002 ★ take me back to my southern ways

[comfortablyerect]

WHO: Tim Gutterson
WHERE: The woods, House 52
WHEN: February 23rd
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Possible mentions of PTSD
STATUS: Open!

The Woods

It took roughly a week for Tim to be able to sleep for longer than two hours at a time. It took a little longer than that for him to quit walking around with knives hidden on his person. He still carries the metal fire poker with him, however, because he can't bring himself to walk around weaponless. That, actually, has little to do with being here and a lot more to do with what he brought him with him from Afghanistan. Nightmares, paranoia, the inability to feel at ease without a firearm. It was always a work in progress. Now it's an even bigger work in progress.

Of course, the paranoia's only gotten worse since he's been told that they're being watched the first night he was here. It makes him feel like his skin's always crawling.

Since arriving here, he's explored every inch of the land he can reach. He's mapped out the layout of the village in his head, clocking who lives where, and where people tend to spend most of their time. He's explored several community buildings inside and out until there were no more left to search, and has since spent time exploring the woods.

If he had his gun, he could do some hunting. Kill a few deer, squirrels, maybe some rabbits. Contribute what he can to the community. They have bows at the Inn, he knows, but he's not well-versed with a bow. It'd take a lot of practice, and he's fairly certain they don't have the supplies for him to be losing arrows in the woods. He can probably set up some crude forms of traps, even do some fishing at some point when it's a little warmer. For now, though, he's making his way carefully through the trees, noting various plants that he recognizes and knows might come in handy, examining tracks that he finds in the dirt.

Any movement heard results in sudden stiffening and Tim being on guard.

House 52

Upon returning home later in the afternoon, Tim finds a fairly large box in front of his door. He's not sure what to make of it, at first, and stands a good few feet away like he thinks it might blow up. There are round holes in the sides of it, and he's leaning forward to see if he can peer into the holes and see what's inside.

Something rustles inside, and he hears a sharp Meh!

"What the fuck." It's not a question, and it's murmured under his breath. With the tip of the metal poker, he flips the lid off the box, and a baby goat pops its head up to look around. One young enough that its horns have just barely started coming in. Tim knows shit about goats, but upon further examination, he finds that it's a female. Beyond that, he hasn't got a clue.

He can be found for the rest of the evening sitting on his front porch with her, feeding her piles of grass out of the palm of his hand.

[ ooc: feel free to find him in various other parts of the village too! if you want to plot something, hit me up on plurk or message me! ]

Comments

[tarnishing]

For a moment, Taylor actually considers sliding up all suave-like and saying to this stranger, hey, nice kid, possibly complete with finger guns to supplement the pun. Fortunately for everyone involved (including the goat), she thinks better of this method of introducing herself, although it does mean that she probably looks a little odd at first, hesitating briefly at the edge of the lawn like she thinks she may have left the oven on.

"That is a very small goat you have there," she finally says, with a smile. Small enough that she's got to wonder about feeding it grass instead of a bottle, but what the fuck does she know about goats?

[comfortablyerect]

Either introduction, really, would lead to Tim glancing up and arching his brows, which is exactly what he does now, complete with all the appropriate amounts of apprehension. He realized she was there from the start, hesitations and all. Not because he has some weird sixth sense, but because the sort of training that comes with the Army doesn't wear off very easily, and he's always aware of the people around him.

"Yeah," he agrees, his southern accent thick and noticeable in that one word. He reaches out to scratch the goat on the head, between where her horns should be. "She's just a baby. Showed up on my front step in a box this mornin'."

[tarnishing]

"Oh right," Taylor says, and then pulls a face. "That's a thing that happens. The mystery boxes out of nowhere, right? Someone told me about that." Because apparently the creep factor of this place just wasn't high enough, they had to toss in some added weirdness to make sure you didn't forget.

"I haven't been here that long," she explains with a couple of forward steps. "I mean, it feels like way too long, but apparently not long enough to rank getting baby animals on my doorstep."

