7897/The House that Drake Built

The House that Drake Built
Date of Scene:	20 September 2021
Location:	Gotham City, Bristol: Drake Estate
Synopsis:	A reckoning with the House that Drake Built.
Cast of Characters:	Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake

---

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Maybe Tim never expected Lonnie to go up to his childhood home. Not unprompted, at least. And absolutely not without SAYING anything.

One wonders how Tim even would find out, since Lonnie isn't attached to his hip and again, didn't even tell him - but right now Lonnie's pulled his motorcycle gate up to the primary gate on the estate, gone over the wall, now covered with blackberry vines - quite a feat - and he's currently wandering the grounds, exploring... taking things in. Perhaps looking to learn something.

Tim Drake has posed:
    How does Tim know? Perimeter alarms. Hidden cameras with motion detectors. He still owns the land his family house once sat on, even though it's now only a burned-out husk. The notification gets sent to his phone and he's about to swipe it away -- out that far, it's usually just wild animals passing through -- but the figure in the image pulled from the feed is human, even at a quick glance.

    Then he looks more closely.

    It takes some time for Tim to make it out there, but eventually the crunch of tires over the gravel drive sounds, and a car door opens then slams shut as the engine cuts off. Naturally, he doesn't have to go over the wall, because he has the keys to the chains on the gates, though Tim doesn't make it far past them. Instead, he tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket and stares up at the house's remains, further ahead, expression blank.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie spotted the alarms, and didn't bother to circumvent them - of course Tim has the place under constant watch - that combination of loathing and loyalty is endemic to his personality. Instead he just keeps looking around, and he finds himself walking through the house - he looks around the kitchen, and takes an age-stained pan hanging on a hook off a wall where it was forgotten. He turns it over in his hands and lets his thought process sort out about it.
    It's an Italian granite-coated pan that costs hundreds of dollars. An absolute extravagance. And yet - were the Drakes the kind of people who cooked their own food? Who gathered together as a happy family for dinner? He finds himself envying the idea, so he hangs it back up and moves on.

Tim Drake has posed:
    There's not enough left of the house to paint a true picture of what it must have been like, growing up here. Remnants remain, sure, like that pan, several pieces of furniture that were damaged in the fire and left to rot in place, bits and pieces of a life. And the blood stain on the marble kitchen tiles that has gone dark with age, where Jack Drake took his last breath.

    Tim has seen it before, once, in person. He's not particularly looking forward to doing so again, but he trudges up the drive towards the half-burned carcass of his family home, head down.

    The front door is locked, even though there are entire swaths of exterior walls missing for anyone to pass through. Tim unlocks it and pushes it open, nose wrinkling only faintly at the smell. Mildew and decay, smoke and the lingering smell of things that have gone up in flames. He hesitates on the threshold for a moment or two before he steps over it, and immediately glass crunches under his feet. As he lifts up his foot, he stares down at the pieces. Part of a picture frame, he thinks, though there's nothing left of whatever photo it might have shown. He sighs, shoulders bunching up, and heads inside.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie has found Tim's old room - despite the precariousness of the place, he made his way up there. The windows are gone, and there's an ivy vine creeping in the window. He looks at the old oak desk, now water-stained and ruined with neglect, and then he leans down and casually opens a drawer - before he pauses and tilts his head.
    He reaches inside, and there's a click - "Always secrets, Timmy." He says, as he opens it... and takes out Pokemon cards, in plastic sleeves. Amazingly intact.
    All of them are *absurdly* rare. He finds himself looking at a 1st edition Holographic Lugia and the young man who doesn't believe in money says to himself, "Jesus Tim, this card's worth $145,000."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "It wasn't that expensive when I bought it," Tim points out from where he's standing in the doorway, though he's not looking over at Lonnie. His attention's been drawn by the peeling posters on the wall. Typical nerd stuff. Video games, cartoons, a couple for concerts he probably never went to. It's a little bit like his room was frozen when he was a kid, never quite lived in past that.

    The bed frame is still in place, though the mattress is gone. Underneath is mostly leaf litter, though as he approaches it, Tim obviously spots something. He crouches down and reaches a careful hand beneath, to pull something free.

    It's a box. Though when Tim pries the lid open, it's nothing scandalous inside: just bits and pieces of some sort of half-assembled model. "Huh," he says, quietly. "My dad bought this for me. We were going to work on it together. After my mom died, though, his injuries meant he couldn't sit up for long stretches at a time, so it never happened."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "No, but you obviously knew it was going to be." Lonnie fans through the rest of the cards and then sets them down on the desk.
    "You're sitting on this land, on this house and not doing anything with it." Lonnie crosses his arms. "You avoid this place like the plague - I'm guessing a trust looks after the taxes?" He looks around and says, "...This house. You know, for several years my mom and I lived in a studio apartment? I didn't even have my own room. I could hear her crying at night when she thought I was asleep."
    He glances around and then finally says, "I'm sorry. You just - don't part with secrets easy, and I wanted to get to know you a little better."

