I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in

[ex_enlisted288]

WHO: Steve Rogers
WHERE: House 18; River
WHEN: Mid September
OPEN TO: Friends / OTA
WARNINGS: Nada, will update if necessary

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HOUSE PROJECT

[ Steve has never had his own place before. Not one he picked out himself. His mother rented the one he grew up in, then he moved into an orphanage after she died, then he and Bucky moved in together after high school. In the Army, he took whatever tent or barracks they assigned. After the defrost, SHIELD found a temporary apartment in Brooklyn, and again in DC when his orders sent him to the Triskelion. Nick Fury found him a place once they'd demolished one of the world's foremost law and order organizations. Long story short - he's been jumping from one bolthole to another without really caring whether it not it's really his.

The island is different. (He's not entirely sure it is an island, but exploring that far afield is for another time.) There are no barracks here, no footlocker full of mementos from home or a uniform. Not a real set anyway, the scrubs don't count until the Observers appear and line everyone up according to color code. If they do, Steve plans to start a rebellion immediately, because he's seen what happens to people forced to wear different colors. It's one of the things that makes him uneasy about the scrubs. Like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Until that happens, though, he's chosen one of the empty houses, so another room at the inn is free to some future arrival. Over the course of the last several weeks, Steve has hauled water from the river in a borrowed bucket and scrubbed every inch of his new home. Floors, walls, windows, wiped down what furniture came with the house. Cleaning is an activity he likes, which might seem weird to anyone else, but he was so sick, or frail, as a child that housework had to be done in little bursts, else he risked a coughing fit or pushing his heart to the point of needing a hospital. It's just really nice to be able to perform tasks that everyone takes for granted. Something he tries hard not to.

And the last few days have been taken up with laundry. Stripping the beds, dragging them down to the river for cleaning, and tossing his extra set of scrubs in the process. He's strung up an old-fashioned laundry line across the front porch and rigged some pins to keep the sheets and clothing in one place until they're all dry. Interested parties can find him sketching on the porch or puttering around inside. ]


FISHING PROJECT

[ As far as city living goes, Steve likes to think he's fairly self-sufficient. He's known how to get around one since he was a child. Public transit doesn't bother him. Neither does shopping at local grocery stores. (Although modern prices are still outrageous.) He can winter a weather without heat, has made a candle almost from scratch but prefers flashlights these days, and can handle himself well in the concrete jungle.

But this place is different. He's not accustomed to living off the land, and what knowledge he has of that is paired with the depths of human misery on the European front during World War II, because the Commandos scrounged what they had to when the going got tough. So he's got a tiny bit of woodsy experience. However, that is definitely not the same thing as being able to provide a service to the village outside of drawing pretty pictures. He needs to be useful.

Therefore Steve has been trying to teach himself to fish. Loitering around the Inn week after week, listening to snippets of conversations, has gleaned him just enough information to make a fishing rod from the branch of a young sapling. And he found a sharp, pointy rock on his daily wandering, tying it to the stick with a bunch of badly woven grass. So far, his spear-fishing skills are not that great: he's caught two fish in the last week, and one of them was mostly an accident.

But that won't stop him from heading out again after breakfast, determined to learn this valuable skill for his community. ]