001 ★ gimme back my bullets

[comfortablyerect]

WHO: Tim Gutterson
WHERE: The fountain, briefly, House 52, and eventually the Inn.
WHEN: January 30th and 31st.
OPEN TO: OTA!
WARNINGS: Brief description of war zone and depictions of a very mild PTSD episode.
STATUS: Open!

Thirtieth

Tim does not remember going to sleep underwater, but that's where he wakes up.

At first, he thinks it's one of his many nightmares, but he's never had one like this before. Normally, the nightmares that so often plague him are hot and dry — gritty sand on his tongue and between his teeth, sun beating down on the back of his neck, fatigues sweaty and uncomfortable. Usually in these dreams, he's on some high, rocky cliff side when the ghosts of the men he's killed come back to haunt him. Sometimes, the dreams involve the fellow soldiers he's watched die. Never are they wet, and never do they leave him scrambling for breath.

Maybe his dreams are evolving. That would be unfortunate.

Only, it's not a dream, and he becomes very aware of that when he accidentally inhales a bunch of water. He's awake, and he's drowning. Thankfully, he's close enough to the surface that a bit of scrambling has him breaking through, immediately coughing violently as he reaches for something to hold onto. Fingers grip roughly at the stone edge of the fountain, clinging desperately until he can gather his wits and examine his surroundings. All he knows for sure is that he's definitely not in Lexington anymore, and the shocking change is more than enough to put him right on edge.

Panic tries to burrow itself in his chest, but he shuts it out quickly, instead pulling out the only version of himself he's truly comfortable as: the soldier he became in Afghanistan.

It doesn't take long to take stock of himself. The clothes he wears are not his, there's no gun at his hip, and there's a backpack secured over his shoulders. It's also freezing, and while there doesn't appear to be anybody around, he seems to be in a small town, a little reminiscent to the one he grew up in.

He hauls himself from the fountain, but he doesn't go towards the nearest building. He finds a large rock near the base of the fountain, easy enough to carry but big enough to do some damage, and moves quickly but quietly through the village. The house he settles on going into isn't the furthest away, but it's remote enough, and the one directly next door seems to be in shambles. Inside, he takes stock of what's in his backpack before changing into something dry, then ventures back outside for all the time it takes to gather a little bit of wood from the nearby destroyed house to build a fire with. That night, he doesn't sleep. He flinches at every single noise, sits with his back to the fire, and keeps the rock firmly in his hand.

Thirty-first

The next morning, he still hasn't relaxed any. His back is sore from sitting so ram-rod straight, and he feels so bare without a firearm on him. But the sun begins to come through the window and Tim knows he can't stay here forever. The fire's out and he hasn't eaten and he needs to explore his surroundings one way or another.

In the kitchen, he finds a couple of knives, slipping them into the waistband of his longjohns and pulling his now-dry scrubs on over them. He grabs the iron poker from beside the fireplace and with that, he's slipping out of the house and into the light of day. He skirts around the outside of the village, doing his best to avoid being seen by anyone, taking in the size of it and the various homes, some standing and some damaged. It's only when he makes a full circle around the village does he take to the road, choosing to go into the building that's likely to have the most people in it: the Inn.

[ ooc: This intro definitely got away from me in the end, but! Feel free to interrupt him doing any of these things on either day! ]

Comments

31st

[thecatinahat]

Cougar had seen the man the day before with the rock and has been following him mainly out of curiosity about what he's doing. He's far, though, the rifle scope and binoculars giving him the ability to watch from the roof of his house. By the second day, he's finished setting his snares, collecting eggs, and bringing in a little game and that's when he comes across the man again. He notes that the rock has been upgraded to an iron poker, so his weapons are getting more sophisticated.

He can't blame the man. When Cougar had first arrived, he'd attacked the first few people who tried to help him. It just means he needs to approach cautiously. Or, in Cougar's case, it means sitting just in the distance and staring at him from under his hat, perched cross-legged atop a makeshift flat space as he cleans his ammunition-less rifle.

[comfortablyerect]

Had Tim come across anyone within the first hours of pulling himself out of that fountain, there would have been a very high chance of them getting hit with a rock. Even now, several hours after the fact, it feels as if he has sand in his mouth, and he keeps thinking he needs to blink sweat out of his eyes. Even now, he feels too much like he's at war again.

It's been awhile since he's had a full-blown PTSD episode, thankfully. Right now, it just feels as if he's had a nightmare and it's lingering, like his senses are still stuck in Afghanistan even though he's not. Of course, right now, he's not really sure where he's stuck. But it's not Kentucky, and it's not the sandbox.

It's the hat he notices first. If it had been white, he would've had to do a double take. He's almost disappointed to find that it's not Raylan (who, while a pain in his ass, would at least be a familiar face), but a stranger. A stranger with what looks like a military grade sniper rifle. Tim stops walking, the point of his iron poker resting against the ground. He stares at the man thoughtfully, almost critically, and doesn't bother to hide the fact that he's watching.

