villagelogs | 065-071 » assign to oblivion / part iii

065-071 » assign to oblivion / part iii

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 065-071
WHAT: The residents of Mathias reunite under unnerving conditions.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross "Outside"

DAY 065-071
ASSIGN TO OBLIVION
“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes
place in the interim, there are some things we can never
assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.”
— Haruki Murakami

Only two days have passed since the town was fractured, leaving residents cut off from those they'd come to know and even care for. A mere two days of wandering the new streets, uncovering more secrets that continue to make little sense of this strange place. Two days with sunrises, sunsets, and nights that seem like any other.

And yet.

When residents wake on this third day, they will find that much has changed. All around them, wherever they may be, there are signs that time has passed without them. Dust covers everything, indoors and out, even areas that were spotlessly clean seemingly hours ago. The residents themselves are covered as well, dust clinging to their hair, skin, and clothing—

Clothing that they may not have been wearing when they went to sleep. Each resident, regardless of the state they were in previously, is now clad in a pair of white pajamas, with long pants and button-up shirts. Those who thoroughly explored Baneberry Hall will easily recognize these articles as identical to those well-stocked in the decaying great house. On top of this, the clothes they wore from home have disappeared, along with anything else they may have brought with them when they arrived or items from home that have been found within the borders of Mathias.

There is no sign that anyone has entered their place of shelter, nor is there any sign of what may have been done with these items or how they came to be wearing these clothes. The dust all around them is undisturbed, almost as if they had been sleeping there for quite some time, though it seems impossible for such a thing to have occurred naturally.

THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the lawn of Town Hall, at the center of the little town square. They, too, are bereft of any items from home and clothed in the identical white pajamas. There are shops all around them, with houses just beyond, and at first glance, everything seems almost picturesque. Except for the silence that is at times so complete as to be maddening... Welcome to Mathias.

SUMMERTIME
— When summer arrives, so too does an outdoor stand in front of the General Store. Sporting a handpainted sign proclaiming Whateley Farm, the stand is overflowing with a variety of produce: berries, plums, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, green beans, leeks, onions, peppers, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, and garlic bulbs. These do not replace the produce offerings normally found inside the market, but they do behave strangely. The stand replenishes sporadically, sometimes every other day or every five days. There is no discernible pattern to when it replenishes, nor is there any sign of how it came to be there at all.

— With the now-complete reverse change of season, much of the autumn debris has cleared from around town. Only a few stray leaves and fallen branches remain, their crisp colors at odds with the warm summer days. The forest has also cleared of much of the fall detritus, making it easier to both follow the paths and potentially spy things that might be out of the ordinary.

CONDITIONS UPDATE
— THE WEATHER Summer has arrived in Mathias, bringing with it warm days that average 70°F and comfortably cool nights. The skies are clear throughout the week save for Day 68 when a light rain falls from a grey sky throughout the day.

— THE FOG has maintained its new boundaries.
— Residents may now wander the southern stretch of the forest surrounding Mathias Township — it is possible to leave the paths but potentially unwise to do so.
— The fog has also retreated from the western section of town entirely.
— Access to the northern section of the forest is still blocked beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline; this section of fog will urge residents to stay huddled within the town proper by inducing a physical reaction of panic and fear.

— DISAPPEARANCES AND DEATHS continue! Max Guevara and Liz Brundy have disappeared, and now that everyone is back together, residents will notice that Yennefer, Number Five, and Tony Stark have also vanished.

— ALCOHOL supplies have run dry, save for any dregs that have been squirreled away by individual residents. Moonshine can still be acquired by those in desperate need.

OOC NOTES
— UPDATES Don't forget to report updates as they come up! Changes to locations (like toppling a few bookshelves in the library), big plots you have coming up that will affect the game (parties, major property destruction, etc), or exciting discoveries that may tie into the game's mythology (even the things provided by the mod) are very helpful to have in one place so relevant page updates can be made. IC events are also helpful to know about in advance so they can be included in the log write-ups.

— MOD STATUS My non-RP life is busy and chaotic and I continue to ask for your forgiveness and understanding as game things continue to be slower, as I cannot promise timely mod responses beyond weekends and even that is not wholly guaranteed.

