afternoons. He wanted Tributes to be nervous enough to stay away from him - but he'd always intended that to only be ones that posed a potential threat. "I'm scary cause I'm... taller. You know that I'm not that tall for seventeen, right?"

"Yeah, well, watch the tapes. I say it a lot, but a lot of people say those things before they get all stabby." Howard tends to shrink into himself, elbows coming in to his side, neck tensing down to his shoulders. Someone as hunched and unobtrusive as he's trying to be walks by with a platter of drinks and he takes another, quietly mumbling thanks to the Avox.

He wonders what the point of alcohol is. It seemed to calm people down where he was from, or drown their sorrows for a while, but all it seems to be doing for him is making the room shift uncomfortably and making him feel like his stomach's filled with something hot an squirming. Like there's something leaden and soggy right behind his eyes. He's just drinking more because it gives him something to do with his hands and something to do with his mouth besides run it off at Tim.

"Fine, but you've still got more than half a foot on me. I swear I would have had a growth spurt if I ate my wheaties when I was thirteen."

He doesn't look at Tim as he calms himself down with deep breaths he tries to keep as discreet as possible. The alcohol in his new glass makes little elliptical orbits under the rim as his hand shakes slightly. He finally looks back up at Tim when he feels his throat relax, though the muscles around his eyes tense. "Look, why do you care if I think you're going to hurt me anyway? We already brokered a deal about not gunning for each other in the Arena. Are you looking for a pet project or something?"

Edited 2013-05-18 05:40 (UTC)

Tim flinches at this, takes it completely personally, and it hurts. It hits him right on the guilt that he's been trying so hard to keep down under a heavy layer of shiny veneer, and the polish is cracking. "Okay, fine. I got 'stabby' - is that what you want? An explanation for why it happened and why it won't happen to you? A guy who had a significant height and weight advantage before we started starving to death, which means that he was in better shape after weeks of poor nutrition, and who had already attacked me came at me again, this time with a cutlass. He was the aggressor, and his weapon had a longer reach so, yes, I fought with what I had and what I had was not what I'm used to working with."

It was a mistake, and he didn't want to make it again. Tim can't say that, though. God only knows who's listening to them. Tim can feel the heat in his face - it's not a blush. It's anger and maybe shame, and the most he can hope for is to be read as angry and proud, so that's what he strives for, jutting his chin out a little. He can be proud. He's better than this place, and that's reason enough.

"I care because I don't like being misjudged. I care because caring about people that don't know me and couldn't give a rat's ass if I died tomorrow is what I've been doing since I was twelve, and I'm damn good at it. I don't need a pet project. I've got three - no, four. I could give you examples, tell you about how I've set up a chain of community centers with built-in shelters for teens, but you're so freaking negative I'm sure you'll tell me that I'm dealing with white man's guilt, or maybe it's because I've never been poor, or maybe because I'm taller than you. And while you're busy being insulted because someone offered help, you're going to miss that nice people don't need sinister ulterior motives."

Tim took a deep breath himself, rubbing at his eyes. "There. Now I really am talking too much. Happy?"

Howard cringes back and squints, as if the torrent of words is a gust of wind that smacks him in the face and stings his eyes. He holds the neck of the cocktail glass in both hands and crunches back against the wall and lets Tim get it out of his system. He's used to being yelled at, but he makes sure he's just far enough back that he'll be able to see Tim move first if Tim decides to reach out and smack him.

He does feel guilty. He didn't mean to bring up memories of Tim's stay in the Arena; in fact, he didn't even know that Tim killed a man, and with that explanation he can hardly fault him. He killed Draco over less, didn't he? It's enough to bring that sinking sensation into his chest, like that moment in an elevator when it hangs but doesn't quite click into place and open the doors.

But he still doesn't give Tim a moment to breathe at the end. He hits right back.

"Why do you care so much whether or not I trust you? Why is it so fucking important that I, that I what, that I validate you because you got some guilt complex or something and need people to fawn over how you're such a nice person that they just trust you naturally, like you're Sleeping fucking Beauty with the birdies and the mousies coming and doing your housework with you?"

His voice starts to crack, creaking like a doorhinge being yanked back and forth.

