sixthiterationlogs | A village gift (Text post AND log) OTA

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A village gift (Text post AND log) OTA

WHO: Foggy Nelson
WHERE: South Village Inn
WHEN: Jan 10th ish
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: None at present

Text post
UN: haventthe

Hey people, Foggy here. I got a couple of those boxes that seem to happen to people and while it's addressed to me, I get the feeling that it's meant for the collective. I've got a bunch of woodworking tools here, including chisels, files, a saw and a hand drill with drill bits.

I'm taking this a hint that they approved of my amateur forays into carpentry and want that to continue, but I want to make sure everyone knows they're welcome to use them. For now, I'm keeping everything at the South Inn, but maybe we can set up one of the houses, or the mill as a workshop at some point.

Even had an idea for making paper from the sawdust and shavings. That's probably going to need experimentation though.

South Village Inn

True to his word, Foggy has set up in the large front room. He's moved a table to a far corner and he's set out the tools, checking them over to see if they're all fine. He does know all these tools, he did high school wood working, but it's been a while.

A long while.

But the main reason for sitting here is so that it's apparent he is here, and the tools are here, and they can work something out for making useful things and teaching people to make useful things.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I have no idea what I'm doing, as you well know." He gives a slight smile and shrugs under Matt's hand. "Frankly, I'm not sure how you've stayed sane, not being to fill every moment with working and doing things. I think it's the only thing that keeps me from screaming mindlessly at this place."

He sounds cheerful, so he's probably not serious.

"A few others seem to know what they're doing, so we'll get there."

"Um. It's been... difficult," Matt admits. Especially since the shaken confidence means he's not out and about talking to the locals or getting stuck in helping everyone as best he can. Mostly he's been relearning basic things. He thinks if he's able to navigate his own place without incident he'd be less accident-prone outside. And while there might be some logic to that, it also means he's been cooped up and left to brood on his own far more than would be healthy.

"I'm probably only good for Sunday school at this point and I don't think the local church is hiring," he jokes.

"You've been brooding at home. Possibly by yourself. Am I going to have to institute a rule where I come and drag you outside each day and take you with me? Because I will do that.

"And buddy, you are the church here. If you want to hire you, do it." He sits so their knees are touching, silently orienting Matt to where he is. "Well, once we start with the woodworking stuff, you can actually help. It might only be filing things smooth, but you don't need sight for it."

"I'm- meditating. It's different." Even around Foggy, or maybe especially around Foggy, he's not the world's best liar.

"If I'm the most pious man in this place, we're in trouble." Matt feels like a far cry from a pillar of the church.

"I think I'd rather stick with using the sandpaper. I just need to grind down all the rough surfaces, right?"

"No it's not, I've seen you meditating, it's just brooding with good posture." Which Foggy makes a point of ignoring, slouching a bit more to knock their knees together.

"I didn't say most pious. I don't know that. But I'm not sure how many Catholics we have. And I don't have sandpaper. I have files. Which is the same principle, just not bendy?"

"Objection Your Honour, that's just nitpicking." Matt ducks his head as if it'd hide his sheepish grin. Fine, that's a fair comment, he does spend too much time alone in his own head letting negative thoughts multiply and spiral out of control.

"Not many kids either. And those that are around, it'd be better to teach literacy or math or something that'll help them catch up when they get out of this place." Because Matt's trying to stay hopeful and use 'when's rather than 'if's when it comes to leaving.

"Have you made anything yet?"

"Over ruled, nit picking would be if you were doing anything other than just brooding with good posture." He sways his legs, bouncing their legs together in a show of casual affection.

"In the three hours since I got them? No. Honestly? I don't think the tools were meant for me. I think they were more delivered to me for the village. Or to encourage me to stop bitching about working cutting up carcasses."

"I do do other things when I'm at home," Matt insists. They might be things that involve getting himself self-sufficient enough that he'll never have to leave the house again, but they still count as important tasks.

"I think you got them for a reason." But this is Matt they're talking about. He's big on gifts, signs and symbolism. "You should make the most of them, or at least find someone who can."

"Exercise broodily? Move around the house while lamenting on this being your penance for that time you took an extra serving when you were eleven? Wait photogenically at the window for your love to return from the war?"

Yes, he's teasing Matt. A lot.

"I don't think God delivered them. I think whoever brought us here gave me the ability they did for a reason, but not the tools."

Matt would pretend to be offended if he didn't do two out of those three things. As it is he can't help but just laugh at the ribbing. Yeah, that's fair.