— ITEMS FROM HOME All items from home that characters would normally possess have vanished for this log and will return in the next. This includes clothing and possessions they had when they arrived in Mathias, items that were found in the rain, and items that were found in Baneberry Hall and removed from the property. Items from home that were left behind by other characters no longer in the game have also vanished. (All other items and clothing still remain, it is only items from characters' homes that have disappeared.)

— BANEBERRY ITEMS The items from home that were not removed from Baneberry Hall in the last log have vanished from the property. These items will not reappear in the next log. (Please be sure to comment in the appropriate spot on those logs about the state of your character's item for inventory purposes, ie whether they were removed from the property or left behind.)

— ACTIVITY CHECK Beginning with June's AC (posted at the start of July), all tags that consist of only dialogue will count as 0.5 points, not just those that occur in an inbox thread — this applies to both AC and AP totals. This adjustment is an extension of what has been in place since the start of the game: that all dialogue-only inbox tags counted for a half-point. Since such tags have occurred regularly in log threads as well, the half-point status is simply being extended to all tags regardless of location in order to be fairer in point distribution. (Examples will be provided in the AC post to assist with proper counting.)

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Raylan's eyebrows lifted. Well. No beating about that bush. Good. Once spoons and their glasses were dropped off at the table, Raylan sat himself and picked up one of his sandwich halves.

"Not as close as you," Raylan answered, a glint of knowing in his eyes - he knew - "But dying and livin' with a man doesn't make me a stranger. I already know about Negan's memory-" The cold showmanship of it all was impossible to set fully away. "So you wanna give me the details of why you kicked him out? Worried that he's gonna do that to us or pissed that he turned out to be capable of that level of violence?"

He took a bite of his sandwich, but his eyes didn't leave Doc's face. A bit of Marshaling required attention.

"What," Doc asks flatly without really asking. He'd never said anything about Negan, and everyone knows Negan is full of shit, so of course Doc's going to play dumb.

But that was inextricably part of it. Doc had felt disappointed in himself for... doing the things Raylan knew they had done. A little betrayed.

"You know, I'd-- I had felt sorry for him," Doc admits. Which was not why the things between them had happened. But that's neither here nor there. He hasn't started on his sandwich yet but no doubt he can make quick work of it - as soon as they've stopped talking about Negan.

"I should have known better. You said you saw the memory? Tell me, in all your years of service, how many men have you shot between the eyes that enjoy doing what Negan did half as much as he did? You ever thought about moving in with them?"

Raylan wasn't going to grace the 'what' with an answer, but he did flash a faint scoff of his features - an impressive trick in of itself. 'Get his things out of my room?' Come on now.

"Generally speakin', I don't live with people, so we're already off the beaten path there but none of the guys I've seen, say, shove a stick a dynamite down the throat of a guy and light the fuse, were in the Zombie Apocalypses. Now, look," he said, lifting a hand to stop whatever arguments might come with the half defense.

"It bothers the hell outta me that he could do that. Even if it was a show, and it wasn't, it takes a very harsh suspension of humanity. One that he hasn't been forced to suspended here. Mathis and us have given him no reason. Did he tell you why? For whatever grain it might throw onto the scales of situation, that's just as important. It's half of why the men I put down aren't held against me."

'They were bad guys' That wasn't good enough. 'They drew on you first' Half the time he pushed them to it. To say nothing of what he would do in his future.

Edited (Spacing edits) 2021-07-19 22:45 (UTC)

Doc has to bite his lip when Raylan stops him. Zombie apocalypses, as with any other trying circumstances, brings out the worst in people; just makes people do the things they are already capable of. They also bring out the best in people. Mathias is evidence that there's no need to be swinging barbwire bats around.

"It don't matter why! If you done me wrong I'll shoot you. I don't bring Winona and Willa and all of goddamned Harlan to make 'em watch the spectacle. Could you live with yourself when he snaps one day and goes to town on Malcolm like that? You weren't here to shovel your entrails and brain matter off the ground to bury what shreds of your rotting flesh were left." Not that what Raylan went through in the 'Other Mathias' wasn't traumatic. But that's neither here nor there.

"Goddammit, Raylan." You're making his blood pressure spike, tugging on all these tightly shut compartment doors threatening to make him spill.

Something in Raylan's eyes hardened a little, not unkindly, against Doc's insistence. The Gunslinger, however bitterly realistic he could be, failed to understand the kind of man he was sitting across from. Raylan knew what it was to hold a life in your hand, consider it, and snuff it out without a flinch of humanity. He knew what it was to watch someone else string a life out for the fun of it.