"Why do you care that I think you're nice and trustworthy when I don't do this trusting strangers thing? Why do you care if any single person is 'misjudging' you? Why are you taking that so damn personally? I didn't single you out and say oh, you know what, I'm going to distrust Tim Drake today because he's got shifty eyes. I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit about your community centers or what you had for breakfast. Jesus. Why do you care?"

He downs the entire cocktail at once, tosses the cup aside, runs his hands over his face, and then gestures a pointed finger at Tim. "And don't play the race card on me."

Edited 2013-05-19 23:56 (UTC)

"I don't need anyone to validate me. I've managed with no one to pat me on the back, and I don't even have that particular problem here, because I'm not without friends from home. I don't want any fluffballs helping me out - can we please leave the Sleeping Beauty references out of this?" Tim swung an arm towards the nearest screen. "Because if you haven't noticed, Maleficent is waging war on the Tributes."

Tributes like Stephanie, who was hopefully holed up in an airtight bunker somewhere, so the smell of flesh and fear didn't get picked up by a breeze headed right to the beast's nostrils.

Don't think about it. Stay here, stay in the moment of an argument with Howard. Don't waver and don't lose, a verbal fight is still a fight. Look strong for the crowd.

"I care because you don't do the trust thing and because I'm used to scared kids knowing that I'm one of the good guys and I'm safe. You're turning this into a challenge for me, and I've been told all my life to rise to them. I told you before that you have no idea what my life is like. Maybe I have a guilt complex, but I don't think that's the right way to put it. If I have one, it's because I'm smart enough to recognize that the world is rife with problems and the average person doesn't give two shits about it until it affects them personally. Well, I'm not average. I cared before the world shat all over my life, and I didn't give up on it then either. And my eyes are not shifty."

He broke off here, needing to catch his breath after that stream of conscious borderline tirade. When did he start monologuing? Tim wasn't sure why he'd zeroed in on Howard like this, but he thought that, maybe, this was why Batman didn't permanently shut down Huntress. Why he'd taken on Jason Todd after Jason had stolen the tires off the batmobile. Because when you see a damaged person that has a measure of decency and a nose for survival, it's hard to walk away from. Tim wanted to somehow improve this kid, fix his outlook on life or something so that when he and Bruce succeeded on getting them all sent home, Howard would be able to take crappy life that made him bitter starved and kick it in the balls.

"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for - you're right."

It feels good to yell. It feels good to actually release aggression and hurt in a way that doesn't look weak, that doesn't invite injury. A few people in the crowd turn their necks, but not their bodies, to see what's going on, and one person shushes them, but for the most part the audience is fixated on the carnage going on on the screen. Good. Howard's felt scrutinized and picked apart for weeks and even the slightest break from that is welcome.

He starts back in on Tim so quickly after Tim's apology that it doesn't even register at first.

"Oh, good for you, I'm just another scared kid to add to your Boy Scout sash and you're such a hero! What do you want, a kiss on the foot and a curtsy? The keys to the city? A medal and a nice pretty statue of you being such a nice person who's better than all us mortals? Because that's what this is about, you want something from me. If it's not to fuck me over later, it's so I can massage your ego and reassure you that the world actually gives a damn that you're working so, so very hard and that being a good guy is such a hard gig."

He looks about to spit. He can feel the alcohol burning in his throat.

"I don't have to care if you're not average because, for your information, I did a pretty good job looking after myself without you in conditions way worse than what they throw at us here. And I didn't get that way by tripping over myself to kiss ass on the first person who told me they were a good guy just so they could walk away later or worse, so maybe you can take your good intentions and throw them at someone who actually cares..."

He trails off a bit as the apology part of Tim's rambling sinks in, quite a bit too late. His voice gets quiet, almost meek again. "Oh. Right. So don't do it again."

Edited 2013-05-20 00:53 (UTC)

"We only get monuments when we're dead," Tim says quietly. There's so much that he can say, but he's worried if he says too much - he'll actually start screaming too much. Like how no one outside of the hero community is ever allowed to see them or how there's no honor in that display case - it's just a reminder of failure.

It really was hard doing it, and he shouldn't expect it to be appreciated. Howard could be from anywhere - so Tim can't expect him to know about how kids like them have died to save the planet. Hearing it all get twisted around so that they're not protecting anything, they're seeking attention and praise, makes him want to slug the kid. A year or two ago, he might have done just that, but he knows that there's no point. He can't force someone to understand that his default is the right thing, not when he's not even sure of it himself anymore.