"I never said that. I just meant- they could have showed up anywhere else, and you got them."

"Well, I was complaining about a lack of tools when I made your cane." That seems like some sort of logic or connection there. Maybe. "And I'll probably need to make you a couple of spares, because the wood isn't the toughest thing it could be made of. But you can help with those."

The timing's a little off on that front maybe, but at least they showed up eventually?

"This one you made me will work just fine for a long time yet." Matt hasn't been throwing it around or using it as some sort of weapon. He won't break it anytime soon.

"What's been your strangest request so far?"

"Matt, it's fine, I can make it safe for you to use these things. I can do this... thing. People who arrived wearing this sort of hunter green colour? We can make ourselves sort of armoured? And we can do it to people around us too. I can actually help stop you getting hurt jut by being nearby!"

Which is sort of the fulfilment of a years long wish.

"Nothing strange so far. Though when Bull asked me for a bed, he did basically ask if I wanted to test out the strength of it with him."

Wouldn't Foggy have liked that power back home in New York? Matt has to laugh at the thought. He's got his own go to hell protective bubble but he hasn't been in enough stress to use it, and he wasn't aware that he can just turn it on and off at his leisure now.

"Wow, Foggy. You're really getting along with the locals," Matt teases with a laugh. "You didn't break his heart, did you?"

Foggy would have fucking loved that power in New York.

"I told him not right now, not while I'm sorting out how I feel about here and Marci and stuff. Also, I suspect he's into a level of BDSM that I'm not sure I am, but that was just a subtext."

And there's Anne. But... he's not discussing that in public.

"Oh, that's just- too much information, Foggy," Matt replies quickly with an easy laugh. He's not uncomfortable - if anything he's amused that that topic even came up.

"You know um... I'm probably ruining it between you two now, but. You and Marci made for a great couple." If Foggy knows what Matt's saying.

Foggy is quiet for a long moment.

His knees still tap against Matt's, silence reassurance he's there and not going anywhere.

He has so many things he wants to say. He doesn't want to say them. Time, place, circumstance, them...

"I miss her," is what he settles for.

"Yeah." Matt purses his lips and nods a few times. He understands that sentiment. That simultaneous 'wish you were here with me' but 'I wouldn't wish this fate on anyone' that defines a place like this.

"Not that it'd make you feel any better, but. She's better off back in New York, don't you think?"

"I don't want her here. However much I miss her, I wouldn't want her here." They're city boys but Marci, more than even them, Marci is an urbanite. She would hate this place more than just about anyone else.

"Was Elektra here when you got here?"

"I think so." She'd actually arrived just after he did, and she has memories of some weird spaceship thing that she didn't tell him about, but Matt doesn't know any of these things. "She bumped into me at the inn when I was having lunch and said she'd picked out a place for us." And Matt, being Matt when Elektra has her hold on him, well. It was 'whatever you want' from there on out.

"This all seems fairly new to her though, not like some of the others who have been here a long time." It doesn't exactly bode well for their chances of going home.

"It'd be nice to think she was here all this time, instead of... buried there. But I don't think she was. It's all... jumbled."

Foggy says nothing about the way Matt surrenders his will and self determination to Elektra every time they get together. Matt's made it clear, it's not his place to get involved.

"Some people have been here a year. Two. I've been here like, a month and a half and I don't know how they do it. And the jumbled time and place and... Frank was somewhere before here, too. He was telling me, this place is much nicer, apparently."

No one's told Matt about Reims, although occasionally there is the odd thing, like Kamala seems to have some idea of who Matt was even though he'd never met her. He's got more immediate concerns to grapple with which is probably the only reason why he hasn't gone around asking the important questions.

"What about you? Been on any long sabbaticals you haven't told me about?"

"No."

Foggy's life is just not that dramatic.

"Just... living with Marci, basically. Work." Trying to remember how to live with Matt in his life. "Hair cut. That's about the most exciting thing that's happened."

"Hey. At least you can afford one now, right?" Matt tries to joke. It was rough making ends meet as Nelson and Murdock before Foggy had moved on to bigger and better things, no matter how much they believed in what they were doing. Sometimes it could be argued that Foggy's been able to be a greater help with all the resources at his disposal than anything they could have ever done in their little office.

He misses it though, sometimes. They had been complicated days still, but they still felt like better days.

Foggy snorts. "Yeah, I can afford it. Want to feel? I got it done really short, guy Marci knows... knew."

He sits up a bit more, in case Matt does want to feel how short, though he somewhat doubts it. Still, the offer is there.

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