[comfortablyerect]

He'd heard of it, too. It was hard to believe that somebody could sneak into the village and leave boxed surprises without anybody seeing them. Even if they do it at night, there's plenty of people here who aren't necessarily sleeping (like him), and are too aware of their surroundings for much to get past them. He wonders if it'd be possible to lay some sort of trap for something like that.

"I've only been here a few weeks," he says, shrugging a shoulder. "I'm sure you'll get your baby farm animal soon enough."

[tarnishing]

"Well, when that day comes, I'm bringing it to you, because you clearly know more about them than I do." Which is unequivocally nothing, not unlike what Taylor knows about living in a town straight out of a period piece.

"Hey, how are you at lighting fires?" she says, and then pauses, eyebrows drawn briefly together. "Sorry, that was kind of a weird segue. I'm just really shitty at it and looking for any and all ways to make it easier to, you know, not freeze in my weird, free housing."

house 52

[thecatinahat]

Cougar finds them on Tim's porch, grass in his hand, goat nibbling merrily. He raises a brow and cocks his head to the side, wishing this were the strangest thing he's ever seen involving a goat, but there are so many things that make that untrue and it's a disappointing thing to know that. Why, sometimes, is his life the way it is? "New girlfriend?" is all he deadpans with the hint of a smirk lingering on his lips.

"Young for you, no?"

[comfortablyerect]

Tim glances up, his mouth twitching in the faintest hint of a smile. Whether it's because of what Cougar says, or because the goat's lips tickle his palm as she eats out of it is up for debate. Though it's likely a combination of the two. The goat seems perfectly content to nibble out of his hand, despite the company they keep getting.

"I like 'em older," he says, his tone equally as deadpan as Cougar's. "Little less furry, too."

But only a little. Because he also happens to like them a little more male.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar cocks his eyebrow upwards with a smirk on his face, which says that he's not going to judge, but maybe he will just a little. He just won't say anything about it. "You found the animals?" is what he says, ending up perched on the nearest flat surface, knees folded up to his chest so he can rest his elbows on his knees as he gracefully balances.

"Lucky for you, she does not look like she would be jealous," he adds.

[comfortablyerect]

It certainly wouldn't be the first time anybody's judged him. Thankfully, he not only doesn't care, but also happens to have all the right badass credentials so that nobody's really likely to voice their judgmental opinions out loud. Of course, the not caring bit means that Tim really wouldn't do anything about it, but it's not like they know that.

"Maybe of other goats," he reasons, rubbing the spot between her would-be horns with his thumb. "She found me, actually."

Tim tips his head in the direction of where the empty box sits behind him. Apparently, that sort of thing is fairly common practice, he's found. It's not something he feels great about, receiving mysterious packages from their captors, but it's not the worst thing either.

[thecatinahat]

"Then you must be doing something right," he says, wandering over to where he sees the box, giving a quiet grunt of amusement. "Jake, he got a dog," he says, though where Baby is eludes him, which probably means that all the training and all the dedication he'd put into getting some sharp skills into that dog are being eroded away by Jake's spoiling (not that Cougar doesn't do it sometimes, too).

"What are you going to do with it?" he asks. "What do goats do?"

The Woods

[scepterschild]

Wanda had slowly been expanding the area where she explored and traveled. She wasn't afraid of anything she might find in the woods, she could take care of herself and she was accustomed to moving around in this sort of terrain, but having a limit on her abilities made her careful. She stepped lightly, pushing her senses out as far as they'd let her.

She was looking for animals, preferably ones that she could sneak up on. Wanda wasn't a skilled bowmen or hunter but she had an arrow and enough of her powers to move it in the direction she wanted it to go.

Her steps paused when she heard a soft sound and she turned towards it, raising her hands and lifting her arrow in the air. It was surrounded by red mist that seeped from her finger tips before dispersing into the air around her. "Who's there?" She asked in a tense tone, her eyes narrowing as they landed on Tim. The one other person she'd met in the woods had been an asshole and she had no interest in being attacked by someone so she kept her guard up.