It was justified.

"Henry, it matters why. Context matters and half the time, the context makes it worse and cements the position," he replied, tapping his finger on the table in emphasis of 'cement'. "He's not going to go feral on Malcolm, Malcolm is under the umbrellas of his people, and it's the same danger anyone else here poses. He already knows that if he even glances that way and I catch wind of it, he will suffer 15 different kinds of hell."

Hell he was sure Doc would help with, if it came down to it.

"If someone walked into your town and killed all the people that you were protecting, would just shootin' 'em be enough? You think you'd have any place in that head of yours for thinkin' about lessons, or do you just kill 'em all and keep walkin'?"

Either way, it didn't make them much better than Negan.

"This is the one thing I can do to keep people safe. The one thing Mathias deigns fit to cede to my control. I intend to take it. I am tired of cleaning up afterwards. Of shoveling and burying and trying to make the nightmares go away. What use is there to kill him after the deed is done? Maybe you're a lawman - maybe he's gotta do the crime before you can do jackshit about it. I ain't. And my world don't work that way." He would love to hear Raylan try to convince him that a man like that deserves a second chance. Just because he said 'sorry' a half a dozen times to cowboys who don't even need to hear the apology and has no doubt justified the brutality to himself, sleeps like a baby for all his sorries.

"I teach you a lesson, you teach me a lesson - when does it end? We wouldn't'a done what he'd done if we were in his shoes and you know it." Wyatt made this mistake, incurring a wrath that is still going strong long after his death. Doc doesn't intend to repeat it.

"If you honestly think I pose the same danger to the boys, I would gladly leave the house too. Wouldn't even make a scene of it or tell you how sorry I am for shooting some assholes."

"Putting a man out onto the streets in a place like this is the only thing you can do?" Raylan echoed, eyebrows lifting in his incredulousness as one finger gestured at nothing in particular on the table. He was sure that brain of Henry's was more creative than that. He let Doc continue without any other interruption, face simmering back down to a nonplussed but attentive expression.

"Men like us? We all pose 'a danger'," he started, head pulling back a fraction with a 'what do you mean' kind of expression. "The best point of law is catchin' 'em in the act, not lettin' them get away with it - we do save people, thank you very much and men like him, capable of that, need a weather eye but we cannot crucify him for shit he did back home. That'd be like lockin' everything up because Neal used to be a thief or killin' the Vampire that lives in town because he exists. We can't work like that here. We're not livin' in their situations. They did not ask to be here either. But they are. We can't leave him to fendin' for himself, Henry. Not in Mathis. Not here."

Anywhere else? Sure. Raylan was fine with how Doc felt about it. Changing that point of view wasn't really the point.

"We have to stick together."

Had Doc considered that Negan would just shack up with someone else and possibly or possibly not pose a danger to them? That he was simply just shifting the same problem outside of 1306, possibly out of sight and a little out of mind? No, he clearly hadn't, or he might have said and done things differently. It had sort of worked out in his head that Negan would just find somewhere to stay on his own. And honestly, would it bother him much to hear that Negan got his face eaten by the fog or torn to pieces or turned into a zombie? No, he would have just shrugged and slept like a baby. Whatever that says about Doc.

He sits in relative silence, pouring himself out some moonshine. If he snaps back at Raylan now he'd say something he can't take back. He's burned too many bridges that way that he knows better by now.

"This i'n't a matter of what he did back home. This is who he is. We wouldn't be 'a danger' if we weren't judging ourselves on the kind of men we are, whether we're back home or here or on some sunny beach in Florida. I ain't buying that two-faced sheep in wolf's clothing lie he's selling. Nor am I interested in catching anyone in the middle of violent acts. You're pushing for a system where Arlo gets caught in the middle of breaking your bones. I'm kicking him out before he can lay a hand on anybody."

Doc pours himself out and downs more moonshine before he gets even more worked up. He doesn't bother standing or making any movement towards the porch when he starts rubbing himself down for a much-needed cigarette.

"I don't even know why we're discussing that repulsive man." Even when he's not in the room, he's all up in Doc's face pushing his buttons. God damn. But as Doc rests his elbow on the tabletop, cigarette burning away between his curled fingers, it's clear that he's relenting. Raylan did raise a few good points. Sow a few seeds of doubt. Doc just-- isn't the better man that Raylan either wants or expects him to be.