Tim Drake has posed:
    For a few moments, Tim procrastinates on giving Lonnie any kind of reply by shuffling through the metal pieces inside the box. Only some of them have been snapped free from the sheets they came in; it's probably some sort of lunar lander model or the like. Then he puts the lid back on the box and sets it on the empty bed frame, as he stands back up.

    "Believe it or not, I just wanted to collect the whole set so I could have them all, not because I was thinking about their future worth," is what he decides on saying. "I was a tiny nerd as an eight year old but I was still, you know, eight years old." Tim walks over to what was once his window, overlooking the side of the estate. Somewhere out there past what the naked eye can see is Wayne Manor.

    He doesn't look back, so the way he tucks his arms against his body is an unconscious mirroring of Lonnie's own posture. He's silent for a long while, after. "Both my parents were murdered in this house, Lonnie. But you know that. Everyone in Gotham does, it was all over the news. There aren't any secrets here for you to find."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "No, they're all over. They're in the wood - on the desk where you did your schoolwork, on the garden trails where you played hide-and-seek, I'm guessing with your father, and where I'm sure you rode your bike." Lonnie turns away. "It's not the murder you keep secret, it's the person you were before that day. That's why you keep this place even though it hurts you so much - because if you let it go, who are you?"
    Lonnie runs his hand down his chin, and opens his wallet, before he takes out a photo of a seven year-old boy with a big puff of curly hair and freckles, and a woman with a classic irish beauty - red hair, green eyes, but sharpened by the self-neglect of addiction. "This was in one of the periods where she was trying to get clean, before she finally managed it. She saved up a little money and we had a day just for the two of us. Ice cream, a ferry ride, the Gotham Zoo. I was so happy... I felt rich. I remember asking her why we couldn't do those things all the time, and she told me 'Nobody can do these things all the time' and I believed her." He looks around, and says, "If you hate this place so much, sell it. Sell the land and use the money to seed some sort of charitable endeavor in your parents' name. It's just dirt. It's just wood and stone."
    He runs his hand over his mouth. "Don't let this place go on hurting you."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Outside, a warm late-summer breeze kicks up, and it comes in through the open remains of the window to ruffle the moth-eaten curtains, and Tim's hair. "You overestimate how much time he and I spent together. My father was a busy man, and I was a responsible kid, so my parents were fine leaving me on my own." He reaches out to press the corner of a poster down from where it's started to lift, though the tack that must have held it in place is long gone.

    Tim steps over dead leaves that crunch beneath his shoes, so that he can stand at Lonnie's side. He reaches for the picture, though instead of taking it he just wraps his hand around Lonnie's wrist to hold it still. "Cute kid," he says, and flashes a smile that doesn't come anywhere close to his eyes. He withdraws back into himself after.

    He doesn't give Lonnie any kind of reply about selling the estate. Instead, he taps the binder of cards. "Sell them. Give the money to the soup kitchen you volunteer at and whatever other charities you want the money to go to," he tells Lonnie. And then he tucks his hands back into his pockets. "Do you miss her?"

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "I miss things about her. I miss her laugh, I miss the person she was when she was clean." Lonnie's eyes are half-lidded. "I don't miss the drugs, or the men, or sleep for dinner." He looks away, and blinks rapidly a few times. "I know her life is easier now. I... *resent* that in hindsight I was making her life harder, and still would be if I was a part of it. But that's how it works out, sometimes."
    "Do you miss them?" He's fairly sure he knows the answer.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "You weren't. Her responsibilities to you were. Don't put that weight on your shoulders, Lonnie." One of Tim's hands withdraws from his pocket, and though it hangs in the air for a second, he does eventually set it on Lonnie's shoulder. "You wouldn't lay the blame on an innocent kid stuck in that situation, and that's exactly what you were," he adds, quietly.

    Then his hand drops, to hang at his side. "Yeah, of course. I used to wake up every morning and it'd be the first thing I'd think about, once I realized I wasn't here." He motions loosely to his bed. "Now sometimes I don't think about it for a few days and feel guilty once I remember. Every time the media calls me Tim Wayne or talks about the Drake legacy like we've all died out."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie cants his eyes downward. "You have to confront it eventually." He says, deflecting what that means about himself and his mother. "Otherwise it's just going to hang over your head like a curse. I don't put stock in family lineages - they're just another form of tribalism. But the emotional hold family has over us, that's real enough." He offers his hand to Tim.
    "Let's burn down the rest of the house. Right now. Burn it to the ground. Piss on the smoking ruins if you want. Make the legacy of your parents' memory real *action*, not this place. But this? This, *reject* this Tim. Throw it away. Don't even sell the land. Give it to the NJDEP and turn it into a park dedicated to your parents."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim could push. They're both deflecting, and he's good at finding--exploiting--weak spots. But it isn't the concern of Lonnie turning around and doing the same to him (which would be nothing but fair) that keeps Tim from doing so. He wants to be better than that. "It doesn't matter, either way. The Drake family name dies with me." He exhales, heavily. "I mean, it already has. It's not like my last name is--."