[ooc: just lmk if you need more to work with than that and i'll rework it so tim isn't being silent and annoying lmao]

[thecatinahat]

Cougar raises a brow and smirks when the man finds him, but then stares back as if he's giving as good as he plans to get. He respects that. He understands that. While he can cope and handle rambling on, like Jake and Pooch, it's not his default state and that's what he's got right here and now. He slows his cleaning down just a little and tips the hat upwards so that the stranger can see his eyes, giving him a bored, but challenging look.

"Are you going to attack?" he finally asks, with his heavily accented English. "Or just start a fire in the wild?"

[comfortablyerect]

His knuckles are still white against the metal poker, Tim able to ignore the aching in his fingers out of sheer practice and willpower. They're like two cats, watching and waiting to see who's going to make the first move, who's going to attack first. At the very least, it's a situation he's used to, and in an odd way, it brings him a little bit of comfort.

He doesn't dwell on what that says about himself.

"I was taught not to bring a fire poker to a gun fight," Tim deadpans, his voice accented as well, but with a thick, southern twang. "Don't think I'd win."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar turns the gun so that the man can see as he opens it up to show that there's no ammunition to go in the gun, much to his dismay. His accent reminds him of home, of hearing it when some of his old Spec Ops army brothers got too mad and started rambling at him. It's nice, in a way, to be reminded of that.

He goes back to cleaning the pieces. "I think maybe it wouldn't be such an unfair fight," is what he says. "Besides, I don't need to attack. I don't like your clothes that much to steal them."

[comfortablyerect]

Tim stiffens the second the other man moves the gun, chin jerking up, knuckles tightening impossibly harder around the metal poker in his hand. It's not going to do him much good if he starts getting shot at. Best case, throwing it might startle the man enough to buy him enough time to take cover. Even when it comes to throwing, Tim has pretty good aim.

But instead, the chamber is opened and Tim sees it's not loaded. It only serves to make him relax a little bit, the tension not leaving his shoulders, but his grip loosening on his makeshift weapon.

"Likewise," Tim says dryly. "Don't suppose you know where this place is?"

[thecatinahat]

"Nowhere," is Cougar's response, because no matter what he tries to do, he can't pin it. The terrain and the weather tell him that it should be somewhere in North America, probably the Pacific, but then the things like the lights in the sky make him doubt that, because they would have to be more north. He's not sure when, but at one point, he'd even started to miss the heat from Bolivia.

He closes the chamber and goes back to cleaning, even if his peripheral vision is stuck on the man in front of him the whole time. "Why the iron?"

Night of the thirtieth + inn

[repressings]

He steps out at night for the first time, mainly to catch his breath from the whirlwind of chores and the heavy feelings he's had for a while. Walks calm him, keep him grounded, and he likes walking at night so he can look at the stars.

He's never really seen the stars before here. Not living in a big city in New York.

He forgets his fur hat, not really thinking he's going to be long when he spots it--a column of smoke rising from somewhere far away. A house, he thinks, if he has the map of the village right in his mind. Left, right, past the schoolhouse, a little further away. The last house is around there, and it looks about right.

Credence only glances back once before he makes up his mind. After all, he has his machete in his pocket. He's certain if he's gone for too long Mr. Graves will notice.

Credence makes his way quietly towards the smoke simply because that's how he's learned to walk: quiet, carefully, lest too much noise cause Mary Lou to lose concentration with whatever she was doing. He rounds the corner, squinting at what he's positive is not a fire, and--is there a man, too? New. He can't make out the colour of his scrubs, except dark, and--

--why does he have a rock in his hands?

Credence Barebone is not brave. He takes a few steps backwards before turning back around. He'll tell Mr. Graves about this. Surely, he'll know what to do.

--

Credence is always up early, one of the earliest risers--if he doesn't rise early, Mary Lou doesn't approve, so it's ingrained in him. It helps that when it comes to the inn, he tries to help as much as he can and a lot of that includes starting fires and making sure everything is perfect for someone who actually knows how to cook well to do so.

He's crouched, trying to start the fire in the main room--it's being finnicky today--when he hears the inn's door open.

"Good morning," He says politely, before he actually looks up and sees who's walked through the door.

"Oh," he says, and it's less 'there's been a strange man sleeping outside by the fire with a rock and now he's here' than it is 'I see you've finally decided to join us.' "Hello. Are you cold?"

[comfortablyerect]

Tim hadn't even realized it before, really — he is cold. He can feel it deep in his bones, in his joints. Even though he still feels like he can feel Afghanistan's hot sun on the back of his neck, gritty sand between his teeth. It's not real. He still has enough of a handle on himself right now to know which parts of this is real. Two years ago, he would've been in much worse shape.