[comfortablyerect]

It's hard to determine who hears who first. A rustle of leaves, a snap of a twig, and just like that they're both tense, hardly breathing, watching and waiting and listening. It could be an animal, Tim thinks. A deer that's caught his scent and has frozen in its track, listening just as hard as he is. He remembers Credence telling him that nobody here would hurt him, and he wishes that were easier to believe than it is.

A voice calls out. It's not an animal, then, but a person, probably one just as cautious and paranoid as he is. He wishes he had his handgun to reach for, but instead all he has is a stupid fire poker. He much prefers long distance combat.

Tim peers through the leaves, catching sight of another person. He only knows it's a women because of her voice, though he still hasn't deemed her not a threat. He does, however, step out from behind a cluster of trees, his makeshift weapon held down at his side. He's about to say something about meaning no harm, but he sees the arrow and the red mist around it, and it's more than enough to give him pause.

"How're you doin' that?"

[scepterschild]

Wanda kept her eyes trained on Tim. He wasn't currently threatening her, his weapon was at his side, but Wanda remained cautious. Perhaps if she hadn't run into Draco she'd be more relaxed but she was finding it difficult to trust random people that she met in the woods after being on the receiving end of Draco's anger. There wasn't any back-up out here if something were to happen.

"These are my powers." She replied in an even tone, standing her ground. "Do you live in the village?"

She hadn't been around long enough to meet everyone. She didn't believe that everyone in the village was harmless. They all had pasts, both good and bad, being here and needing to survive didn't change who a person was.

[comfortablyerect]

Powers, she says, like that's normal. Like she's from some kind of comic book or something. Tim likes to indulge in fantasy — books, mostly, any that he can get his hands on, anything that will distract him and allow him to escape for a little bit. A healthier coping mechanism than drinking, that's for sure. But it's a little different when you're actually staring it done. He doesn't like his fantasy mixing with his reality, he's finding.

Still, she only looks like she's on guard because she's being cautious, just like he is. He figures that if she were going to be malicious or destructive, she would've done it already. That doesn't mean he moves any closer, nor does he take his eyes off the arrow.

"Unfortunately," he answers. "Guess the only other option was livin' in a tree, and I'm gettin' too damn old for that shit."

[scepterschild]

A bit of a smirk tugged at Wanda's lips. She'd been through a lot since she was young but she can safely say she's never lived in a tree.

She moved the arrow slowly and returned it to her side. There wasn't a point in being overly defensive and while Wanda's guard wasn't completely down she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt Which meant she had to stop pointing an arrow at him.

"You're looking for answers then." She sounded very sure of her conclusion but when she continued speaking her voice softened. "Me too."

"I'm Wanda."

Woods

[pretendtoneedme]

Clint isn't comfortable with the bows on offer at the inn, but that's because he's used to something with draw weight in the triple digits and the much more basic weapons corralled there just aren't that strong. But a bow's a bow, so once a week he takes one and a set of arrows and sets out to bring down as many squirrels and rabbits as he can find. Game's getting scarce lately, with winter drawing to a close and the hunting others in the village have done, but he's good at this - more than good - and always brings back something. Maybe once the weather warms there'll be more varied game around and he might even be able to find a deer. Venison would be a nice change.

But he's being dead silent to not startle prey away. He's had too much training to not be able to move quietly, and he hunts at home as well simply because he likes it, with tons more patience than a lot of people would expect. Moving so very slowly, barely shifting your weight - if you're not going to hunt from a blind or a platform it's the only way to do it, and he hasn't had the resources (or the game) to set up any salt licks so he can wait and let the game come to him. But some of the very quiet sounds coming to his ears shift, become heavier - less the scampering of whatever's under the little remaining snow cover, or even the fallen leaves and pine needles, but more the step of a person, a quiet boot tread, and one thing he's not willing to do is shoot a fellow captive. That means it's time to identify. "Hello? Anyone there?" Clint keeps his voice quiet enough to hopefully not startle any game that's around, but he puts a little more force into his words to throw them farther in compensation.