    Abruptly his hand lifts so that he can drag the sleeve against his face, roughly. "It doesn't matter," he repeats. Then he takes Lonnie's hand. "I'm not going to burn the rest of the house down, but only because that would be dangerous. And house fires can release a lot of pollutants into the air. But you're right."

    He squeezes Lonnie's fingers. "This place, it needs to go."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie nods. "It's wood and dirt and rock. The memories are yours... this place? It's just Black Mask continuing to hurt you." He squeezes Tim's hand, and offers him a thin smile. "Get rid of the estate. Keep the anger. That you can use."
    "Also, you never know what the future might hold. You might meet a girl. Or you might even adopt a kid, someday! Family's more than just a blood quantum, right? I mean I wouldn't really know - but Bruce Wayne seems to think so."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "I've seen what anger can do when it becomes someone's biggest motivator, and I'm not sure I want to go down that road," Tim replies. He hasn't let Lonnie's hand go yet, and he shuffles a litle bit closer so that their arms can hang between them. "There are a lot of things to be angry about, especially in Gotham. But I'd rather focus on how we can make it better." Another breeze blows in, and the motion of the curtains from it pulls Tim's focus in that direction. "You want a city that doesn't need Batman, right?"

    He shrugs. "Once we've managed that, I'll think about settling down. Not sure I'm the type to start a family, but I wouldn't mind figuring out some way of helping people without any of the violence. Maybe have a couple of dogs."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie nods, once. "I do - feel like I know you a little bit better." He admits. "We wouldn't have been friends." He says, "If we'd known each other before all this. I was a street kid. Loud - tough. Until I realized how little it mattered I hid my intellect from my friends - a nine year-old sneaking to the library to read in a corner all day because if people caught me it meant fistfights so I wouldn't be considered a weakling."
    He gives a thin smile. "But ah-" He looks around, and then produces a faded, weather-stained photo of an eight year-old Tim posing with a trophy that he found somewhere. "You were a cute kid, too."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's head tips to the side. "Maybe not. I was a sensitive kid--I probably would've wanted to be your friend, but had no clue how to go about it," he says, sounding thoughtful. "It took me a while to figure out the whole 'being sociable' thing after I spent most of my childhood by myself. But look where we are now." He swings his arm--and thus, Lonnie's--in a way that is purposefully childish, enough that it makes him laugh.

    When Lonnie produces the picture, he does the same thing as before, gripping Lonnie's wrist to look at it rather than take it himself. "Oh, this is--." He falls silent, eyes narrowed. "Tennis club. I was, six? Seven? USA took home gold in women's doubles and my mom was obsessed with the Williams sisters. I wanted to be a professional player. I thought about joining the team in high school, but by that point I was already pretty busy. Plus, it's not like I would've been able to explain away all of the broken bones they would have discovered during a routine physical."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "Tennis was always a bougie sport to me." Lonnie admits. "But I *love* baseball. And I was good, too. Not that I have any interest in the professional leagues, but I like its combination of patience, exactitude, and speed. It's really ideal." Lonnie looks down at Tim and says, "Still, any workout is a good workout."
    "If... you'd like to dust off your racket, I'd play with you - on one condition. You hit the batting cages with me. Fair deal?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    "That's because it *is* a bougie sport," Tim agrees. "Though at least it's not, like, polo." His nose wrinkles faintly. "They tried to get me into that, but the whole culture around horse ownership always put me off. That, and it's a team sport. Which... probably was more of the deciding factor for me, as a kid."

    He hums, like he's giving Lonnie's offer serious consideration. But then Tim smiles. "Sure. You're really cutting an awful deal for yourself, there. I love baseball--well, mostly just going to games, I don't really care about the sport itself. But smacking a ball around with a stick is cathartic whether it's on a tennis court or in a batting cage."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "That's because you've never been encouraged to think about it tactically. Planning, positioning, timing, the face-off between the batter and the pitcher -" Lonnie stops, and pauses - and then he leans in to kiss Tim on the cheek. "I'm... sorry I came out here without telling you. It was a spur of the moment thing. But I'm glad I did."
    "...But we should probably leave."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Judging by the expression on Tim's face, he was not expecting baseball to be a thing that gets Lonnie going. He's barely biting back a smile, here. And then he fails entirely to keep doing that when Lonnie kisses his cheek. "You should have told me," he agrees. "But I'm not actually all that surprised. It's a very you-thing to do." Then he tries to level a look at Lonnie, but again--unable to keep a straight face.

    "You're right, though. This place is structurally unsound." He takes Lonnie by the hand back downstairs, and out of the ruins of his former family home. He doesn't look back as they walk down the drive, towards the front gates.