That's probably saying something. He's not in very good shape now, all things considered.

His gaze snaps to the voice when he hears it. Polite, a little bit reserved. It's coming from a young boy crouched in front of the fire. Fighting with it, it looks like. Tim doesn't respond right away, first doing an over-all threat assessment of his company.

It doesn't take long for him to decide it's fairly low.

"It's not exactly nice and toasty out there, is it?" His tone isn't as harsh as the words themselves. His rolling southern accent is rather deadpan, somehow softening what he says. He eyes the fireplace skeptically. "You need a hand with that?"

[repressings]

He's got a strange accent. It's like honey being poured, a strange sort of smooth quality into that deadpan tone. Credence looks the other over, as if assessing him, but really he's trying to figure out how such an intimidating figure can sound so vastly different than what he was expecting.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't wary. Credence looks at the fire, and then at Tim, and then towards the door and his scrub colour in one, fluid motion.

"It's normally not this troublesome," He says carefully, and it isn't until he gets up and backs a good distance away that he nods for the other to take over.

"The stove is active, would you--maybe some tea will help you warm up?"

[comfortablyerect]

Apparently, the folks around here just aren't used to people wandering around with intimidating iron pokers in their hand. He wonders what they'd think if they knew about the knives tucked against his hips, hidden between the long johns and the awful blue scrubs. Probably, they would be a lot more leery than they are now.

He supposes he can't blame them. He's just as leery of them anyway.

"They can be finicky sometimes," he murmurs, heading for the fireplace as soon as Credence gestures to it. He kneels down, glancing over his shoulder once towards the door before setting his weapon in front of him. Better safe than sorry.

He starts to rearrange some logs, shifting kindling around to give everything a little more breathing room. He glances up, arching a brow. "Don't suppose you have anything heavier? Maybe bourbon?"

[repressings]

He does.

He did, rather, but that's gone to the man who is or isn't his tormenter. Credence shakes his head, gaze transfixed on the poker iron, reminded very much of the man who had died recently with his long curtain rod strapped to his back like a sword.

"I have hot cocoa," He says, offering an alternative. "Um--only if you'd prefer it."

Credence is transfixed on it. Maybe he's not scary, so much as trying to find a foothold in this new world. Maybe he's a knight, and that poker is just because he couldn't find a sword--maybe he didn't go to the inn because he was finding a King. Maybe he just wants something familiar to him.

"No one's going to hurt you, here."

[comfortablyerect]

Somehow, Tim's not surprised there's no bourbon here. That would be his luck, after arriving in an ice cold fountain, being launched into a near full blown PTSD episode, and not having a firearm of any sort on his person. So of course, after all of that, there would be no bourbon for him to use to calm his nerves with.

Hot cocoa is a lackluster alternative. But at least maybe it'll remind him of when his mother made it for him, and help him feel a little more comforted.

"Hot cocoa's fine," he says, glancing over his shoulder two more times throughout the process of rearranging the fire. Eventually, he gets it settled how he wants it, and gets the starter lit. But before he can blow on it to help it build, the boy speaks again, and Tim turns his head to look at him.

"No," he agrees after a moment, pausing to blow gently on the fire. "They won't. I'm not gonna let 'em."

31st

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh's busy hauling his catch back to the inn when he sees the new guy duck inside and he wonders when he might have arrived. There's several dozen people here now and it's getting harder and harder to keep track of when they arrive. The how, of course, is always the same: the fountain.

He grins at the newcomer before dropping his fish off in the kitchen and after washing his hands with soap that still stings a bit of lye, he comes back out to greet the guy properly.

"Hey, sorry. I didn't want to shake your hand with fish guts all over them. Are you new?"

[comfortablyerect]

Tim still hasn't found it in him to sit down quite yet. It's hard to shake the tension in his shoulders, to feel safe enough to allow himself to relax. It's very reminiscent to the span of time directly after he returned stateside from the war, where he couldn't sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time, where every unexpected noise left him reaching for his gun.

Except now he doesn't have a gun to reach for. He hates it.

"No skin off my nose." His curving southern accent seems to stand out more here, around folks from different places. He shifts subtly, taking care not to stand with his back to the door, but also not letting himself be between this guy and the wall. It's all instinct, all knee-jerk reactions. "I got here last night. Wherever here is."

[rangerbecket]

"Here is going to be the biggest pain in the ass you're ever going to experience," Raleigh says. It's not something he ever likes sharing but after all these months here in the village, it's something that's gotten easier to share over time.

"It's a place you can't get out of," he warns. "And believe me, I've tried every single way I can think of and haven't been successful."

[comfortablyerect]

"Dunno about that," Tim drawls. "I was once stuck on a cliff side for three days outside of Kandahar with the most annoyin' spotter in the world."