"...but we are better equipped. To deal with that kind of situation." Another deep puff of his cigarette, gaze sweeping across the table, and he's inching closer to that halfway compromise. If it was really necessary, Doc could kill him with his bare hands and live with himself quite easily. If it was really necessary, Doc was capable of all manner of unspeakable things and it wouldn't bother him none. He can't say the same for anyone else.

Knowing the value of a little silence to let tempers simmer back under control and collect your words, he opted to dig into his sandwich as Henry thought it over, unbothered to be eating during this kind of conversation. Life went on and so did his stomach.

"So he can go and lay hands on others. Sounds a lot like offsettin' responsibility." Raylan had noticed and figured either Henry didn't care enough or hadn't realized. He wasn't attacking or admonishing the man for it, but it did bear mentioning. Even if Henry had just tried to bring Arlo into it. Nice try. He didn't expect anyone to be any kind of man. They were who they were who they were and most of them were arguably shitty people. Himself included.

Only friends got to take care of friends, and if that meant he and Doc had to do something ugly in response, they would handle it without too much sentimentality.

"We're talkin' about him because of the boys. Neal and Malcolm want him home. They know what he did and they don't care. Which, we can both have our opinions on that, but that's still the case. They asked as part of the conversation that let me back into the house." And Henry could guess at how good Raylan was at telling them no to something he could absolutely do.

"Negan loses his shit on us or anyone the way he did that man, we'll hogtie him and throw him in the tunnels. You know how badly that sucks - if you need a contingency plan." Because he'd been right. There was no point in killing anyone who would resurrect again anyway.

Edited 2021-07-23 15:41 (UTC)

If Raylan never mentions Wyatt Earp again, Doc would cease to mention Arlo Givens also. Until then, the men and the women and the daughters - they're all fair game. At least he has the decency not to mention that Raylan did leave Arlo alive for many more years to come, didn't he?

"You gon' buy them a pony from the next timebendin'-murdertown-over-yonder when they ask for that too?" Doc asks with an irritated little tsk. The whole reason they're sitting here right now, fan-splattered shit going everywhere is tied up in Raylan's reluctance or inability to say no.

There is a line between indifference and cruelty. Doc doesn't make a conscious effort of staying on one side of that line. But he does honour it. He'd rather kill the man, let him wash up on the beach tomorrow than subject him to the tunnels. Those dark holes in the ground, they had broken him. Left him sobbing lying in the dirt pleading and begging for someone, anyone to please come back for him, watching his own sanity slip away between his fingers. He would not put anyone through that particular torment. Not even Negan.

"I don't like it." That much should already be obvious. "Anybody who wouldn't want to get their hands dirty for nothing would like it." And that is how Doc sees it still. Unwanted, uninvited trouble that will cause an inevitable mess he will have to clean up afterwards.

"But it's a free country. You do as you please." Whether it's the cigarette or the moonshine or something else entirely, Doc has decided he's not going to let Negan have the last laugh and ruin his evening.

That's hardly fair - Wyatt was Docs friend and (assumed) lover. Arlo was an abusive asshole Father. Raylan had no choices in that, Henry had all of them.

Raylan gave him another oh please scoffing look at that sharp assertion and picked up his glass for a swallow. The boys were not eight years old; they were full grown men and that kind of suggestion undercut them more than Raylan. Not a great look, no matter how Henry felt about it. But he wasn't saying no or pushing his case and Raylan didn't think he'd leave without some kind of dust up. So he'd take it, thank you very much. A win given, no matter why, was still a win and Raylan rarely felt badly about that.

"Then I will. He'll come back, you won't murder him with your butter knife right off the back, the boys can work on the edges and I'll turn him towards anyone we happen to want to have a bad day. You might hate him for what he's capable of usin' but here, we can't afford to let those kinds of assets be turned against us. If you want a more pragmatic view."

But mess or not, Doc wasn't going to have to clean it alone. Raylan wasn't going anywhere.

Negan is a full grown man too. There is no turning him one way or another. Not even if he's trying his damnedest to be the village bicycle.