[comfortablyerect]

As a teenager, Tim hunted each and every deer season. In the beginning, with his daddy, and later on, by himself. Their freezer would be stocked with plenty of venison throughout the winter, up until Tim went to boot camp and his father passed away. After that, his mother got her venison from the neighbors, because even once he returned home from war, he didn't do much hunting anymore.

There were a lot of excuses. He lives in the city now, he works too much, he never has time. But the truth is, he's just lost his taste for it since the war. There's no thrill in it anymore, since taking human lives. And that's fucked up, and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

It's very possible he'll end up hunting while he's here anyway. Because he's good at it, and this village needs it's steady source of food. There are other hunters here, sure, but Tim doesn't know how else to contribute. He realized long ago that killing was really the only thing he was good at. It's just what the war made him.

When he moves through the woods, it's quiet, careful. Not necessarily because he doesn't want to startle any game, but just because it's how he was trained. Somebody hears him, though, and so he pauses, assessing the situation and the man he can see through the trees, and the bow and arrow he holds. So he steps out from behind the trees, and speaks out just as quietly.

"Doin' a bit of huntin'?"

[pretendtoneedme]

With two men in the area, both speaking, any game that was around would be hightailing it out of there. Clint's a bit frustrated by that, but there's just nothing to be done about it; better that he didn't shoot another person than he took the risk that the sound he heard wasn't a human. Besides, he'd already bagged two squirrels and a rabbit. That would hold them for a couple of days, even if all three were a bit thin because of the scarce grazing in winter.

He lowers the bow and sticks the arrow back in the makeshift quiver he has slung over one shoulder so he doesn't risk shooting the other man, but nods at the question. "Trying. There's just not a lot of game running around at this time of the year, but people've gotta be fed." And it's what he's good at. There's other people in the village who hunt of course, but Clint's fingers get itchy when he hasn't shot a bow in awhile, so he might as well combine the need for his preferred sport with necessity. "Are you out scouting the perimeter? I wasn't planning on getting that far from the village."

[comfortablyerect]

With no access to firearms and ammo, there's only so much Tim can do in the way of hunting. He's not familiar enough with a bow to accurately use one, and while it'd be nice to learn, they don't really have the resources for that, either. Still, he thinks he can recall how to set snares and traps from when his daddy taught him. On the other hand, he's good at fishing, so once the weather warms up he can contribute that way.

Until then, he can still explore, get a better lay of the land and figure out what sort of things are available for gathering. It's been awhile since he's been in Boy Scouts, but he's fairly sure he remembers what sorts of plants and things are safe to eat, and what sorts aren't. As far as surviving goes, he's damn good at it. Seems like a lot of people here are.

"Somethin' like that." His gaze flicks over the bow in Clint's hand, the arrows slung across his back. It looks like a threat assessment because it is one, mostly just something that comes out of sheer habit. "Seein' what sort of wildlife there is, what kind of stuff grows out here."

[pretendtoneedme]

The look-over does not go unnoticed, of course; he's Hawkeye, he sees a lot more than people want to believe. But he also can't blame the other man either. Trapped in this weird space, being on your guard could be the difference between life and death. Clint's noticed that no one here wants to hurt others, but there's always the possibility that could change - or that something could change them, given what he's heard about this place. He's definitely not looking forward to experiencing that.

But Tim's look-over would easily note that Clint holds his bow like one familiar with the weapon, as a natural extension of his arm and not as the long weight most people would consider it. Putting the arrow back in the quiver had been a smooth, practiced move; whatever else Clint is, he's definitely an archer. "Not a lot right now." Weird as this place is, he thinks it'd be nice for it to give them a little more in the way of edibles. They're getting by, but as Kelly said at the meeting, it's not by a lot, and with more and more people coming in, supplies are stretching more and more. "If you've ever been in Washington or Oregon, that seems to be the kind of land we're dealing with here." He can't say for sure the village is in one of those states, or even British Columbia, but he's been in that area enough times to recognize some of the plant life and the weather and land types and it's the closest comparison his mind can come up with.