"I'm not going to walk away. I don't think we should turn our Arena packs into a conglomerate, though. It would be too many people. We'd be a target." He's calmer now, much more direct. He knows of two sets of allies - Bruce and himself, Rapunzel and Some - that were forced apart by the fireworks display. A group of at least four, with a possible fifth checking in on them, would be far too tempting. "Do you always 180 like that? You left out how I have a either a martyr complex or a masochistic streak."

"You 180'd first," he says, looking a bit sullen. He doesn't really know what to say about the monuments. His first impulse is to say something snarky about how at least heroes get monuments, when everyone he knows is lucky if there's a mound in the ground where they were buried. Mass graves in the town square. Corpses lost in the ocean and in the woods.

There's a kid in a shallow ditch somewhere, some unnamed little boy with tousled blonde hair and blood all over his face, with snot dried around his nostrils and a tooth missing, maybe six or seven years old. With some of Howard's blood on his wrists, where Howard cupped his hands over his broken nose and then dragged the corpse. Murdered. Howard buried him because sometimes you have to do these things for your friends.

And he doesn't know what to say to Tim's assertion that he won't walk away. There's no use arguing it. Howard just feels that sometime, down the line - either when times get hard or when unsavory elements of Howard's past come up - Howard will be proven right. No one comes back for him.

Except Wyatt, and Howard doesn't know what to make of that. He glances up at the screen again, but it's just showing Barbara Gordon.

"More people attracts attention. I'm sticking with Wyatt and Eponine, though. I'm not letting Epsy Daisy die again on my watch."

"It was more of a 90 degree turn," Tim said with a half smile. A 180 would mean dropping any semblance of an act and just being Tim - although he's been showing so many varying degrees of himself that he's really not sure what direction that would be anymore.

The corner of his mouth drops back down. The smile had been a little forced anyway; he had been trying to diffuse the situation and, maybe, distract himself from thinking about hero memorials. Just because they came back didn't do anything to assuage the pain of the memories. There's a few years of his life where it's better not to linger on the personal relationships.

But here, he's going to have to get over that. His personal relationships are probably all going to have death feature. He's going to have to work with it, in a way that somehow doesn't make him numb to it. He doesn't want to accept senseless death, but Tim would hate himself if he stopped being affected by it.

And Howard's been through multiple arenas, and he's still affected by it. That's something - it really is a difficult thing to hold onto your humanity in times of extreme violence. But here he is, swearing that he won't let his girlfriend die again. Good for him.

"Okay. Wyatt's the lawman, right?" Tim knows damn well that Howard said that Wyatt was a sheriff, but he also knows that it irritates people when they find out that you've got a mind like a steel trap. "I'm hoping Steph wins, but, if not, I'll be sticking with her and Bruce."

"I'll keep my eye out for Steph. She'll be on my good list." Which isn't necessary the same as an ally list, but Howard figures Tim might be honest in not wanting to kill more than necessary, in feeling guilt about Ian Chesterton, and that means something for a vote of confidence in Steph, too. She found Howard when he was helpless and didn't try to make it worse. That's worth something.

Maybe it's true that he and Tim can have something of a truce, for all the yelling they've done at each other tonight. Howard realizes he's said some pretty nasty things and not once did Tim make a sudden move, raise a hand, lurch forward - no anger management issues. Tim's not looking for an excuse to hurt someone.

"Yeah. Wyatt's the sheriff, but I mean, he's cool. Not like some assholes with a badge." But Howard feels the guilt churning up in his stomach, because the truth is, he doesn't want Wyatt to win. He doesn't want to think that it'll be him and Eponine alone in the Arena after this, maybe with R trying to tame his instinct to devour them both.

Wyatt's the closest thing he has to as protector, someone he can be scared around and not feel like he's letting them down. Wyatt's seen him vulnerable, wounded and lost in nightmares and panicky. He's been quiet and patient where Eponine chastised him, where R didn't know how to respond.

One hand trembles. Howard covers his mouth with the tips of his fingers and hiccups. "Think I drank too much. Sorry." He shoves past Tim and disappears around a corner.

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Now, you shall deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of Hell.

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