"I don't hate him," Doc clarifies. "He is lewd. And uncouth. And he intentionally pushes my buttons." Doc isn't claiming to be 'above it all' or 'better than that' but it should go without saying that he finds it unnecessary, and irritating. Like a summer fly in the middle of a humid night buzzing incessantly past your ear that you simply can't get rid of.

"I'm getting another bottle out," he grumbles as he leans forward and pushes himself up to his feet. He's going to need it if they're going to be talking about Negan for much longer.

"That's why I said 'might'," Raylan argued conversationally as he crumpled up the paper for his sandwiches and basketballed them into the trash. Raylan couldn't help the scoff of a half chuckle at Doc's arguments. "That's most of the world, Henry. You're gonna find more people like him than not. Unmannered and illspoken doesn't mean much beyond people bein' 'normal' nowadays."

As Henry came back with the second bottle, Raylan pushed his glass out for a refill.

"But you've got a right to your opinion and I'm not here to try and change your mind." Just trying to make sure Negan can get back in the front door. "'Sides, blink too long and we'll all be gone anyway and it won't matter."

"And I'll not have you go down that path if I can help it," Doc insists. And he can most definitely help it. He is not above slapping that pointing hand away to make a point either if it's necessary. To his consternation, the 21st century turned out like nothing he'd imagined it would. Just because he is not unwilling to adapt to the new world doesn't mean he has to like it or be less of a gentleman just so he can fit in with the other cave animals. Raylan don't have to stoop so low neither.

Before he sits, he pours a tall glass out for Raylan when he returns and contemplates fleetingly to drink from the bottle before doing the civilised thing and pouring himself a glass.

Fortunately, Negan never got in the back door so there's no need to be extending invitations that-a-way.

"Don't say that," Doc chides as he swallows and lowers his glass, placing it silently back onto the table. "It has mattered. You mattered."

"I still maintain that I am perfectly mannered." You leave his perfectly polite pointing finger out of this. "Plenty'a people to confirm it," he continued, as though it would change Doc's mind. They'd argue playfully until forever over this not!point.

If Doc didn't like the way Raylan was, he wouldn't be here. He thought he doth protest too much.

"We are what we remember. If we don't remember, then the argument could be made that none of this really happened. The scars, the bruises, the echoes of bites, your belts," he said, glancing over with a pull of his lips as he considered the inside of his glass, lips falling again.

"If we get to keep the memories of this place.. Then it'll matter. I have to work on the assumption we will. I can't imagine not." Or rather he could and he hated the way it felt to even think about it. "I matter now, but when this ends, it's all up in the air, that's all I mean."

"I can see with my own two eyes." If Raylan had been enrolled in a formal curriculum for gentlemanliness, he's still got a long way to go before graduating.

While he can have his own nihilistic moments, Doc does find the notion of it all not mattering, not having happened to be somewhat troubling.

"I am the last keeper of a precious handful of memories that have never been and never will be documented, anywhere." Not even in the darkest corners of the prolific internet. "When I die there will be no one else. Still, they happened. Mathias happened to us. We happened." Pushing aside the question of what exactly 'we' entails.

"If you had loved someone deeply at one point in time but don't remember their face anymore, it don't mean they never existed. Or that it was never real. This all means something. Why else would you even bother doing anything?"

"I'll take that as a compliment, thank you." He knew it wasn't, not on the topic they were talking about but confidence could carry a man pretty far. More bravado that didn't matter, not in the equation of the cowboys presence.

Raylan watched Henry's expression at the impassioned speech with a serious expression. "You're mixin' perspectives. It ain't nothin' more than the precepts of faith. In the now, it matters, without question. All we got are the days we find with each other. But the bigger picture, the one that involves timelines and... I dunno, the Space Time Continuum. Where part of us is cut out and tossed into the void. These kinda things are small potatoes. Moot if we don't have them, don't bear their scars." It was like the stupid people of the world, who were too stupid to know they were. It was all about context and awareness that they weren't guaranteed.

"You remember so much, yes. A valuable time long gone. And when you finally perish from livin', those stories are gonna be bare threads, half assumed and assumed incorrectly by those in the future learnin' about it. History writes what's remembered and what's written is done so by the winners. Not always the most gracious of winners. We've lost more than the whole knowledge we've currently got at least once and their work.. It doesn't matter to the future. We had to rebuild anyway.