That was a pretty big pain in the ass. Mark's rambling did nothing to comfort or distract him, it just made him want to throw increasingly large rocks at the man every time he decided to open his mouth. At least once, Tim thought about pushing him off the side of the cliff and calling it an accident.

"Can't get out of?" he echoes. "Are there some great walls I'm unaware of?"

[rangerbecket]

"This whole place is in a canyon," Raleigh explains. "If you go about ten square miles in any direction, there's cliff walls. Every time you try to scale them and get to the top, something happens and you can't - it starts raining in a torrential downpour, bees swarm you, you fall back down. It never fails. No matter what you do, you can't get out."

It's not the kind of news he wants to share with anyone but it's just better to know it up front, right?

[comfortablyerect]

"You gotta be shittin' me." His voice is flat, deadpanned. Truthfully, that sounds like bullshit. It sounds made up as hell, like something from some book he'd enjoy curling up on the couch and reading sometime. It does not sound like the kind of thing that happens in real life. He sighs in exasperation, running his free hand through his hair.

"You realize that sounds fake as fuck, right? Maybe y'all just aren't tryin' hard enough."

Thirty-first - In the morning

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana was off to help Rory clean up the hospital and her methods had included a bucket that she borrowed from the inn and a shirt that was going to be unwearable after her work today. There was a bright smile on her face as she made her way down to the river. She filled her bucket with the brisk water and carefully carried it back up to towards the village.

She wasn't really expecting someone to be circling the village and at the sight of the shadow Moana fidgets and almost spills her bucket of freezing cold water.

"Whoa!" She placed the pail on the ground before looking up at the man. "Ummm... what are you doing? Did you lose something?" It looked as if he was looking for something he lost, she was busy today but she could share a little bit of time to help look.

[comfortablyerect]

Tim doesn't jump. He's trained to react smoothly, not startle in surprise, and besides that, he's aware Moana's there before she ever sees him. There's something about military training that he'll never be able to shake, and he finds himself eternally grateful for that. She starts at the sight of him, and even though he'd been planning on avoiding her, and ignoring her if necessary, he does pause, looking over at her.

He's still got the iron poker in his hands, his knuckles white from how tight he's gripping it. After a quick threat assessment, he determines that she's probably not much of one. It doesn't allow him to relax, though.

"My mind, maybe," it's murmured, not so much an answer as a comment to himself. "What town is this?"

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana took a step towards her filled bucket as if that might protect her from the metal pointy end of the iron bar in his hand. She looked down at it and then up at Tim's face. She was a little bit jumpy, it was hard not for her not to be.

"I was told that the town doesn't have a name." She was very close to giving it name simply because she kept being asked that question. "I've been calling it the realm of
Leai se Mea but that isn't it's name." It was another way to say nowhere, using the language from the legends and songs in her village.

"Are you new? Did you just come from the fountain?" Moana really had to ask because he looked dry.

[comfortablyerect]

He's scaring her. It takes him a moment to realize it, truthfully. He's used to dealing with bad guys, hardened criminals, men who would probably sneer at the sight of his makeshift weapon. But she's stepping back, looking him up and down, because he's coming off as somewhat of a threat.

Unfortunately, he doesn't really know how to not come off as a threat. His grip loosens a bit on the metal poker, and he makes a point to tuck it behind his back a little so it's not in immediate sight.

"That's a bit of a mouthful," he points out, glancing behind him like he's worried about who might be lurking about. "Got here last night."

[chosenbytheocean]

Her reaction was based in caution, not fear. Moana had met a lot of very nice people here but she knew that not everyone would be like that. This guy had all the appearances of someone who was looking for a fight or perhaps that’s all he knew and it was what he expected. Moana didn’t know though seeing him move the iron pointer behind him helped some.

Probably not looking for a fight.

"Yeah, I don’t think it’ll catch on either." She pursed her lips a bit as if she was quickly trying to think of another name. Nothing shorter or easier came to mind. "Oh, is that why you’re-" She waved a hand through the air to gesture to the path he’d been taking.

"Looking around? It’s hard to see anything through the snow." Moana hated snow and it was obvious by the sharp punctuation she had for the word. "I’ve only been here for…" She thought about it and her frown deepened. "Over a month now." She didn’t like that realization. Had it really been that long?

[comfortablyerect]

"Just gettin' a feel of the place," he sighs.

Casing the place, more accurately. Clocking where everything is, where each and every path leads, what the houses and buildings look like. Determining what's threatening and what's probably safe, trying to figure out where they are, geographically wise. So far, he hasn't really been able to make heads or tails of anything, really, and that's definitely more than frustrating.

He'll have to start searching for exits soon. The sooner he can get out of this place the better.

He blinks, though, brow furrowing at her statement. "You've been here for over a month? Why haven't you tried to leave yet?"