[mund]

Someone clearly has the same idea he has -- Graves has taken to exploring the area, acquainting himself with the place, making mental notes. If he has to be stuck here for the foreseeable future, he might as well decrease the odds that are currently against him and the others within this village.

They are not safe within its confines, and whoever the watchers are, they are perfectly content to let inhabitants die of various causes; the recent death has seen to it. Perhaps the lightning is orchestrated by them, perhaps not, but if this is some sort of twisted game (it definitely is), Graves prefers to be as prepared as possible. He's found a few useful herbs and plants, and he's tucking them away carefully when he spots someone tensing not too far away.

Tension and distrust is par for the course (in his line of work, you have a dangerously short shelf life if you believe people are decent and trustworthy), and he straightens, taking the stranger's measure.

Not one of the watchers, then. In turn, all he offers is:

"I'm not one of them."

[comfortablyerect]

Tim sees the man just half a second before the man sees him, which is good. It's how it should be, he thinks, because Tim's rife with military and law enforcement training, having been in branches of each that are considered the best of the best, the most badass of them all. The fact that he has to take such a little thing as a win is almost pathetic, though — he just feels like he's losing everywhere else.

He can't fucking wait to get out of here.

From what he's learned, nobody here has had the pleasure of meeting their captors yet, so it'd certainly be something if he happened to stumble across one of them in the woods. It's not his first assumption by any means, but it's nice to get a confirmation anyway. (There's always the possibility that their captors are among them, living in plain sight, so to speak. Wouldn't be the first time Tim saw in, with the Army or with the Marshals.)

"Me neither," he says, his accent slow and drawling. He doesn't come any closer, however, and his fingers remain curled securely around the handle of his makeshift weapon. "Seen a lotta folks out here today."

[mund]

It's all right, Tim. Everyone needs a win now and then no matter how small it is, what with the entire clusterfuck that is this village where all of them seem to be steadily losing.

American, he notes, although he can't quite place the drawling accent. Somewhere down south, maybe. Graves' gaze flicks over to how the younger man is still gripping the weapon, apparently skilled enough to handle it well and shrewd enough to still stay distrustful of a stranger.

"Moreso than usual?" He responds absently, keeping to where he is in order not to present himself as a threat. At least, unless Graves has stumbled upon someone who's decided to go ahead and kill him anyway. Until then, it's in his best interests to play nice.

[comfortablyerect]

Tim has yet to come across anyone who has expressed an interest in maiming or killing him. He's beginning to get the distinct impression that most people around here are friendly and trustworthy, but that's certainly not a conclusion he's about to jump to. Keeping his guard up and staying vigilant is part of what's kept him alive for so long. Besides, it's hard to shake that sort of instinct after eight years with the military.

This man, he thinks, either knows a potential threat when he sees one, or is used to staying on guard himself. Probably, it's a mixture of both. Which leads Tim to believe that he might be military or law enforcement. But that's just a guess.

"Moreso than I've seen the last few times I've been out here." He's yet to travel very far, feeling too vulnerable with nothing but an iron fire poker to protect him from the worst of the wilderness.

[mund]

It's a pretty spot-on guess, all things considered. Graves, on the other hand, decides that the fellow before him is likely the sort who knows exactly what he's doing, and who, more importantly, seems to have internalized the adage that a trusting man is a dead man.

Not too many people do that, these days.

He raises a brow briefly; so this is his stomping grounds? Graves hasn't been here before this evening, but the iron fire poker in the young man's hand makes Graves curious. Does the other sense more of a threat here, or does he believe that potential trespassers could be out to get him? Either way, Graves knows quite a bit about that.

"Been in combat?"