Why do anything? Because I desperately hope that we get to keep it. Because if we do, I don't have to go back to bein' the way I was." Nevermind the clinical breakdown of what Raylan is or how he's changed.

There was a philosopher there, under that hat, somewhere.

"We matter, Henry." And he wasn't just talking about them, as individuals. The undefined Them matted and Raylan wouldn't have it any other way. They wouldn't be themselves if they did. "I'm not sayin' we don't."

Edited 2021-08-04 22:44 (UTC)

"Look, I 'on't know anything about that space time stuff." And Raylan can easily glean from the wrinkling of Doc's nose and the frown that he frankly don't give a shit. He can understand not wanting to be the way he used to be - nobody likes an unpleasant, bitter bastard, for his part - but he's got enough problems in his small little world that he doesn't need to concern himself with this fuzzy, nebulous big picture he can't possibly hope to comprehend. And frankly, Raylan ought to keep his own house in order before starting to worry about all that other stuff too. Not that Doc is going to say that aloud.

"I'm just some irrelevant old man here to enjoy your company--" Doc raises a hand before Raylan tries to overthink that one. "--whether that's over dinner or doin' anything other than sleeping or however I can get it. Have a few drinks. And make sure we all get out alive. Maybe even Negan." He won't... intentionally kill Negan or sabotage anything. But he might make an unhappy water buffalo noise if he's going to be asked to help him out.

"I enjoy complications as much as any other man but there ain't no need to be making a big mess of this now all up in your head." And, speaking of drinks, don't mind if he lifts his glass and takes another big gulp down.

Easily glean he did, and while it wasn't like Raylan knew any more about it than Doc did, speculation kept his mind busy in a way that he needed. This was the only time looking that large mattered, even theoretically. Frankly, Raylan would be happier when it wasn't something he had to try and answer. The problems of other men were much simpler.

Specifically other men and not whatever state his houses are or aren't in.

"You might he a lotta things, but irrelevant is not onn'a them," Raylan chuckled behind a drink of his own. But now that Henry's included Negan in the saving, Raylan is mollified on the point and would let it go, satisfied without needing to chase 'irrelevant' back down the pipe. He got the point.

"You're the one that started it," he accused playfully, unsure if that was actually the case or not.

"But we got plenty of moonshine and plenty to talk about that ain't us or the mechanics of this place. Like my needin' to go back out and securing some of those gravewalls. Probably should have dug it all a little shallower, in retrospect."

"You know, most people find other ways of passing the time. Gardening or... Learning to make. Paella." Why that was the first thing off the top of his head, he doesn't know. It's out there now anyway.

"I'd save you your spot right there when this all goes to shits," he jokes with a little smug chuckle. Dug your own grave there, Raylan, with those complicated, pesky 'relationships' things. Nasty business, that.

"I know we're expecting more bodies, but that could just turn to sludge or fill with water or who knows what." Doc was desensitised to death long before coming to Mathias and he doesn't mind discussing it - somehow it's even easier to talk about rather than those knots Raylan keeps twisting himself up in.

He rolled a shoulder, making a joke of the macabre subject with a pull of his smile. "I like breakin' a mold or three, what can I say. One day you'll have to tell me what Paella is." That sounded a little too cultured for such a man as him.

"I've already dodged that bullet," he conceded, not unaware of his own situation. "If one of 'em were gonna kill me, they woulda already done it.." He sounded ambivalent. Raylan was anything but that. Rather, he'd prefer to not talk about his relationship issues anymore tonight, unless it was talking about his relationship with Henry somehow. He doubted that was really on the books.

"That was brought up to me the day that I was diggin' them but I figured I could keep them up. And if I don't, shit," he scoffed with a shake of his head and a lift of his glass. "I'll dig three more. Might as well make it my new career here. I can backfill the other ones because we put the dirt just on the tree line. Dirt's too valuable to try and get rid of. Maybe you'll help me with those and we can work off some of our drinkin'."

"It's. Everything thrown in a pan and hoping for the best." Which is probably not the most flattering description of paella, he's had some fantastic ones over the years, but a lot of things Doc does in the kitchen is more or less throwing everything in a pan and hoping for the best. Occasionally if he's not feeling all that lucky, he'll use the microwave. Neal had put his culinary expeditions to shame.

"You ought to come on supply runs with me," Doc suggests. He has nothing against gravedigging - he's dug a few with Raylan, he doesn't think it's overly morbid or necessarily even a waste of time, and it's not the worst way to pass the day - but between preparing for the dead and preparing for the living, the latter might feel like a more rewarding endeavour for Raylan.

Besides, Doc doesn't mind the company. People will start mistaking them for day time friends and night time lovers if they're only together on the porch and occasionally in bed, as much as neither of them so much as breathes about what happens in bed.

He empties his glass of moonshine and breathes out a long sigh, rubbing the back of his neck and slumping a little in his chair.

"I will help you with your graves. And you can come be my pack mule." Sounds like a fair deal, doesn't it?

Raylan's eyebrows bobbed. "Sounds pretty good. Some of the best meals I've ever had were just stuff thrown into a pan. I can't knock it." Doc was talking to one of the most low rent men in Mathis - Neal's cooking skills were almost wasted on the man that barely tasted anything as he shoveled food into his maw.

Maybe Doc was right about Raylan never getting any better.

The Marshal looked over with an intrigued look at the offer, eyebrows staying half lifted in his not so subtle surprise. "I thought you used those to get away from us for a little while. Not that I'm sayin' no. Especially if bein' a pack mule gets me some help in the graveyard."

Help he was secure, foolishly, in the hope that Doc wouldn't vanish like others had. Raylan knew that was setting himself up for a shattering disappointment if Doc ever did vanish like that. He was willing to work his half of a deal. Especially if it earned him more time next to the gunslinger. Yes, he was greedy, no matter what other's might see or say about it. He was slowly coming to a point where it didn't matter; a healthier perspective than had previous been taken.

"Might keep us both busier on the edges, fill in some of that wanderin' time. I'm still minding the fog in the treeline. It keeps movin' on us. The ebb and flow. Too much like the tide and the beach, if you ask me. I'd rather have something to keep my hands and brain busy when I'm not lookin' at it. Keep me from goin' fully overboard."

Honestly, he might be there already. His attention to the trees bordered on unhealthy, but it was the only thing left that wasn't consistently covered by someone else.

"I promise I won't saddle you with small talk unless you want it."

"Just things that need to get done." Honestly, Doc doesn't mind the alone time at all, but he doesn't necessarily duck out for those long hours just because he wants to be left alone. He's had quite enough of alone to last a few lifetimes.

"If anyone can glare that fog into submission I suppose it'd be you." They haven't had to fend off another bout of vicious fog. Strangely enough, the days where they were only worried about the fog seemed like a blissful window of their time in Mathias. Things had seemed so much less complicated than they are today. Or at least, they (naively, perhaps) only had fewer things to worry about back then.

That Doc is worried about Raylan having gone overboard already is left unsaid. Doc worries about a lot of things, even though he might brush them off or play them down. It's evident enough to see in his eyes and in his posture. They don't need to comment about it unless Raylan is feeling particularly defensive. Nobody would blame anyone for going overboard by now. Least of all John Henry. They shoulder more than anyone humanly should.

"I wouldn't mind the other distractions you come with. Small talk or... whatever else catches your fancy." They can save small talk for the porch, although one might argue that porch talks are far more important than just idle banter. Or pillow talk, if cowboys do anything other than sleep and snore on them. Empty another bottle of 'shine and Doc might start mentioning something downright scandalous.

"I'm not drinking you dry, am I?" He can always go fetch another ~~crate~~ bottle, but then he'd have to get up and leave the house.

Just things that need to get done. Simple things always grounded him, be that tidying up his motel room or cleaning his gun and he'd fallen out of rhythm. It would be good to fall back into a habit that wasn't solely attempting to poison his liver, give him something to do everyday that wasn't twist himself into oblivion over how 1306 would be when he came back.

"I'm gonna give it my best shot. With all my impressive glowerin' skills," he said, smirking smugly over the edge of his glass. He knew it wasn't going to do anything, practically speaking, but even joking about it really did make him feel better. If Doc was worried now, he had a landslide of worry coming to him - Raylan still had all his faculties, currently. Or most of them, as the argument might be.

Raylan slid his eyes over, slits of amusement over the curl of his smile. It was a good expression for both the statement and the question.

"I come with plenty of distractions and at least two more bottles of 'shine under the cabinet there. We could always.. relocate it to some place more comfortable."

065-071 » assign to oblivion / part iii

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